Art Form: Dance

Supplies Needed

-Thank You, Omu book
-Index cards or small slips of
paper and a pencil

Vocabulary

Movement - how you use your body to do a dance or action

Sequence - the order of events in a story or dance

Movement Sequence - a series of movements
performed in a specific order

Accumulation - a choreographic structure where
movements are added one at a time and repeated in sequence (Ex: A, A+B, A+B+C…)

Gesture - an expressive movement of the body or limbs

Characters - a person in a story or play, or an
animal or object that has human qualities

Instructions

1. Read Thank You, Omu. As you read, notice how more and more people come to Omu’s door. Today, you’ll be creating a movement sequence that uses accumulation. Bonus: What else is building up or accumulating in this story
besides people? What does the accumulation help to show us?

2. Read the book a second time. While reading, create a movement to represent each character in the order that they appear at Omu’s door.

3. Start with one gesture or movement for the first person. Then, each time a new character appears, add a new movement to your sequence using accumulation. (Ex. When the first character appears, perform one movement. When the second appears, perform the first movement and a new second movement.)

4. Repeat your sequence each time, adding one new movement to the end—just like the story builds.

5. Once you’ve reached the end of Thank you, Omu, perform your movement sequence with accumulation: A, AB, ABC, ABCD, and so on.

Extensions

Choose one movement to represent Omu’s kindness. Try repeating at the beginning and end of your accumulation sequence.

How does it feel to layer that one gesture into your movement sequence? How does it help to better tell the story of Thank you, Omu?