Twyla’s book, The Creative Habit- Learn It and Use It the Rest of Your Life, is one I need to haul off the bookshelf and read again. I’m sure the chapter on motivation will come in handy while I try to fire myself up to keep writing this blog. (Yoo-Hooo! anybody out there?)
I auditioned in front of Twyla Tharp and her company, and Merce Cunningham’s company at American University’s Wolffrap School of Performing Arts, one summer semester in the 70’s-and I can tell you this: She’s no quitter! And as a teacher, she wouldn’t let you be one either, if she could tell you had any spunk about you at all.
That’s about all I brought to that audition-spunk-(that and a 24 year old body “made for dance” that just wouldn’t quit). But that’s a long and funny story for another day; the short version is-I survived the audition, learned Tharp’s “100’s” and went on to discover a healthy respect mathematical minds like hers. Thanks to Twyla’s influence, and Merce’s (via Catherine Kerr), I became a “thinking dancer”-and there’s just no going back now!
“Intrinsic Motivation”-that’s probably what I should have named this blog!
PS: Check these great links out-
Lateral Action loves Twyla too. Add that blog to your Feedreader!
43 Folders is Merlin Mann’s blog about being productive in order to have time to be creative…or something like that! His language is a little crass at times, but he’s “real”. And he’s got a point-we all do need to learn to manage our time online–don’t procrastinate by reading blogs too much while you’re at “work”–unless you’re reading MINE and commenting too!
“Arts learning experiences play a vital role in developing students’ capacities for critical thinking, creativity, imagination, and innovation. These capacities are increasingly recognized as core skills and competencies all students need as part of a high-quality and complete 21st-century education. And, as a matter of social justice, we must be concerned when students are denied access to a high-quality education—one that includes learning in and through the arts—simply because of where they live or go to school.”
Education Week 9/23/09
“Learning in and through the arts”-is that opportunity available to al the students in your school? Are Dance classes held during the school day-or is Dance only available after school as a club, or as an extra-curricular activity?
If your school offers dance during the school day, is it available to all boys and girls at every grade level? Are classes taught by a professionally trained instructor, in a dedicated space, for Fine Arts credit, or with a Fine Arts emphasis, at least twice weekly?
Or is Dance at your school taught simply as an alternative form of fitness training by a Physical Education instructor? If so, where are the classes held? Are students permitted to focus on Dance at least two days a week throughout the year, or is Dance studied for only a few weeks as just one of many units of study in PE?
Are students given an opportunity to collaborate and create choreography for themselves and others as a regular part of their classes, or are the students limited to memorizing “routines” purchased ready-made from dance education organizations, or choreography created by their Dance Instructor without their input?
Does any teacher, other than the Dance Teacher, regularly use movement to enhance the study of academic concepts? Are students encouraged by their teachers to use Creative Movement or Dance to demonstrate what they have learned in different academic subject areas?
Do the dance students perform once or twice a year for their classmates, families and friends as an extension of their learning experience, or do they mainly perform in order to compete with each other and with other schools?
…Or is your school one of many that offers no Dance at all?
This is an important topic-if you don’t want to read my personal opinions-just PLEASE scroll down to the article whose title is in BIG print from LD Onlineand check out the helpful links I included too. And think about subscribing to LD ONLINE using RSS (i.e. Google Reader).
PLEASE NOTE BEFORE SCROLLING DOWN: There are many better/newer medications for ADHD than LD Online listson their website-but I wrote them about that and they not only thnaked me for bringing that to their attention, they said they would work to update their information ASAP-so those of us who take ADHD meds or who give them to our kids should check and make sure they follow through!
Parents need to be assured that ADHD medication, though not the Whole Answer, does NOT have to be a scary proposition at all; the sooner you get started trying it the better too- because not everyone has an instant “fit” with the first one they try-and the dosage level often needs tweaking too!
Study Proves Use of ADHD Medication Improves Test Scores
If you are interested in the personal opinion of one professional educator whose own ADHD was not diagnosed until age 40 (me!), who is also the parent of 3 intellectually and creatively gifted kids- (ages 13, 20 and 25)- who also deal with ADHD, then keep reading. Following my personal opinion is a long but very worth while article and some truly useful links-even if you think you know everything!
Here’s what I’ve been personally reading and thinking about concerning ADHD and Gifted Students :
It’s Novemeber 2, and here in Georgia, most parents have attended their first Parent/Teacher conference, and have seen a first report card too-which may have been a shock for some parents-especially if the grades did not reflect the true intelligence of the child. For some families, including many that might surprise you (i.e. families of “gifted” children or teens), this time of the Fall may be an extremely stressful time indeed. Like a late model Ferrari accidently built with a carburator from an old Ford Mustang, many extremely intelligent students (and their parents) are working overtime trying to use their “gifts” to “compensate” in areas of unsuspected or unacknowledged weakness!
ADHD isn’t something you’re going to be able to “fix”-it stays with most of us our whole lives and we either learn to work around it-or we don’t. But the consequences of not addressing this issue in your family ASAP can be devastating-please educate yourself with the facts-no matter what you ultimately decide to do with all the information I’ve provided in this blog.
