Character Choreography
CHARACTER CHOREOGRAPHY
Learning Description
Working through the choreographic process, students will create a short choreographic work demonstrating the traits of a character and dance elements.
Learning Targets
"I Can" Statements
“I Can…”
- I can demonstrate traits of characters in a story through choreography.
- I can use the elements of dance to express ideas about character traits.
- I can create a complete dance with a beginning, middle and end.
Essential Questions
- How can the elements of dance be used to demonstrate the understanding of a character in a story?
- How is the choreographic process similar to the writing process?
Georgia Standards
Curriculum Standards
Kindergarten:
ELAGSEKRL3 With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story
ELAGSEKRL9 With prompting and support, compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in familiar stories.
ELAGSEKW2 Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic.
ELAGSEKW3 Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, tell about the events in the order in which they occurred, and provide a reaction to what happened.
ELAGSEKW5 With guidance and support from adults, respond to questions and suggestions from peers and add details to strengthen writing as needed.
ELAGSEKW6 With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of tools to produce and publish writing, including digital tools in collaboration with peers.
Grade 1:
ELAGSE1RL3 Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.
ELAGSE1RL7 Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.
ELAGSE1RL9 Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories.
ELAGSE1W2 Write informative/ explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure.
ELAGSE1W3 Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure
ELAGSE1W5 With guidance and support from adults, focus on a topic, respond to questions and suggestions from peers, and add details to strengthen writing as needed. a. May include oral or written prewriting (graphic organizers).
ELAGSE1W6 With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of tools to produce and publish writing, including digital tools and collaboration with peers.
Arts Standards
Kindergarten:
ESDK.CR.1 Demonstrate an understanding of the choreographic process.
ESDK.CR.2 Demonstrate an understanding of dance as a form of communication
ESDK.PR.1 Identify and demonstrate movement elements, skills, and terminology in dance.
ESDK.PR.3 Recognize the relationship between human anatomy and movement.
ESDK.PR.4 Understand and apply music concepts to dance.
ESDK.RE.1 Demonstrate critical and creative thinking in dance
ESDK.CN.3 Identify connections between dance and other areas of knowledge
Grade 1:
ESD1.CR.1 Demonstrate an understanding of the choreographic process.
ESD1.CR.2 Demonstrate an understanding of dance as a form of communication
ESD1.PR.1 Identify and demonstrate movement elements, skills, and terminology in dance.
ESD1.PR.4 Understand and apply music concepts to dance.
ESD2.CN.3 Identify connections between dance and other areas of knowledge.
South Carolina Standards
Curriculum Standards
Kindergarten:
K.RL.MC.8.1 With guidance and support, read or listen closely to: describe characters and their actions;
K.W.MCC.3.1 Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, to tell about the events in the order in which they occurred, and to provide a reaction to what happened.
K.C.MC.1.4 Participate in conversations with varied partners about focused grade level topics and texts in small and large groups.
Grade 1:
1.RL.MC.8.1 Read or listen closely to: a. describe characters’ actions and feelings;
1.W.MCC.3.2 Plan, revise, and edit building on personal ideas and the ideas of others to strengthen writing.
1.C.MC.3.1 Explore and compare how ideas and topics are depicted in a variety of media and formats.
Arts Standards
Anchor Standard 1: I can use movement exploration to discover and create artistic ideas and works.
Anchor Standard 2: I can choreograph a dance.
Anchor Standard 3: I can perform movements using the dance elements.
Anchor Standard 5: I can describe, analyze, and evaluate a dance.
Anchor Standard 7: I can relate dance to other arts disciplines, content areas, and careers.
Key Vocabulary
Content Vocabulary
Beginning - The starting point of a story, including the introduction of who, where, what, why, and when.
Middle - The phase in which a story line develops, introducing conflict.
End - The ultimate resolution or conclusion to conflict signaling that a story is stopping.
Transition - A word or phrase that connects two ideas.
Writing process - A cycle of activities, including brainstorming, drafting, revising, editing, and presentation, that are used to turn ideas into a literary work.
Emotion - A mental state that occurs depending on circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.
Arts Vocabulary
Level - The height of a movement in relationship to the floor (i.e., high, middle, low).
Locomotor - Movement that travels from one location to another in a pathway through space.
Non Locomotor - Movement that occurs without the body traveling from one point to another point.
Tempo - The speed of the beats of the movements that dancers perform.
