Working with older students this fall is rocking my socks off. I have to pinch myself when I leave the studio because it feels like such a dream that I get to teach these fine young ladies. I feel honored to share my passion for dance and movement, and I am tickled pink when they radiate that passion back to me.
In modern, we are working on building a dance together that combines student-created movement with choreography that I have created for them. Our dance is an exploration of two Laban Effort Actions: Punch and Wring.
(You can skip the following paragraph if you are already familiar with Laban and meet me back at the *)
(Photo Source)Laban Effort Actions come from a method and language developed by Rudolph Laban called Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) which provides a a way for “describing, visualizing, interpreting and documenting all varieties of human movement” (“Laban Movement Analysis”, Wikipedia). I first learned about it in one of my theater classes and it was such an aha! discovery for me. It made sense to me as dancer and an actor, and I loved that it brought my two worlds together. If you are unfamiliar with LMA, I highly recommend learning more about it and the Bartenieff Fundamentals which developed out of LMA.
* In each part of the dance that is student created I am giving them different structures or frameworks inside of which they can create. Below I will share one of the structures that developed organically and really clicked with my students, resulting in some really interesting choreography on their parts. (Prior to the following activity we had already done some exploration of these efforts as a group.)
First I wrote the Effort Action words “Wring” and “Punch” on the top of 2 pieces of paper and along side I also wrote their corresponding effort elements: Wring–Indirect/Heavy/Sustained and Punch–Direct/Heavy/Quick. Then I asked the class to brainstorm activities, objects, or animals that fit in our two categories. When an option was purposed, we went through a check to see if it matched the effort elements of the effort action, often trying the suggestion out in our bodies to feel why it did or didn’t work for our lists.
Here are the lists they created. Please enjoy the spelling as much as I did =)
The following week, I asked the students to pick one Wring and one Punch activity/object/animal and use them as their inspiration to create a new movement phrase. We talked about using different dynamics like tempo and levels to find a new way of doing the word they chose so that they didn’t show us a realistic version of that word but a stylized and transformed version.
After a time of exploration and creation, they shared the phrases they created and taught them to each other. Is there anything more teacher rewarding that students teaching fellow students a movement they created themselves? Eep!
Once all phrases were learned, I asked them to find a way to sequence them together. They were so thoughtful; diplomatically considering what order would provide the smoothest transitions. In the end they practiced the larger sequence all together and were so proud of themselves for their unique creation–as was I!!
I loved that this activity had them thinking about movement in the world around them and helped them to confidently create a new pattern of movement.
Have you ever done a similar activity? Do you use Laban Efforts in your class? Have you ever found yourself in a “wet rage”? =) Do tell!