My personal opinion is: It’s time to get over our fear of the unknown and the “stigma” of ADHD and the medications used to treat it, and finally, truthfully, unflinchingly educate ourselves and others about these very real learning differences-instead of hiding, pretending, and/or negatively labeling ourselves, our kids and/or others!
In the case of first children in a family, many parents have a tendency to become defensive, wanting to blame the school or the teacher, or friends their child plays with when their precious child has problems–and that’s if they aren’t among those completely denying a problem even exists in their family!
What concerns me is that once parents and teachers do finally agree that it’s time to “do something”, many have no idea how to “get on the same page”! And that’s vitally important if the child’s medication treatment plan and cognitive strategies, and/or IEP are going to be set up efficiently and effectively so that no more instructional time is wasted this school year. Dealing with ADHD reminds us that this is not a perfect world by any means, but don’t feel bad – No One Has All the Answers- every single person is unique-so the sooner you put your head together with others who are truly knowledgeable, and who care enough to help, the sooner you can get started on this journey, and the better for everyone-especially your child!
Parents should not assume their primary care pediatrician is an expert on ADHD who is qualified to diagnose and prescribe, though some insurance may require his/her permission to make an appointment with a psychiatrist. Cognitive Psychiatry is the way to go if you want real strategies tailored to your specific needs and to have access to someone who will work with you to find the best medication also, if medication is also needed.
But don’t kid yourself-medication is usually the only way to get behavioral strategies and manners/social skills lessons to actually “stick” in your child’s brain–so why put that off? You want your child to gradually be able to put together an arsenal of social and learning skills for himself or herself that he/she can call on as needed–after all, you can’t go off to college with your kid (even if you could, your child won’t let you)! You wouldn’t fail to get your kid eyeglasses right away if they were needed-well, ADHD medicine is like eyeglasses for the brain too, in a way-you just can’t see what is being illuminated for the first time.
Unfortunately, “head shrinkers” have gotten a bad rap and though they are the very specialists to consult -(especially “Cognitive Psychiatrists”)-when parents are attempting to sort out what is ADHD and what is not, and what to do about it. There are so many medications out there! If one doesn’t work, you do have options, but specialized guidance from the very beginning is so worth the extra cost and effort for all the precious irreplaceable time it will save in the long run!
I know from personal experience how most parents are scared to death to think of their child needing such a doctor. Many try to educate themselves-sometimes in an attempt to prove their child’s teacher/s wrong-but even if they read up on it and decide, yes, their child has ADHD, and should try medication, many will just ask their pediatrician to prescribe it-to lessen the feeling of stigma for themselves-but also, unintentionally, cutting themselves off from a much-needed expert source of information, education, guidance, and reassurance for themselves, their child, the rest of the family. and the teachers and administrators in their school as well. It does “take a village” to raise a child -especially one with LD, ADHD, or who is “gifted”-with or without learning or social/emotional challenges.
There is so much information on the internet these days, that it can be completely overwhelming-especially when you consider how much of it is inaccurate-and even outdated-especially where medication is concerned-and even potentially harmful where ADHD and Gifted Kids with ADHD or LD are concerned. So I want to pass on some information with some website links you or a close friend may find particularly helpful, that your child’s teacher or school administrator should already know about- (but might not)!
LD Online a wealth of information on all kinds of topics pertaining to Gifted Kids, ADHD, Dsylexia, Special Education, Federal Laws Protecting the Rights of LD Students-you name it. They either have the information right there or a clickable link to it. Plus books and other resources-a great place to start educating yourself-even if you think you know it all already!
Gifted Students? Parents of Gifted Kids? Gifted Adult? Please take the time to read this article from this month’s LD ONLINE newletter, which I recommend subscribing to using RSS-(Google Reader)- just one of many worthwhile articles that is available at LD Online:
Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder(ADHD) is the most common behavioral disorder of childhood, and is marked by a constellation of symptoms including immature levels of impulsivity, inattention, and hyperactivity. The National Institutes of Health declared ADHD a “severe public health problem” in its consensus conference on ADHD in 1998.
There are three subtypes of ADHD: predominantly inattentive type, predominantly hyperactive/impulsive type, and combined type. The combined type is most common and best researched. The DSM-IV states that to meet criteria for a diagnosis of Combined Type ADHD, a child must meet at least six of the nine criteria from both lists and exhibit significant impairment in functioning. Symptoms must occur in more than one setting, have been present for at least six months, and have been present before the age of seven. It is important to note that a child who meets the criteria but doesn’t exhibit significant impairment is not diagnosed with the disorder. The subjective determination of what constitutes significant impairment is one of several factors that contribute to the controversy regarding diagnosis and treatment, especially in gifted children.
Differences in gifted children and non-gifted children with ADHD
Initial findings suggest two points for consideration. First, Kaufman and her colleagues’ work indicates that identified gifted ADHD children are more impaired than other ADHD children, suggesting the possibility that we are missing gifted children with milder forms of ADHD. Second, high ability can mask ADHD, and attention deficits and impulsivity tend to depress the test scores as well as the high academic performance that many schools rely on to identify giftedness. Also, teachers may tend to focus on the disruptive behaviors of gifted ADHD students and fail to see indicators of high ability.
