Dance ClubsDance in SchoolsSchoolsDance Confidence

This term I’ve been working with Year 5/6 at Byron Primary School dance club. Street Dance was our dance style and the dancers have learnt lots of new moves such as the coffee grinder and Bart Simpson as well as little motifs like the cupid shuffle and the Tik Tok dance to Green Green Grass. They worked so hard and learnt so much that they’d soon built their dance confidence enough to invite their friends and family in for a performance which we held at the end of term. The video of that is below.

In the first few weeks, we worked on Power Poses to enhance their dance confidence.  I showed them some example power poses of street dancers, business people, powerful female performers and sportsman then we all enjoyed coming up with our own for various games. A favourite was walking catwalk style from corner to corner and posing along the way.

Alongside this the dancers learnt some new movements and we played games like Four Corners, Snakes and Ladders and Stage Left to help remember them all. Some of the movements required customised arms so the dancers were creative each time they did them. Snakes and Ladders was one of the fantastic ideas inspired by the Take My Teaching Training that we held last summer. I’ve enjoyed how the training has encouraged me to think outside the box and renew my teaching ideas.

After this we focused on some short motifs, but continued playing their favourite games sometimes too. We went old school with the Cupid Shuffle and more up to date with the Tik Tok craze, Green Green Grass which they learnt and then did at the fast speed too. It’s not easy and I’ve been impressed by how they took on the cross body movements and used multiple body parts to perform very different movements at the same time.

Choreography and creativity in dance club is essential and they’d learnt so many movements so it was time for group work. They had to use the movements and sequences they’d already learnt as well as include a power pose at the start and end. As we had with power poses before, we worked on heads and hands to make sure the dances looked interesting. The customised arms were set and the whole group did the same ones at the same time. Then they worked on placement and made interesting pathways with their movements. The motifs were fantastic.

The last few weeks were spent putting all of this into a dance and they learnt two final movements, the Bart Simspon and the Wave which were both used in the dance’s chorus. Rehearsals were focused and excited. This class were nervous, but worked hard towards their aim.

On show day we had a couple of run throughs and filmed the dance. Then it was performance time. They were so professional, sitting quietly waiting as the audience arrived then finding their starting positions easily. They dances beautifully with smiles and sass as appropriate. The group dances looked great. They remembered the dance and danced as a team. We were all so impressed. After their well deserved three rounds pf applause, they also wanted to show off their coffee grinders so we did this then said goodbye to our audience for a few minutes to prepare for home time. A group hug and stickers all round. What a fantastic team! I cant wait to work with them again in year 6.