House Of The Roses

Oh my goodness, I am inspired! About what? Go ahead, read on...

One of my good friends volunteers her time to House of the Roses. A description from their website explains that it is an "organization that offers homeless and at-risk children free weekly on-site dance workshops at partner outreach facilities, such as homeless shelters and community centers, throughout New York City."

Tonight, I attended their end of the year performance! I had to rush home and write about how inspiring and amazing the show was. Each center performed a dance I am sure they have been rehearsing for a long, long time. Before each group shared their dance, there was a video of the kids showing their favorite dance move or explaining what they love about dance and House of the Roses. Let's just say, kids just say it exactly the way it is! The theme was World Tour and all the dances were inspired by stories, art, and movement from each place. There was a penguin dance, Bollywood, caveman, and hip hop from brazil! It was so exciting to watch the kids having a blast! They are all such great dancers!

One of my favorite parts of the show opened with all the dance company volunteers dancing on stage and their voices became the music. What does house of roses mean to them? The one that stood out to me and said it best was, "if you do something for free, it is truly your passion" (so true, right?)

Please visit their website and follow them on Twitter @HouseoftheRoses. You will then love them just as much as I do.

Kindergarten Performance: A Story Ballet

One of my favorite things about being a teaching artist with New York City Ballet, is offering the students a chance to perform on stage for their family and friends. They get so excited and are so proud! I took a few pictures in between all the performances. I hope you enjoy!

The scenery...

We had narrators... (one of the 9 stories)

Pirates...

Animals... This was a lion, but there was every animal you could think of...
Trees...

We also had pumpkins, princesses, flowers, seals and much more! I loved the K's stories this year. I love to be a part of their creative thinking and confidence building! Do you feel the same way about kids performances? What is your favorite part?

Sharp Hands, Soft Hands

This lesson is shared by Tiffany Braniff of the popular blog Dancing Branflakes! Tiffany says this lesson was adapted from Royal Acadamy Dance Syllabus a long time ago!


Sharp Hands for 3-5 year olds

I have the children sit in a circle and pretend we are about to make a "witches brew." Then I ask, in my witch's voice, what witches wear. We put on our cloak, hat, and pointy nose and begin throwing things in the pot. We throw dragon eye balls, poisoned apples, and whatever gross and scary things we can think of. I make sure we throw them with "sharp hands" with stretched out fingers and palms. We make plopping or sizzling sounds depending on what's getting thrown in. The point is to get the kids to think about their hands and what they are doing. And at the end, we of course drink our poisoned brew then collapse to the ground.

Soft hands for 3-5 year olds
The opposite of sharp hands, we sit in a circle and pretend we are either princesses picking flowers in the ground or fairies picking stars from the sky. We have to do it with gentle fingers as to not crush the flowers or stars, depending on who you are that day. We put either the stars or the flowers back into our baskets for safe keeping. The girls love to tell me what color dress and tiara they are wearing. Then we all get up and pretend we are throwing the flowers onto the ground like flower girls and tossing the stars back into the sky so we can see them later.

Like sharp hands, this exercise helps students pay attention to their fingers and helps with fine motor skills.

Thank you for sharing this lesson with us Tiffany!

Listen, Draw, Move

The third lesson of the week is from Lauren Warnecke of Art Intercepts! Thanks Lauren for sharing this creative lesson!

Lauren says she has tried this lesson on ages 3- adult and has had success!

This lesson plan is a great way to develop sensitivity for musicality and characteristics in movement and music such as accent and tempo. First I have the kids lay in a circle with their heads into the circle. I turn off the lights and play them a piece of music that has a specific quality I want them to grasp. They practice active listening with their eyes closed. While they are listening, I set out a big piece of butcher paper and colored markers or crayons. We then open our eyes and listen to the music again—this time I ask them to “draw what the music looks like” paying attention to what colors they use, what their lines look like (strong and jagged or soft and curved), and taking into account that all of the dancers are making a collaborative piece of art. Once the music ends I hang their art as a back drop and play the song one more time and this time they get to free dance to the music trying to incorporate the qualities we listened to and drew in our artwork.

For contrast, I’ll repeat the entire activity with a totally different song that exhibits opposite qualities from the one we just did. This lesson takes about 30 minutes to complete and is always really fun!

(photo via Menomonee Club)

Pancake Cafe

Props: large tubes with cardboard circles for table tops, coasters, scarves and cushions with parts of plastic tea sets.

The story is that the dancers are visiting the Cafe on a bad day when the toast was burnt and had filled the Cafe with smoke. They had to enter single file holding onto a scarf held by the dancer in front of them. They then had to use the scarf to blow away the imaginary smoke. The pancakes (coasters) were ready to be served but they were very hot so fingers got burnt and pancakes delivered to the wrong tables so there was much changing over from table to table and dropping and picking up of pancakes. Next dance was a slow one where the pancakes were weighed in each hand as there had been some complaints from patrons about not getting the same quality pancake. Other parts of the body became involved in the weighing process. Finally the pancakes were thrown away on the ground and the "sparrows" flew around pecking at the crumbs. After this we tried to be good "waiters" but kept falling over before giving up work and just dancing!





Roz Avent Dance is located in Victoria, Australia. Thank you Roz for this wonderful lesson! Check out Roz's blog for more amazing creative ideas here!

(photos via Roz)

"Bird Watching"

Last night I went to see Keigwin + Company at the Joyce in NYC! It was awesome and refreshing! I wouldn't be so inclined to write about it if there wasn't so much that related to creating dance! The company did a world premiere of Bird Watching. I was completely intrigued. In the program it was broken up into 4 different sections of the piece, labeled in 4 different words. Flocking, Flapping, Fluttering, Flying. It was so great to see the words and then see the movement motif that was used to describe the word. All I could think about sitting in the audience, is how I do this everyday with children. I take the word and deconstruct it into movement (with the help of their imaginations of course). I thought it was creative thinking how the words were in the program to give the audience a reference point. Very clever. Now I'm wondering, how would you move to the word flutter?

If you haven't checked out Keigwin + Company, check out their website! I highly recommend this clever and exciting choreography!

p.s. On the subway ride home, I had the realization that we can create a dance about anything. Anything at all. Isn't that amazing?