These delays are of concern because early provision of appropriate services is important for academic and social success. Gifted children whose attention deficits are identified later may be at risk for developing learned helplessness and chronic underachievement. ADHD children whose giftedness goes unrecognized do not receive appropriate educational services. It is recommended that children who fail to meet test score criteria for giftedness and are later diagnosed with ADHD be retested for the gifted program.
As a group, ADHD children tend to lag two to three years behind their age peers in social and emotional maturity. Gifted ADHD children are no exception. This finding has important implications for educational placement. As a group, gifted children without ADHD tend to be more similar in their cognitive, social, and emotional development to children two to four years older than children their own age. When placed with other high ability children without the disorder, ADHD children may find the advanced maturity of their classmates a challenge they are ill prepared for. Also, gifted children without the disorder may have little patience for the social and emotional immaturity of the gifted ADHD student in their midst. This is not to say that gifted ADHD students should not be placed with other gifted students. The research is clear that lack of intellectual challenge and little access to others with similar interests, ability, and drive are often risk factors for gifted children, contributing to social or emotional problems.
Assessing ADHD in gifted children
It is difficult to differentiate true attention deficits from the range of temperament and behavior common to gifted children. There is concern in the literature that clinicians err on the side of pathologizing normal gifted behavior. Common characteristics of gifted children can be misconstrued as indicators of pathology when the observer is unfamiliar with the differences in the development of gifted children. This difficulty can be exacerbated when the gifted child in question spends considerable time in a classroom where appropriate educational services are not provided. The intensity, drive, perfectionism, curiosity, and impatience commonly seen in gifted children may, in some instances, be mistaken for indicators of ADHD. The creatively gifted child may appear to be oppositional, hyperactive, and argumentative. Gifted children with some kinds of undiagnosed learning disabilities will be very disorganized, messy, and have difficult social relations.
Ideally, a diagnosis of ADHD in gifted children should be made by a multidisciplinary team that includes at least one clinician trained in differentiating childhood psychopathologies and one professional who understands the normal range of developmental characteristics of gifted children. Since as many as two thirds of children with ADHD have coexisting conditions such as learning disabilities or depression, assessment must include an evaluation for these disorders as well. School personnel rarely have the training needed to differentially diagnose ADHD, and few clinicians are aware of the unique developmental characteristics of gifted children. Accurate assessment must be a team effort.
One of the reasons parents may be hesitant to comply with treatment recommendations for their children is because they aren’t convinced their child has the disorder. Parents want a thorough evaluation, and parents of gifted children want assurance that their child’s giftedness has been taken into consideration when evaluations are conducted. When parents see that their child has been properly evaluated, they may be more willing to participate in a treatment plan.
What is appropriate intervention and support?
The available research suggests that we should not assume that all interventions recommended for ADHD children are appropriate for gifted children who have the disorder. Early findings suggest that there may be some differences in the way we intervene with gifted ADHD children. Treatment matching is crucial. Effective interventions are always those that are tailored to the unique strengths and needs of the individual. There is wide agreement in the literature on gifted children with learning problems that as a general strategy, intervention should focus on developing the talent while attending to the disability. Keeping the focus on talent development, rather than on remediation of deficits, appears to yield more positive outcomes and to minimize problems of social and emotional adjustment.
In addition, there is limited evidence that some of the commonly recommended interventions for ADHD children may make problems worse for ADHD children who are also gifted. For instance, since gifted children tend to prefer complexity, shortening work time and simplifying tasks may increase frustration for some gifted ADHD students who would handle better more difficult and intriguing tasks. Similarly, decreasing stimulation may be counterproductive with some gifted ADHD children who, as a group, tend to be intense and work better with a high level of stimulation.
Conclusion
There has been some concern that problems with inattention or hyperactivity that are better attributed to a mismatch with the curriculum or to characteristics of high creative ability are wrongly attributed to ADHD. Although there are good reasons to believe that misidentifications occur, there are yet no hard data on the frequency with which gifted children are over- (or under-) diagnosed or over- (or under-) medicated. Until systematic studies are conducted, we should be cautious about rejecting ADHD diagnosis in gifted children out of hand because there are serious, long-term negative consequences for under-treating the disorder (Barkley, 1998). The available research on ADHD children indicates that nationally, there is a good deal of under-treatment as well as some over-treatment of ADHD children.
It is a challenge to arrange a good fit in school for gifted ADHD children. They must have an appropriate level of intellectual challenge with supports and interventions to address their social and emotional immaturity. Placement in the gifted program may or may not be appropriate, depending on the nature of the program, the social milieu of the gifted classroom, and the coping ability of the child, but a coherent plan for addressing the student’s intellectual, social, and behavioral needs is nevertheless imperative.
LD ONLINE Article’s References:
ERIC Digests are inThe ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education (ERIC EC)
The ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education (ERIC EC)- ERIC EC Digest #E649 – October 2003
The ERIC references are in the public domain and may be freely reproduced and disseminated, but please acknowledge your source. This digest was prepared with funding from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), U.S. Department of Education, under Contract No. ED-99-CO-0026. The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of IES or the Department of Education.
