Teaching Tips

Lesson Plan on Energy and Emotion

© 2005 Anne Green Gilbert from Brain-Compatible Dance Education

 

National Dance Content Standards: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7

 

Ages: 5 - 11

Grades: K – 6th

Length: 45 – 60 minutes

Dance Concept: Energy

Thematic Concept: Emotions

Vocabulary that may be used in this lesson includes happy, sad, shy, bored, angry, scared, proud, confused, excited, nervous, pleased, frightened, furious, jubilant, loved, stressed, jealous, worried, envious, terrified, hopeful, curious.

 

Objectives

Students will:

·        Identify and demonstrate the elements of ENERGY.

·        Identify and demonstrate various EMOTIONS.

·        Work cooperatively and safely with others to display a range of emotions.

·        Remember and repeat a combination of movements.

·        Reflect on their experiences.

 

Equipment: CD player; Music for Creative Dance, Volume 1V; about 18-20 cards with a face depicting an emotion drawn on each one (faces may be duplicated and/or students might create their own cards); whiteboard or chart paper on which to write conceptual vocabulary.

 

 

Warming-up

1. BrainDance: Students perform the BrainDance relating to various emotions. For example, students may breathe as if angry, then happy. Each tactile movement might be associated with a different emotion. Students may perform Core-Distal movements with bursting and shrinking energies and feelings, etc.

 

2. Introduce the Concept: Students “hear, see, say, and do” the concept of ENERGY: sharp, smooth, shaky, swingy. Refer to the chapter “Exploring the Concept” for an explanation of this concept.

 

Exploring the Concept 

1. Planets: Dancers glide or float smoothly through space on the smooth music. When the music changes, call out a specific energy (sharp, shaky, or swingy).  Dancers imagine landing on a planet where only that type of energy is used when moving. As they dance with that energy they associate feelings with it and call out those emotions or remember them for reflection time. The smooth music alternates with bouncier music three times so that all four energies may be explored.  Remember to suggest that dancers explore new ways of moving with Energy by integrating other concepts such as Direction, Level, Size, and Pathway.

Suggested Music: Music for Creative Dance, Volume IV, #6

 

 

2. Emotion Shape Museum (Adapted from Helen Landalf.)

Statues “inside the museum” make small, round, low shapes scattered through the space (like seeds). Dancers outside the museum enter and “water” a statue by gently stroking the back of the statue three times. The “seed” grows slowly into a full-body shape that describes an emotion, imagining that it starts growing in the toes and fills the whole body until it is standing in a clear shape. The dancer who watered the seed then copies the emotion statue, and the statue dances away. The new one shrinks to a seed and waits to be “watered,” and the cycle begins again. Young dancers may do this in pairs facilitated by teacher directions.

Suggested Music: Music for Creative Dance Volume VI, #10    

 

Reflection: (Choose two or three questions.) “Who tried on a new emotion, or one that you seldom feel? What was that emotion? Form a shape that demonstrates it. How did it feel to copy someone else’s emotion? Share your feelings with a friend. Were the emotions clear? How did it feel to let go of your emotion and dance away? What energy did you use when dancing away? What was your favorite part of this exploration?”

 

Developing Skills

1. Combining movements: Students perform the combination of movements they are currently practicing but in different emotional states.  For example, they perform the combination as if they were very angry, very happy, very frightened, and very sad or depressed.  Discuss how the energy changes with the emotion. How do the movements also change Size, Level, and Weight? If the students are not currently practicing a combination, choose two locomotor and two nonlocomotor movements and put them together into a phrase such as walk, turn, run, stretch. Perform them in three emotional states as described above.

 

Creating

1. Emotion Suites: Dancers form trios and choose three cards with faces drawn on them that depict emotions.  They put them into an ABC order and choose an energy for each section.  Dancers create abstract movement for each part with smooth transitions between sections.  With young children, facilitate a whole group dance depicting three emotions the class chose.

 

Cooling Down 

1. Sharing and Reflecting: Groups share dances individually or show two to three groups at a time. Observers guess the emotions or draw faces for the emotions portrayed. Discuss the contrasts in Energy, Level, Speed, etc. and magical moments that happen by chance if two to three groups perform together.

 

 

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