Disclaimer: The purpose of my toolbox is to have on hand different tasks to evoke movement in the dancer. This will most likely be used for younger dancers approx. ages 10-16. So for ease of later use and understanding, this will be worded as simply as possible.Â
Experiment with shape and line. Step into an image and try to recreate it. Such as the geometric design of a room, tracing the lines and shapes with a body part.
Use juxtaposition or paradoxes to evoke feelings and movements. Try to solve these impossibilities through the movement. Things such as moving so fast that you go nowhere, being everywhere at once, moving so far in a vertical direction that it becomes horizontal. (Streb, Elizabeth. How to become an Extreme Action Hero.)
See where the impetus comes from. Is it the breath, is it the arm, the core, or the pinky finger. All these things create different feelings and âtexturesâ of movement.
Use the idea of trying to get paint to cover the whole body. Starting on the floor and working your way up to standing.
Give them a word such as hit, brush, collapse ect. and they have to embody it. Or perhaps even a colour and they have to embody the emotion that is attached to it. Such as red = passion, anger, love
Get children to brainstorm ideas about how they move in everyday life. How do you put your clothes on? How do you prepare breakfast? After they have chosen their movements, string them together. Then add layers of timing, patterning or choreographic choice.
As I do not have access to a program like poser, we could watch videos of different dances and pause at random times. Then take the couple of seconds after the pause to pick a movement from the dance. String these together randomly using a dice.
Ask children to come up with movements from a couple of different genres. Just simple movements that could easily be strung together. Have them do the movements as they were intended to be done (e.g. two Hip Hop moves, two ballet moves, and two contemporary moves). Then have them change each movement to fit each genre.
After creating the above movements, play around with the different forms (e.g. ABA, Rondo), or maybe no form at all. Perhaps make it chance. Once this is done, reflect on the difference that form makes. Describe any different feelings, emotions, aesthetics that you noticed with each different form. How does it add to or take away from the complexity of the dance and movements.
Have the children choreograph to sound. Not necessarily music, just sounds or a string of sounds. For example the sounds could be a long drawn out sound like hands scraping the floor, or quick like a stamp. The make movements based on these sounds. Put them altogether, and try with music.
Create to feeling invoked by nature. Imagine the motion of nature, its use of locomotion and transportation. How does a cloud get from one side of the sky to another? How does the grass flow in the breeze? Capture these movements
Creating through snapshots. Select an image that appeals to you. Close your eyes and let the image remind you of something. Write single words, fragments of sentences, or pictures as these related images come to mind. Do not reflect on them, just keep going. After a while, look back at the motions you have captured. (Franklin 1996, 208)Â
Group Work. Each person brings/shows an image. Create a small piece personally, only a few counts. Â Come together and stand or sit in a circle. The image is then handed to the left. Separate again and create a small piece. Now each person should have 2 separate combinations. Â Work together as a group, and try to fit all the pieces together like a puzzle.
Mental strategies to work well with a partner. As you dance, feel the motion of your partner. Feed off their energy, and give energy in return. Imagine that your motions come from the dame source, that they are motivated by the same intention (Franklin 1996, 192).
Pretend that you are magnets. You can choose to be connected together, or to bounce away from each other. However, you must mirror the movements of the other partner. If you are magnets drawn together, be close and work in harmony. If you are opposite magnets, attempt to get close but never do.
These tools are some that I used to create my dance.
Improvisation through imagery and words.
Concept and floor mapping. Have the children draw a shape on paper. They must then walk through that shape noticing if and when they felt the need to add a pause or move faster. Or even had to change their route because of âtrafficâ issues. Go back to the paper and add markings to any place where something out of the ordinary happened.
Embodiment of an image. I used birds, how would they respond to certain stimuli? What shapes do they make? Could be used for different images or geographical structures. For example, a building, what is its shape? What little quirks can be found in it? What emotion or feeling does it remind you of?
This is built on the toolbox from week 5.
Listen to the music. Hear the beats. Hear the underlying notes, the small things that make the music interesting. Make small movements based on the underling notes.
Build on the above by keeping those small movements and inflecting them with bigger movements on the beat. This creates an interesting dynamic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31EAVxj1aLs&t=244s  (Musicality - Understanding Music)
Without music, listen to what is around you. There might be nothing. Embody that nothingness. There might be an air-conditioning buzzing. How can you move to show that sound? There might be another person in the room, move to their voice.