American Academy of Pediatrics (2000). Clinical practice guidelines: diagnosis and evaluation of the child with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Pediatrics, 105:1158-1170.
American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. Washington, DC: Author.
Barkley, R.A. (1998). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: A handbook for diagnosis and treatment. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Baum, S.M., Olenchak, F.R., & Owen, S.V. (1998). Gifted students with attention deficits: Fact and/or fiction? Or, can we see the forest for the trees? Gifted Child Quarterly, 42, 96-104.
Baum, S, Owen, S.V., & Dixon, J. (1991). To be gifted and learning disabled: From definition to practical intervention strategies. Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press.
Kalbfleisch, M.L. (2000). Electroencephalographic differences between males with and without ADHD with average and high aptitude during task transitions. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
Kaufmann, F.A., & Castellanos, F.X. (2000). Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in gifted students. In K.A. Heller, F.J. Monks, R.J. Sternberg, & R.F. Subotnik (Eds.), International handbook of giftedness and talent. (2nd ed., pp. 621-632). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Kaufmann, F., Kalbfleisch, M. L., & Castellanos, F. X. (2000). Attention deficit disorders and gifted students: What do we really know? Storrs, CT: National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, University of Connecticut.
Leroux, J.A., & Levitt-Perlman, M. (2000). The gifted child with attention deficit disorder: An identification and intervention challenge. Roeper Review, 22, 171-176.
Moon, S.M., Zentall, S.S., Grskovic, J.A., Hall, A. & Stormont, M. (2001). Emotional, social, and family characteristics of boys with AD/HD and giftedness: A comparative case study. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 24, 207-247.
Moon, S. (2002). Gifted children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. In M. Neihart, S. Reis, N. Robinson, S. Moon (Eds.). The social and emotional development of gifted children: What do we know? (pp. 193-204). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.
National Institutes of Health (1998). Diagnosis and treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) consensus statement. Washington, DC: Author.
Neihart, M., Reis, S., Robinson, N., & Moon, S. (Eds.) (2002). The social and emotional development of gifted children: What do we know? Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.
Olenchak, R., & Reis, S. (2002). Gifted children with learning disabilities. In M. Neihart, S. Reis, N. Robinson, & S. Moon (Eds.), The social and emotional development of gifted children: What do we know? (pp. 177-192). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.
Olenchak, F.R. (1994). Talent development: Accommodating the social and emotional needs of secondary gifted/learning-disabled students. Journal of Secondary Gifted Education, 5, 40-52.
Reis, S.M., McGuire, J.M. & Neu, T.W. (2000). Compensation strategies used by high-ability students with learning disabilities who succeed in college. Gifted Child Quarterly, 44, 123-134.
Webb. J.T. (2001). Mis-diagnosis and dual diagnosis of gifted children: Gifted and LD, ADHD, OCD, oppositional defiant disorder. N. Hafenstein & F. Rainey (Eds.), Perspectives in gifted education: Twice exceptional children (pp. 23-31). Denver: Ricks Center for Gifted Children, University of Denver.
Zentall, S.S., Moon, S.M., Hall, A.M., & Grskovic, J.A. (2001). Learning and motivational characteristics of boys with AD/HD and/or giftedness. Exceptional Children, 67, 499-519.
Maureen Neihart, Psy.D. is a licensed clinical child psychologist in Billings, MT.
MORE LD Online References for this article: ERIC Digests are in the public domain and may be freely reproduced and disseminated, but please acknowledge your source. This digest was prepared with funding from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), U.S. Department of Education, under Contract No. ED-99-CO-0026. The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of IES or the Department of Education.
The ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education (ERIC EC)
Here’s a list of some of my favorite educationblogs (including dance education!) that are worth reading, sharing, discussing and commenting on; I’m hoping to hear from you!
Which blogs do you subscribe to? What’s the most useful tip you’ve picked up from reading a blog?
If you’re a parent of a school-aged child, do you see a blog listed here that you might recommend to one of your child’s teachers-and if so, which one?
*Hint-at least check out the first blog listed below-you don’t have to be a parent, teacher, or a blogger to appreciate The Newberry Project-just a lover of great books!
Wordle is such a nifty tool to use with your students-for just about every subject! If you haven’t tried it yet-you should!
I used Wordle to make a Chance Dance Experimenting Tool for my Primary Dance students in grades 1-3 to play around with at home. Not only will my students have fun using “chance” to see what kind of interesting dances they can make up at home from simple verbs and other easy words, they can also work on their handwriting at the same time, and will also be working on sequencing and memorizing the experimental dance phrases they’ve written down as they enjoy the creative process. I’m going to encourage the kids to come in and show their Wordle dances to the class the next day-and I bet their Language Arts teachers will be excited to see what they’ve created too!
By clicking on my link for “fun” (with a parent with them so they don’t browse, indiscriminately all over the Wordle Gallery)-the students can easily discover how to make their own Wordles too-for dance AND other subjects! I put the link to Wordle on my Dance Wiki to make it easy for the children to experiment at home and in hopes they’ll create new Wordles too. If they copy and paste the link to their Wordle Dance Experiment into an email and send it to me at school, we can look their Experiments up in the Wordle Gallery, put them up on the Smart Board in my dance studio and try them out-how cool is that?!
