DESTINATIONS

Dance Performance Lesson Plan

Please note, this lesson plan was created by FieldTripDirectory.com as a general guide and is not specific to any particular venue listed on our site.

Dance and human civilization bonded together since the ancient times. With each passing century, dance became a more important tool for maintaining our health, preserving social interactions, and celebrating the events and gods. Many dances were performed as a way to bond and communicate. In the early periods of time, dances were performed as part of large events such as ceremonies and festivals.

Since dance is not a physical artifact that can be examined, historians find it difficult to identify when exactly dance was invented.

FUN FACTS

The various type of dance include Ballet, Modern, Tap, Folk, and Multicultural.

Every dance consists from basic and advanced moves that form its choreography.

The types of dance shoes are: ballroom shoes, tap shoes, dance sneakers, foot thongs, ghillies, ballet shoes, pointe shoes, flamenco shoes and jazz shoes. This different kind of dance shoes developed for a different style of dance. The choice of dance shoes can also depend on the surface that will be performed on.

 

Content

Knowledge

Study the history of the type of dance form your students will be seeing.

Research the specific piece, the dancers, choregrapher and musicians.

Vocabulary

Ballet: an artistic dance form performed to music using precise and highly formalized set steps and gestures. Classical ballet, which originated in Renaissance Italy and established its present form during the 19th century, is characterized by light, graceful, fluid movements and the use of pointe shoes.

Choreographer: a person who composes the sequence of steps and moves for a performance of dance.

Flamenco: Flamenco is a Spanish art form made up of three parts: guitar playing (“guitarra”), song (“cante”), and dance (“baile”). Flamenco originated in the southern regions of Spain, but it’s thought to be influenced by many world cultures, including Latin American, Cuban, and Jewish traditions.

Folk Dance: a dance that originates as ritual among and is characteristic of the common people of a country, culture or region.

Modern Dance: a free, expressive style of dancing started in the early 20th century as a reaction to classical ballet. In recent years it has included elements not usually associated with dance, such as speech and film.

Tap Dance: style of dance in which a dancer wearing shoes fitted with heel and toe taps sounds out audible beats by rhythmically striking the floor or any other hard surface. Tap originated in the United States through the fusion of several ethnic percussive dances, primarily African tribal dances and Scottish, Irish, and English clog dances, hornpipes, and jigs.

Recital: the performance of a program of music or dance by a solo dancer or by a small group of dancers.

Review: a critical appraisal of a book, play, movie, exhibition, etc., published in a newspaper or magazine.

SKILLS

– Listening skills

– Verbal communication

– Vocabulary development

– Writing

FOLLOW UP

– Write a review of the performance or draw a picture of the performance.

– Describe the costumes and shoes that were featured in the performance.

– Research a dancer or choreographer and write their biography.