Dance Lesson Plan #3: negative space in place & across the floor

October 20, 2017

Dance Lesson Plan #3: negative space in place & across the floor

Welcome to RDT’s series of posts for teachers who want to include movement/dance in their classrooms. This is the third post in the series. Feel free to take a look at the first post HERE, and the second post HERE. Our goal is to inspire teachers to use simple dance moves with their students to help them get to know each other as the school year starts.

The initial idea for what we are calling #RDTlessonplanofthemonth emerged from a joint teacher workshop held this past January in tandem with Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company. In the forum discussion, many teachers voiced their desire for more frequent lesson plan ideas to assist in their teaching and to avoid “burnout.”

This year, using the blog as a landing page, RDT will present one, quick and fun lesson plan each month geared toward Jr. and Sr. High School Dance Teachers, but by no means limited to that group. In each post you can expect an RDT Dancer or Artistic Staff to present a dance idea with video and a brief written explanation.

We hope to inspire creativity and lead you to take the lesson plan to many levels. We also want to encourage you to share your results with us! Please post comments, videos, new ideas based on the original plan, etc. You can post at the hashtag #RDTlessonplanofthemonth. As a perk for your participation, you are eligible for a FREE Master Class if you post 3 or more times! Details to be announced in the next post.

Enjoy! And, again, please feel free to provide feedback and make suggestions below in the forum. Also, join us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter if you’d like to post pictures or video of your work with students.

by Justin Bass

For this months lesson plan I will be introducing the use of the outer negative space. As a dancer it is important to use the entire space of the room and movement. This phrase will help in practicing that and accessing the use of inward and outward rotation through the distal ends of the body primarily focusing on the fingers and shoulders.

This movement phrase can start in center and be used to go across the floor.

The counts to the phrase are:

A) Take both arms up over head for 4 counts

B) Hover arms over to the bottom for 4 counts

C) Take right arm up (1) then left arm (2) then right arm to the side in second position on (3) and left arm to second position on (4)

D) Take left foot out on (5) then two quick steps in center on (and) then right foot out on (6) then two quick steps in center on (and) then left foot out on (7) and two quick steps in center on (and) and then right foot out on (8).