TEACHERS: If you’re reading this and happen to make a Wordle with YOUR class, using verbs, Or verbs and adverbs that are “appropriate” for 3-5th graders, please send me the link-maybe we can get a collaboration going where we copy your verbs and add adverbs to them
or vice-versa; then we can send You a link to the new wordle we made from your words-and trade back and forth–even if you don’t dance yours, it’s fun to “talk” with students who are in a different school somewhere else in the USA or the World!
VOCABULARY LESSONS? It’s fun to use Wordle to study vocabulary! Just get the kids to type in all the words they need to learn, then push “Randomize” to scramble them up. Let them choose a black and white or color picture to print out if you have plenty of colored ink! Give the children the definitions, numbered, on a separate piece of paper, and let then kids hunt through the Wordle to find and circle the correct vocabulary word-writing the number of the definition beside the word it goes with. Staple the list of definitions to the Wordle and students can take them home and use them to study for tests. Be sure to put the web address on the Wordle so the students can make more “Study Wordles” at home for other subjects too! design or a
Construction workers as “Burly Ballerinas”-what a thought! Hilarious, right? And yet I was so touched watching the end of the ABC News broadcast tonight-what an incredible idea for a fundraiser-sure wish I had thought of it when we were building the school where I work several years ago!
Let it Not be said that Hard Hats=Hard Hearts, because it’s Not True. All you have to do is see these construction guys in the UK taking ballet classes so they could learn firsthand why a proper floor for dance is so important! And then figuring out how to turn their “dancing” into a moneymaker for the ballet center they’re buiding! Laugh as you watch, and then applaud their efforts -here’s hoping they’ll be laughing all the way to the bank after helping to build a new ballet center in nothern England!
How important is a good “sprung” dance floor? Well, how improtant are your feet, legs, hips, and back? The human spine is a “work in progress” until age 25! Dance sub-floors that can be laid down over concrete are easier to buy now than 27 years ago when I called Stagestep and wrote down directions over the phone for “how to build a dance sub-floor”-at the time Stagestep had no such product for sale-they sold what we referred to as “Marley” dance floors to roll out and tape down on top of adance sub-floor-but now they sell just about everything you could ever want in terms of dance flooring-and are only one of many companies that make that their specialty. Here are the excellent directions they gave me 27 year ago that my husband and I have used to build or consult on the building of 10 different dance floors over the years:
You’ll need 3/4 inch plywood with one clear side (no knot holes)-most building supply stores can order this if they don’t have it in stock-if it is in stock, make sure they understand you can’t usewarped boards for a floor (seems obvious, but some places store extra wood outside and that can be a problem)!
You’ll be using a power screw driver to build a frame out of 2X4’s, set on the narrow edge, with one section going vertical and the next section going horizontal so when it is done, the frame looks sort of like a patchwork quilt.
Now before you actually build that frame you have to measure your room-you want to subtract 1/2 ” all the way around so the frame doesn’t touch the walls at all-this is so it can “give” when dancers jump on it.
You can get help from the building supply company in figuring out how much wood you need, but be aware while you are there, that Every two by four needs to have a strip of rubber applied to the bottom of it, (ask the builder’s supply company to show you the cheapest thing they have. For the first floor we built, we just covered the floor with scraps of felt carpet padding, left over from taking up the carpet in the old space wewere renting-but whatever you do, you need something so the floor has a little protection for the wood-so it doesn’t directly rest on the concrete.
Once the rubber strips are applied, you assemble the frame and then lay down the plywood-clear side up, also patchwork fashion, and screw it down. YOu want to use screws because then you can deduct the whole cost of your floor from your taxes if you pay taxes! Or move your floor if you move!
On top of the plywood, you roll out the portable dance linoleum that you order from Stagestep or Rosco or whatever floor company you like, being sure to order floor tape if you can’t get a better price on Gaffer’s tape through an art supply store like Pearl’s (or ask your bulding store employee who’s helping you).
Once you have the materials, you can build a floor like this in one weekend-in fact with a crew of 8, working pretty much nonstop for 12 hours each day, we built four floors over one weekend, and put up ballet barres in all the rooms too (cheapest ballet barre-wooden bannister rails mounted on bannister brackets-(use about twice as many as you would for a handrail on the stairs)-these brackets are mounted onto a 1x or 2×4 as a support-and then the “support” is molly bolted into the wall at each stud.
Artopia has an Online Dance Studio Game for Kids! How cool!
And just in time too-I was working on floor paths with my 3rd Graders the other day-amazing that they have trouble playing “Follow the Leader” while keeping a large enough circle going (close to all the walls) so that they can see each other plainly and have room to make changes to their moves when the leader does. Just from seeing that, I know we have some work to do so they can make patterns other than just back and forth and side to side when they dance!
