Context elaborations – level 8 dance

• Relationships and connection
• Invention and creation
• Embodiment and performance

The context elaborations mirror culturally responsive pedagogies.

Each context elaboration is coded, using the summary notation recorded with each strand. A bold strand code indicates a dominant strand in the given context. If both or all codes are bold, they are considered to have equal weighting in the given context.

Relationships and connection

The contexts for learning outlined below make links to the dance key concept of relationships and connection.

Possible context – dance in the media

(UC)

• Team up and collaborate with media studies or English students to produce a special issue of the student or school magazine with a focus on the development, value, and importance of dance in your community and in Aotearoa/New Zealand.
• Critically view a range of DANZ magazines to gain insight into the way dance articles and interviews are presented.
• Research and write an article that introduces and is followed by a discussion of a selected choreographer, dance company, or cultural group who have made significant contributions to dance in Aotearoa/New Zealand.
• Support your discussion with photographs and diagrams that bring the research to life so that other students can understand the importance of dance in our country.

Possible context – dance on film

(CI, UC)

• View one or more dance film works by known and established New Zealand choreographers, such as Fly by Shona McCullagh or Canopy by Mary Jane O’Rielly.
• Investigate the differences between presenting dance works on stage for live viewing, compared to the uses of technology and editing available when creating dance films.
• View a range of dance films on the Tempo Dance TV website.
• Using relevant technologies, plan and choreograph a dance for film (rather than for stage).
• This context could equally be used to explore invention and creation as key concepts.

Possible context – dance that challenges traditions

(PK, CI)

• Identify and research dance genres and styles from a variety or cultures that have challenged traditional artistic and aesthetic boundaries, for example, American post-modern dance or Japanese butoh.
• Describe the historical origins of each dance and the ways in which it challenged the existing traditions of the period from which it emerged.
• Invite a community specialist or a professional tutor to visit the class and explore the movement vocabularies of the style.
• Learn and perform a solo dance in the style.

Possible context – dance styles and qualities in performance

(PK, CI)

• Attend a local dance performance of, for example:
  • the Royal New Zealand Ballet
  • a touring contemporary dance company
  • local tertiary dance performances
  • a community theatre musical
  • a kapahaka or Polynesian dance festival
  • a hip hop dance competition.

• Analyse the stylistic qualities in these dances, including: how dancers elevate, fall to and rise from the floor, use upper body movement, and use gestures and facial movements.
• In class, explore the identified qualities through practice to extend skills in one or more of the dance genres/styles viewed.

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Invention and creation

The contexts for learning outlined below make links to the dance key concept of invention and creation.

Possible context – dance that exposes social issues

(PK, DI, UC, CI)

• Develop a concept for and choreograph a dance that exposes a social point of view or an issue of important in the local community today, for example: conservation, crime, substance abuse, domestic violence.
• Present the dance at a public performance event, such as an end-of-term dance show, or a variety show that also showcases work in drama, music, or sound, or the visual arts.
• Take responsibility for planning, rehearsing, sequencing, promoting, and performing the production programme.
• Use cycles of action and reflection to support and evaluate the rehearsal processes and the performance.

Possible context – dance inspired by poetic text

(PK, CI)

• Explore both literal and abstract movements by physically responding to written or poetic text, such as Japanese haiku poetry or traditional Māori whakatauki.
• Examine the messages of the text and then plan and choreograph a duet dance that uses narrative structure to portray the moral message or narrative of the poetic text.
• Perform the dance for a visiting junior class and ask them to identify the messages being portrayed through the dance.
• This context could equally be used to explore embodiment and performance as key concepts

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Embodiment and performance

The contexts for learning outlined below make links to the dance key concept of embodiment and performance.

Possible context – conventions and features of flash mob dance

(UC, PK, DI, CI)

• Explore the concept of flash-mob performances, which frequently appear on social networking and video sharing websites.
• After viewing a range of examples of flash-mob dance performances, identify the conventions and features of flash-mob dance.
• As a class, plan, choreograph, and dance a performance that could be performed in a flash-mob setting, when there are many people around, for example: in a school assembly, on the field at lunchtime, or in a highly populated area such as the canteen or quadrangle.
• Keeping the concept a secret from all but those who need to know, rehearse and structure the performance.
• Perform the dance, ensuring it is recorded, and reflect on and evaluate the experience and the reaction of the unsuspecting audience.

Possible context – collaboration with music – sound arts and/or visual arts

(UC, PK, DI, CI)

• Research collaborative partnerships developed between modern dance choreographers, composers, and visual artists and the influences of the time on their collaborative work.
• Practically explore dance and its relationship to music and the visual arts, for example, working with and against the music or interpreting visual arts elements through movement.
• Develop dance ideas that explore and highlight the relationship between dance and music or dance and the visual arts.
• Using the ideas, choreograph, rehearse, perform, and evaluate a whole-class dance work.

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Last updated May 28, 2021

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