Dance is Home - Getting to Know You

#2: Movement History Dance

We all have a movement history, because we’ve all been moving all our lives: Crawling, walking, running, dancing, hopping, skipping, throwing, swinging, rolling, nodding, waving, turning.

Let’s share our unique movement experiences and use them to make a dance. Let’s celebrate the people and practices that have helped define us as movers. 

Consider how your past movement experiences have defined you as a mover.

In your house:
Lesson 1:

• Create a Movement History Collage responding to the following questions: 
• What have you experienced and practiced? Movement experiences include things such as skateboarding, skiing, martial arts, hopscotch, etc.
• ​Who has been an influence to your movement experiences? Did a family member teach you? Did you learn from videos like YouTube? Did you take classes? 
• Where did it take place?
• ​When?
• Details: Choose 3-4 photos that describe your answers. Add text to establish time and other important details. You may have to edit it down to a couple moments in your life. Choose the most influential times. Let your individuality shine in this collage. The collage can be created by a google doc or slide. If it is handmade, take a photo of it to share online.

Lesson 2: 

• Imagine you could climb into your collage and walk around, where would you start and what is the path you would take? 
• Climb into photo #1 and duplicate the image with your body. 
• Make the picture come to life. Allow the shape to move. Do you initiate the movement from your hand, head, or legs? Where are you looking? Where are you going? Who is around you? 
• As you continue to create your moving picture think about the following: Are you moving quickly or slowly? Are the movements sharp or soft? Do you stay in one place or travel? What is the emotion? 
• Use the descriptive words surrounding the photo to help with your dance. 
• The moving picture should be a short but descriptive phrase.
• Repeat this process with all of the photos. You will have three short phrases representing your photos/story.
• Connect  phrase 1 to 2 and 2 to 3 with a walk, run, skip, hop, roll, leap, or jump. 
• For further development: consider abstracting and stylizing your movements by changing the speed, using repetition, making it BIGGER or smaller, reversing it, turning it upside down, or conveying the emotion in the photo. 
• Discussion: When does movement become dancing?

HOW TO MAKE YOUR MOVEMENT HISTORY DANCE:

Sequence is determined by how you ordered the photos in your collage. 
1. Shape #1 from photo #1,
2. Movement sequence from photo #1.
3. Transition: travel step. This is how you move from photo #1 to #2.
4. Shape #2 from photo #2.
5. Movement sequence from photo #2.
6. Transition: travel to photo #3.
7. Shape #3 from photo #3.
8. Movement sequence from photo #3.

DETAILS FOR THE DANCE VIDEO:

• ​​Add music. What your movement history soundtrack?
• Two of the photos from the collage must be incorporated into the video. For example, do you show the photo and then cross-fade to your shape?
• Choose a location in your home to record the dance. Decorate? Use furniture or props? Does a transition take you to new space? 
• 1- 2 minutes in length. 
• YOU MUST HOLD ONE OF THE SHAPES FOR AT LEAST 5 seconds. 
• KEEP IN MIND, not all movement sequences will be the same in length. 
• Allow your collage to come to LIFE!! (Think Harry Potter moving portraits or a virtual reality game).
• Have fun, play and celebrate your movement history!

Suggested educational resources:
Smuin Ballet Company members Weston Krukow and Ben Needham-Wood explore the similarities between the competitive and artistic disciplines in a CSN Bay Area documentary dance short titled Baseballet. This is an excerpt titled, Run Around. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgc3biE3LjA

Abby Zbikowski: exploring the layered meanings of play.  https://vimeo.com/217437456

Interview with Abby Zbikowski by Jill Randall: Life of a Modern Dancer https://blog.lifeasamoderndancer.com/2015/09/artist-profile-109-abby-zbikowski-champaign-illinois.html


​