I’m hoping this video helps, because I’m going to make simple “Maps” for the dancers to follow-from Point A to Point B to Point C in a week or so, (which is also a great way for the students to understand “line segments”), and then I will be showing them how to make choreography maps for themselves the following week. If you teach dance and try this with your kids, or show them the video, let me know how it worked out for you!
There are lots of interesting sections for your students here-one is “Meet the Artist”, where the dancers and other students can learn about choreographers, including Dan Wagoner, who I studied with when I apprenticed at Atlanta Contemporary Dance Company in 1979 and 1980.
Merce Cunningham “Rockefeller Award” is one of my favorite video clips on You Tube for educational purposes for students aged 7-18. It’s short enough to hold the interest of younger students, but interesting enough that it never fails to spark lively discussion about “what dance is”, and how different cultures decide what relationship dance “should” have to Art, music, and to lots of other subjects too.
The video is short retrospective of Merce Cunningham’s career, filmed to be inform to the audience that was watching when Merce received the Rockfeller Award. Merce talks a little bit about who he is, where he came from, how he was the only person in his family who danced, and how got started dancing in high school because he wanted to learn to Tap Dance. Short film clips and photographs illustrate his evolution from dance student to modern dancer to choreographer, and though the younger students don’t always understand when he talks about where his ideas come from-and how he choreographs-it’s easy enough for me to re-explain in words that children can understand.
Web 2.0, and computer and other technologies are a major emphasis at the private college prep day school where I teach-and they’re being integrated more and more into every subject area- (which is the main reason I began this blog to begin with-that and the fact that it was a requirement of the k12learning2.0 course). That’s why I always like to start with Merce at the beginning of every school year with my 3rd Grade modern/jazz classes.
“Chance Operations”, which the composer John Cage first encouraged Merce Cunningham to use, early in his career, when Merce was experiencing an artistic block. The “Zen” inherent in both chance and ordinary, everyday random events were great influences on Merce’s work throughout his lifetime, and this film is a great way to introduce a study of “Chance Dance”-or “Chance Operations”, which is a method lots of teachers use everyday-if only to choose their “Line Leader”, or put students into groups.
Here in my classroom, and wherever I work with dancers, Chance is used like Merce used it-because Catherine Kerr, one of his long-time partners, was one of my most influential teachers-and her descriptions of how Merce applied his methods and personal philosophy to dance were the most intriguing ideas I’d ever heard.
As Dance is traditionally passed from one generation to the next, I Like to think I’m passing my choreographic tool box along too so that even my 3rd graders learn how to use Chance as a way to make up dances, and as method to solve problems-including problems like indecision, fear, and procrastination, and sometimes, they figure out how to use Chance the way I like to use it best- just to shake up everyone’s “usual” way of thinking from time to time! This movie helps me to begin to explain all that.
Merce Cunningham’s “collaborations” with both “up and coming” and well-established avant garde’ musicians and abstract artists, as well as computer programmers, videographers, and motion capture photographers helps to broaden students’ views of the connections that exist between dance, music, art, technology, science, math, and many other subject areas and disciplines-many that before Merce weren’t considered “artistic”, or even related in any way to dance-(and as some students’s first reactions to the video clips of Merce’s work clearly demonstrate, still aren’t always appreciated-another topic for discussion)!
One of the things that’s unique about Merce is the way he kept on being creative and expressing his artistry integrating technology with dance in surprising ways all thoughout his entire career. Merce Cunningham even helped invent special dance choreography software that allowed him to make incredible dances for the members of his own dance company until he was 90 years old-long after he himself was unable to dance or even demonstrate his dances! Merce is my personal hero because he kept on being interested in “new ideas” right up until the very end of his life, last July 26, 2009, when only a couple of months after his 90 birthday, he died peacefully in his sleep. What an amazingly creative and original life he led-and what an inspiration he has been to me and countless other dancers, choreographers, and other artists, scientists and idea-lovers!
Merce is a lot older in this film than any of my students are used to thinking of when they think of famous “dancers” and “choreographers”, which is a good thing, because the sooner they understand how inappropriate and unfair age bias can be, the better, as technology will probably lengthen their life spans far past mine and their parents!
I especially like how this short video clip about Merce and his work challenges students’ preconceived ideas in many areas; it could be used as an appropriate introduction to various lessons in other subject areas besides Dance, such as Music, Visual Art, Art History, Modern American History, Comparative or Eastern Religions, Technical Theater, Video Production, Computer classes, as well as in Math and Science.
Sound of Music in a Train Station? You have to see this to believe it! My students who ride take rapid transit to school all think it would be so much fun to do this-and they’re right, it would be-if someone else besides me could work out all the logistics, permissions, and pay for all the security we’d have to hire to do this in Atlanta-but it’s impossible to watch this whole video without smiling!
Bookmark it to use the next time you’re in a bad mood, or want something you’re working on to go especially well-(a speaker at our school just a couple of years ago told us that scientists at Harvard helped her prove that when you smile for one continuous minute -even if it’s a “fake smile”-you flood your brain with “feel-good” endorphins-enough of them to relax your body, and change your mood into a more positive and hopeful one, and smailing for one minute helps students do as well on their tests as students who have had extra tutoring-well, that’s what we were told-try it)!
