SOIS Dance Overview

Purpose of Study

Dance is expressive movement with purpose and form. Through Dance, students express, question and celebrate human experience, using the body as the instrument and movement as the medium for personal, social, emotional, spiritual and physical communication. Like all art forms, dance has the capacity to engage, inspire and enrich all students, exciting the imagination and encouraging students to reach their creative and expressive potential.

Dance enables students to develop a movement vocabulary with which to explore and refine imaginative ways of moving both individually and collaboratively. They choreograph, perform and appreciate as they engage with dance practice and practitioners in their own and others’ cultures and communities.

Aims

The dance curriculum at SOIS aims to ensure that all pupils:

·         Develop body awareness and technical and expressive skills to communicate through movement confidently, creatively and intelligently

·         Develop choreographic and performance skills and appreciation of their own and others’ dances

·         Develop aesthetic, artistic and cultural understandings of dance in past and contemporary context sits relationship with other arts forms and contributions to cultures and societies

·         develop respect for and knowledge of the diverse purposes, traditions, histories and cultures of dance by making and responding as active participants and informed audiences.

Curriculum and Assessment – All Year Groups

In each Semester students will study dance for 12 out of 18 weeks for 1 hour a week.

Each topic is assessed through a specifically designed rubric, and each topic is weighted equally (50%) towards the semester grade.

Semester 1 – 50% of the end of year grade.

Topic 1 – Seeing the world through dance    

 Exploring different cultures through learning one Chinese folk dance and one folk dance of other countries. 

Topic 2 – Classic Movie Dance Sequences   

Studying iconic dance/music moments from popular films.                   

Semester 2 – 50% of the end of year grade.

Topic 3 – Exploring Multiple Dance Styles    

Introducing various dance forms, including ballet, contemporary, and pop dance.

Topic 4 – Creative Dance

Encouraging improvisation and choreography to unleash creativity.