Physical Education in Drama and Dance

Today we are going to be looking at ideas and strategies for integrating Drama and Dance into Physical Education lessons.

As always, let's begin by looking at our guiding theory for the week.

Multimodal Theory

In this theory, students use social context to influence and shape the product they make. Students create their drama as they are sharing it with the class. This four domains of this theory are “design, negotiate, produce, and disseminate”. Students can work through these domains in whichever order they chose to create.

Multimodal refers to the various modes of communication – textual, linguistic, aural, spatial, digital, and visual – that students can use to compose messages for communication. These modes of communication are a reflection of social context.

Drama

Sit, Stand, Lie

In this activity, students work in groups of three to improvise a scene. The catch, however, is that one student has to sit, the other stand, and the third student lies down. Improvisation is a skill that is explored in the Ontario Arts curriculum. Within the creating and presenting expectation, students learn to plan and shape the direction of their drama in collaboration with others. Improvising gives students the freedom and opportunity to develop ideas and further explore their creativity.

This activity connects nicely with the Health and Physical Education curriculum. In Phys Ed, students begin to explore different combinations of movements at different speeds, levels, and pathways. In Sit, Stand, Lie, students must improvise a scene within the bounds of their physical position. Students must use their bodies to fuel their creativity and ideas.

For instance, students are given the scenario of a doctor’s surgery. In this case, students improvise the scene following the physical constraints. Students are encouraged to develop their body awareness movements. The student lying down must be extra creative in how they can portray emotion and movement. This forces students to develop some awareness of their body beyond their typical day-to-day movements.

Improvisation ties nicely into the Multimodal theory as students use social context and various modes of communication to shape their scene. The “live” element of improvisation allows for the process and final product to be happening simultaneously.

The elements of drama explored in this activity are role/character and relationship.

Role and character refers to how students can adopt a variety of roles and developing a character. Since students must improvise in this activity, they are constantly adapting different roles and varying positions.

Relationship refers to developing and analysing a character in relation to other characters. Again, this is a collaborative improvised activity. Improvisation becomes more complex (and fun) when multiple people are involved. Students develop the character and scene based on the relationship and feedback from the other characters involved.

Opportunities to Accommodate

Students can participate physically within their own capacities. Students with any physical exceptionalities can chose which physical position they feel most comfortable with.

For students with behavioural or social accommodations, more structure or guidance may be needed to direct the activity. Students may need:

-          The topic of their scene written on a piece of paper

-          Time to think and write ideas for lines before performing the scene

-          Opportunities to break during scene to reorganize ideas/direction

Dance

Zumba

Most people know Zumba as a fun, energetic, Latin dance inspired exercise class. Zumba involves a lot of face-paced movements and foot work. Usually, an instructor will lead a group of participants through a series of choreographed movies. The aim of the class is to get your heart rate up and your body moving quickly. The music is often upbeat and sets the pace of the class.

People generally enjoy Zumba because of its upbeat and fun nature, which is why this is an excellent blend of dance and physical education for elementary students. In grade 5 Phys Ed, students learn to perform controlled transfers of weight and develop dynamic balance skills using changes in speeds and levels. Zumba certainly meets these requirements.

Zumba is considered a North American interpretation of a blend of cultural dance moves and themes. While it does pull from classically Latin themes and moves, it remains very much grounded in North American culture.

Incorporating Zumba into your Dance and Phys Ed units can be quite easy. There are many ways to lead your students through online videos, call in an instructor from a local studio, or various station set ups around the gym. It is important to scaffold your students as they learn the new moves.

Eventually, students should be able to create their own dance sequences and respond to others’ in the class. Two choreographic forms that can be explored in Zumba are canon and call and response.

Canon is a choreographic form where one student starts with a movement and each student after follows repeating the same movement (think of the classic “wave” move you might see in a stadium).

Call and Response is a choreographic form where a student or group of students performs a movement and a second student/group performs in response to the first. In Zumba, call and response is a fun opportunity for students to build on sequences and moves created by other students. An entirely new dance routine can be created as students piece together their call and response pieces. Call and Response is also one of the expectations in the Arts curriculum, students are expected to use this form to create dance pieces.

The elements of dance explored in this activity are body and energy.

Body refers to body awareness, use of body parts, body shapes, locomotor and non-locomotor movements, body bases, symmetry versus asymmetry, geometric versus organic shape, curved versus angular shape.

Energy refers to the effort, force, quality (e.g., flick, fold, stab, poke, flow freely) of movement. Zumba is typically high energy form of dance, but the quality and force typically varies between movements. Students have the opportunity to explore many variations of these in one session.

Opportunities to Accommodate

Students will need to learn the moves at their own pace. Some students will catch on quicker than others.

-          Review different moves or sequences many times to ensure all students feel comfortable with the movements.

-          Use music to cue transitions

-          Attach music to different sets of moves to help students remember

-          Vary between small group and whole class instruction

-          Incorporate peer teaching (pair students together to learn moves)

And that’s it my friends! In the last few weeks I have covered five main elementary school subjects. I hope that through all of this I have given you some inspiration for integrating Drama and Dance into your lessons. It’s a worthwhile endeavour and one that is truly beneficial for students.

Good luck!