For families on a budget, with children who’d have trouble sustaining their attention all the way through a 2 hour dance concert, You Tube videos of professional classical dance, contemporary dance, musical theater, and modern dance companies are perfect!
On my school wiki right now are two clips of excerpts of “Swan Lake”-one is the “Dance of the Little Swans”-which is a great example of teamwork and precision, illustrating a “traveling group shape”, and the ballet step, “pas de chat” (among others), and the other video features the late great dancer, Rudolf Nureyev, partnering “Miss Piggy”-which even the more “socially sophisticated” students among my 1st and 2nd Grade dancers think is hilarious.
Parents who are culturally astute typically schedule an annual family outing to see one of the many “Nutcracker”s in Atlanta, but it seems very few of my primary age dancers get to see any other story ballets-much less any “real” modern dance, though a few years ago, we did get to take our entire Primary School, (when it was much smaller), to an Alvin Ailey school show at the “Fabulous Fox Theater”-you can see the Ailey Company on You Tube too.
You can see performances by almost every great artist or dance company if you just enter their name in the Search Box on You Tube-or enter the name of the dance you want to see, i.e. “Coppelia”, NYC Ballet’s Nutcracker, Mark Morris, Baryshnikov, “Revelations”, Paul Taylor, “Esplanade”, Merce Cunningham-you can even search for dances that are in some movies or musicals like “Centerstage”, “A Chorus Line”, etc.
Thinking of kids’ reactions to professional dance:
It’s amazing for me to see how many of my active 3rd grader dancers who were only in Kindergarten or First Grade when they saw that Ailey performance we took them to way back when, will stop improvising to stand listening intently, with a far away look on their faces, if I suddenly put on music from “Revelations”. They get all excited when I tell them where they’ve heard it before-like they’re remembering something from a long-ago dream and they have to tell me all about what they remember too! Most of them immediately recognize photos or movie clips from “Revelations”-a piece that the vast majority only saw that one time-despite the fact that the Ailey company comes to Atlanta almost every winter. I do have to say though, that when I put on my wiki the dates and times and locations of professional dance companies, along with a link to the Box Office, many more of my students’ parents see that info and act on it! Which just goes to show the power of web2.0!
One of the clips I selected to use in my classes is always especially popular with my 3rd Grade Dancers-who are captivated by the whole idea of props, and who love light effects like “black light”. Tensile Involvement, was originally choreographed in the mid-50’s by the late choreographer, Alwin Nikolais, but looks extremely contemporary.
I can’t imagine what people thought in the 50’s when “Tensile Involvement” was first presented, but my 3rd grade students said they thought it looked like a strange dream someone might have had about being trapped inside a big machine, or maybe inside a computer, or lost out in cyberspace. This particular video clip shows The Joffrey Ballet performing the piece as the opening of the movie, “The Company”.
You Tube is such a great resource for learning historical dances too: here’s and easy to follow clip of the Ragtime One Step, just one of many educational dance video clips from the Library of Congress.
My students like trying to do the Tarentella by following along with the New York City Ballet Workout video clip on You Tube.
Here’s something I found on Teacher Tube-a site I really don’t like because of all the ads: Dance Video for Pre-K.K. Gr. 1. This video has a catchy little song with the lyrics on the screen so students can learn to sing along to it-and it might be a memorable way to get across the point to young children that dancers usually don’t talk (or make noises and squeal with delight) when they are dancing-they let the music speak for them, along with their body shapes and movements, use of space, weight, force and energy.
There’s nothing like the NY Times Weekender to listen to, watch or read while lazing away the Last Sat Before School Starts-it’s my favorite of everything on my Google Reader-today anyway!
The Guggenheim Turns 50 This is on my top 10 list of places I want to visit-cool building-informative video!
Governor\’s Island-NYC\’s Best Kept Secret I want to go to NYC to visit this beautiful free park right this minute! Maybe watching this video from time to time will inspire me to save for a trip!
The Rockettes My Primary dancers enjoyed watching clips of the Rockettes Christmas show last year, and I think this little video backstage tour will be a wonderful complement-showing the Bus the dancers ride in suspended high up in the fly space, the laundry room-a lot of things my kids would not have even thought about before-I think they’ll be fascinated.
Caleb Burhams-Music Man of Possibilities He sings, he plays all kinds of instruments, he composes-he says he’s not a Renaissance man-he just decided to specialize in Music.” Yes!!!
After the Ballet-”older” (age 27!) ballet dancers, now in college and not studying dance, with professional dance careers already behind them, are shown in this video collaborating and “doing it all” in the Columbia (College) Ballet Collective-making connections to their fellow students and to the larger NY dance community.
Alessandra Ferri -this video clip is too short, but look at her final performance as “Juliet” in “Romeo and Juliet” and see a grown woman transform herself into a young teenager-now, that’s acting!
A Conversation with John Irving- or as close as I’ll ever get to one! He has a new book-goody-I read really fast so I like his long books-not only do they take me far away from my average daily concerns-I don’t have to run back to the book store so quickly.