Energy Qualities - A group of actors frozen to create a picture.
- Swinging - Oscillatory (not swing dance, a genre of dance)
- Sustained - Smooth, continuous, even, without pause or stopping and possibly with a long duration
- Percussive - Short, sharp, sudden, forceful
- Vibratory - Repeating and often small and short
- Suspended - Holding, as in pausing, at a certain point of a movement
Beginning/Middle/End - The phases of a choreography in which movement is used to communicate a starting point (beginning), the development of ideas, including complexity and conflict as necessary (middle), and a tying up or completion of ideas (end).
Choreographic Process - The steps taken to create movement sequences for dancers, which include testing, revising, and editing work.
Materials
- A variety of music selections
- Music source and speakers
Instructional Design
Opening/Activating Strategy
Letter Statues
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- In groups, have students select and practice one movement of their choice.
- Guide students through exploring that movement with different elements of dance.
- Practice the movement at different levels.
- Practice the movement with different tempos.
- Practice the movement in a locomotor and non-locomotor way.
- Practice the movement using different energy qualities.
- swinging
- sustained
- percussive
- vibratory
- suspended
Work Session
PART 1 - Explore Movement
- Have students name a literary character to portray.
- Instruct students to create a movement to represent something important about that character, which could be an action, emotion, or personality trait of the character.
- Ask students to demonstrate their movement to the class.
- Ask classmates to identify the artistic intent conveyed by the group; the presenting group identifies the correct peer answer or explains their artistic intent.
PART 2 - Add new movements to set an order
- Have students create two more movements to communicate two more important things about their character. There will be three total movements, including the initial movement (part 1) and these two movements. These three movements can be referred to as the beginning, middle and end of the choreography.
- Ask students to try their movements in different orders and then decide on the sequence that they feel best tells the audience about their character.
PART 3 - Choreograph and revise
- Lead students through the choreographic process to revise and edit their choreography. Just as with the writing process, the intent of leading students through the process is to add “details” to make the choreography more exciting or interesting.
- Ask students to add levels to their choreography. Remind them to think of their character and where and why they would use different levels.
- Ask students to add tempos to their choreography. Would their character move fast or slow? When or why might that character's tempos vary?
- Ask students to add energy qualities to their choreography. For example, if the character is excited a vibratory energy quality might be used. If the character is angry a percussive energy quality might be used.
- Give students time to practice the revised version of their choreography.
PART 4 - Choreograph and revise
- Once students have revised and edited their choreography, ask them to present their character choreography to the class. Option to choose music for each dance.
Closing Reflection
Ask students to reflect on how their dance evolved through the choreographic process. How did adding level, tempo, and energy qualities make the choreography more interesting?
Discuss the similarities of the choreographic process to the writing process.
Assessments
Formative
Visually observe the students' choreography evolving as they work through the choreographic process.
- Teacher observes students adding the elements of dance to their choreography as queued: levels, tempo, energy qualities.
- Teacher observes students using vocabulary of the elements of dance as they work.
Summative
CHARACTER CHOREOGRAPHY CHECKLIST
- The choreography contains a clear beginning, middle, end.
- The choreography contains levels.
- The choreography contains varying tempos.
- The choreography effectively uses dance to communicate ideas about the chosen character.
Differentiation
Acceleration:
- Have students work in partners to evolve work for a single person into a duet showing how two characters would relate to one another.
- Compare and contrast two-character choreography works.
Remediation:
Work through the process as a large group working on one character.
Additional Resources
While part of the standards discussion but not standards themselves, the statements below reflect the connection between the choreographic process and the writing process and are interesting to consider while implementing this lesson.
Fundamentals of Writing
Employ a recursive writing process that includes planning, drafting, revising, editing, rewriting, publishing, and reflecting.
Interact and collaborate with peers and adults to develop and strengthen writing.
Produce writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, discipline, and audience.
Fundamentals of Communication
Employ a reciprocal communication process that includes planning, drafting, revising, editing, reviewing, presenting, and reflecting.
Communicate using style, language, and nonverbal cues appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
Use active and attentive communication skills, building on other’s ideas to explore, learn, enjoy, argue, and exchange information.
Monitor delivery and reception throughout the communication process and adjust approach and strategies as needed.
*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.
Ideas contributed by: Melissa Dittmar-Joy
Revised and copyright: August 2022 @ ArtsNOW
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