Arts for Hope Bogota: Dance Class

Follow Your Dream

By Joy Clark

Introduction:
This project was designed to equip students with a tool box of dance techniques. Students were taught the basic foot and hand positions associated with Jazz, and Ballet, and were also engaged in a critical thinking exercise, using the metaphor “Keep your eye on the dream,” which allowed them to identify their dream, through a dream dance activity, focus on their dream through a technique called spotting, and visualize their dream through the movement they created, that represented the individual skills they would need to attain in order to achieve their goal.

The class climbed the hill each day

The class was held in a private home

Dance positions were attached to the wall for class study

Location: Barrio Salitre Alto, Suba, Bogota Colombia

Age: 7-9

Gender: Mixed ( Girls and Boys)

Theme: Social Fabric

Goals: To foster resilience and hope

Class Goals:

Show increased improvement in Social skills.
Show increased improvement in the area of Artistic skill. (Ballet positions 1-5 and Jazz hands positions 1-6).
Articulate a Clear Vision for the Future.

Method for assessing learning:

Pre test observation- At the start of the camp, the boys did not want to participate at all.

Emotion faces were used to assess what the student’s thoughts were about dance, initially. Notice the boys are standing near the sad face which indicated a low level of interest.

Post test with images (faces) and video were used as a post test method to assess what the student’s thoughts where about dance, after having participated in four days of camp. The video shows evidence of increased social skills, by working together to learn the movements to a particular sequence in the dance performance. The faces show a difference in student’s interest in dance.

Dream Dance:

Students reflected on the question, what is your long term dream? They cut out images from the newspaper that reflected their long term dream, to later paste on a dream board.

From the dream collages created, students had to demonstrate a movement that represented their dream. (ex: singing into a microphone)

Next, students where asked, what do you think you need to do to reach/achieve your dream? They had to think of three things, and show the class three movements to represent the three things they would need to do to achieve their dream.

Students took those three movements and put them together to create a dream dance, and then they added their expression of achievement at the end.

Lastly, students put their four movements together, to create their own dream dance. The students then taught their dream dance to the rest of the class.

This method allowed the students to engage in critical thinking, but also helped them to think of their dream, visualize their dream, process the skills needed to achieve their dream, and then perform their dream. Every dream takes hard work to achieve. Just as dancers rehearse and perfect their skills to create beautiful dances. Lesson: We must work hard to make our dreams a beautiful reality.

Results:

Quantitative:

100% of students: showed increased improvement in Social skills, assessed through a visual observation of student’s ability to perform/dance together as a group.

Ninety (90%) of students: showed increased improvement in the area of Artistic skill, (ballet positions 1-5 and jazz hands positions 1-6) assessed through post-test visual observation.

One hundred per cent (100%) of students: were able to articulate a Clear Vision for the Future, evident through the creation of a “Dream Board” and “Dream Dance” which each student successfully illustrated three skills need to achieve ones dream, through dance.

Qualitative:

In addition to the results listed above, there was an significant improvement in all of the male participants. On day one, the male students did not want to participate. As the photographic evidence proved, the males stood against the wall, and had to be engaged in a basic movement assessment of musical chairs, just to give me a chance to develop a plan to engage them moving forward in the camp.

Significance of the results:

There was also a significant improvement in one of my most difficult students. At day one, he was not willing to socialize with the other students, let alone participate in the group performance, due to possible developmental issues and or abuse. He did not show active participation in the opening ritual of each class, nor did he smile during the beginning of the camp. As the class progressed
he not only began showing up early for class, (for the last 4 days) but he also participated in the opening ritual on the final day of camp. He performed the closing dance with the group, and smiled every time the music came on. Unlike some of the other students, his parents did not attend the closing performance, but he at the hugged and smiled at the leader. This small demonstration was an indicator a positive change in attitude.