Hover-”Xover”- Merce Cuningham’s work is visually and aurally arresting, as you can see in this short video clip, but though it’s strangely and beautifully compelling-the weird “music” and soundscape mean this piece won’t be everyone’s idea of dance! All I can say is, I’ve never taken a dance class that was as physically, artistically and intellectually stimulating. If the music bothers you, turn the volume off and listen to the sounds around you while the dance goes on, i.e. in my house right now the fan is blowing, the dog’s toenails are clicking across the hard wood floor, the shower’s going in the next room, and further away, in the distance I can hear the vacuum player. Would Merce approve of these sounds as an alternate “score” for his work? We’ll never know but I know he always and forever was about “new possibilites”, and so the idea lives on…
The Legacy of Merce Cunningham This obituary/tribute is one of the most accessible and concise “explanation” of the Cunningham aesthetic. Merce himself appears on camera and speaks, movingly, about courage.
Balance Training/Ankles Like it or not, it’s Back-to-School time for lazy dance teachers! Better get ready!
Dynamic Stretching Static (non-moving) stretches don’t make sense for Warm-Up; this video shows dynamic stretches that are useful for tennis, golf and dance too!
Strengthen Your Core! Do you even know where your Core is? Check out this video which includes exercises.
Universal Design/book building site I need to get busy with this! Let me know if you are a Constructivist who loves/lives the whole concept of UDL like I do!
Workplace Bullies -This is what schoolyard bullies and “mean girls” become when they grow up-it can be your boss, a department head, a co-worker; more often than not, the Bully is a woman-one who uses her position to pick on another woman that she feels threatened by in some way-usually one who performs very well in the workplace. What can victims do besides get depressed, or quit? Not much, but it’s a growing problem-one that several states now see as a civil rights issue. Are you left out of important meetings and marginalized in other ways? Are you the recipient of rolling eyes and disparaging remarks meant to undercut whatever it is you are trying to say? Are your efforts at work subtly, or overtly, sabotaged? I think this video may be enlightening-too bad it’s not “required viewing”! I think people should document this kind of thing if it happens to them-and not let anyone tell them it’s just their imagination-or that they’re overreacting-but what you do with the documentation…I’m not exactly sure!
The videos and articles detailed above are what I’ve been watching and reading lately via Google Reader; some of these videos might be useful to share with my classes-and other teachers in Performing Arts and other areas might find them useful too–though others are just things I’m interested in personally that I might want to come back to look at later; it occurred to me that putting links to them right here in this blogpost might help me find them more quickly–we’ll see!
I do want to share some of these videos and articles with friends and fellow teachers who love the arts, or who like books, who exercise-(or need to, like I do after a summer “off”).
Those friends also include some new friends I’m beginning to make through this Blog. Though I don’t know everyone’s name who reads this regularly, I do want to say:
Hi, Liz, Vonetta, Sherill, Mollie and kat. Let me know how school’s going once you get back and into the swing of things!
Feel free to scroll down and turn off the “Chorus Line” music!
Merce Cunningham died Sunday, July 26, 2009 at age 90. Gone! The man who partnered my very first modern dance teacher, Catherine Kerr-whose influence continues to impact my own dance vocation every single day, here in the tiniest (but truest) corner of the known dance world. I can’t sleep. Does anyone else here in Atlanta, Georgia even realize what’s happened?
Merce has been on my mind all summer-not only did he represent Dance to me, He was all about web 2.0 before there was an internet! Here’s proof of how far ahead of his time he was.I just wanted him to hang on so badly- I’ve been planning this summer how I might do a video podcast on “chance operations” with my Primary School dance students-God, he would have loved to see that! and a Dance for the Camera, (Primary style too, of course)! Along with the usual contingency of girls, I actually have some very athletic and imaginative boys in my grade 1, 2 and 3 classes-Merce and the Company would have gotten such a kick out of seeing them in action! “The saddest words of tongue or pen are these: It might have been!”
Only 10 days ago, Merce was still out and about-I know this! I know he attended a dinner party where he had to autograph a book for someone, and a staffer volunteered to try to get his autograph on a Company poster that my husband wanted to give me for my birthday. I was horrifyingly embarrassed and deeply touched that my husband would think to ask such a thing!
Of course, Merce refused-I’m sure he didn’t remember me anyway. The staffer wrote my husband something to the effect that, “You have to understand, he’s really old now-cranky and crotchety because he’s not feeling all that well.” Ha! Merce could be cranky and crotchety-or at the least, taciturn, aloof- (”sphinx-like” is one word that springs to mind)!
That my husband even allowed the staffer to attempt such a thing was testament to the fact that my husband’s never danced himself-it was horrifyingly embarrassing to me, and yet extremely touching too, of course-that my husband thinks enough of me and my little accomplishments to even ask for such a favor.
You see, I had an autograph-but it “disappeared” from my desk in the private office I shared with another former “Cunningham dancer-wannabe” at the dance studio we co-owned for 18 years. It’s ok-I have a picture from way back then: Merce and me- with him autographing a list of movement words he’d scribbled on a sheet of legal paper and taped to the mirror in our dance studio while conducting an improvisation class. It was the most thrilling day for me, but I can”t write about that now. I have to grieve my loss and the world’s loss.
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