Dance

The skills that are learned by studying Dance can help develop work and learning skills that are transferrable to other areas of everyday life. Being given the opportunity to create, perform and evaluate dance will significantly increase confidence and build on self-esteem.

Dance encourages you to be more creative and to express yourself in many ways. By encouraging creativity and imagination, you learn to build trust, effective relationships, and how to think critically and creative problem solving will serve you well for life.

When studying dance, you learn how to work as part of a team, develop a greater sense of trust and cooperation, and make new friends. It also improves physical health, dancing is a great form of exercise, it helps increase your flexibility, range of motion, physical strength and stamina. As well as promoting overall health, enhanced development in these areas can help you with sports and other activities at school and beyond.

There are many different career opportunities available in the world of performing arts, not just being a performer but there are many routes available such as choreographer, dance coordinator, dance development officer, movement therapist, dance and disability, events planning, teacher of dance, dance school owner and many more.

At Key Stage 3, students are taught dance on a rota with the other performing arts subjects; drama and music. Each student will do 4 units of dance each year and each unit last for one half term (approx. 6/7 weeks).

• Cartoon Capers – Introduction to Dance
• The Matrix – Choreography
• World Dance – Hip Hop, Capoeira, Bollywood and Line Dance
• Musical Theatre – Matilda

Year 8 units:

• Michael Jackson – Performance Skills
• An Introduction to Contemporary Dance or Parkour – Elements of Dance
• Partner Work – Hand Jive, Charleston and Hip Hop
• Zoonation – studying a professional work

Year 9 units:

• Studying professional works including choreographers such as Matthew Bourne, Zoo Nation, Alvin Ailey, Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham.

In Key Stage 3, students will develop the basic skills that are required to study dance at GCSE. The content of the dance curriculum is based on developing performance, choreography and appreciation skills. At KS3 students will:

• Learn the 5 key dance actions and how they can be used to create movement and expand their dance vocabulary;
• Learn the elements of dance body, action, space, time and energy and understand how to analyse dance;
• Study motif and development to create movement with purpose
• Use a stimulus to create ideas for choreography;
• Perform as a class and in small groups to develop performance skills;
• Use a variety of choreographic devices to help structure the choreography;
• Use a variety of choreographic methods to create a dance piece;
• Learn professional set dances to experience dance styles and techniques
• Develop critical and creative thinking skills;
• Learn about safe working practices and the importance of warming up and cooling down;
• Experience live and recorded dance;
• Begin to develop an appreciation of different dance styles, genres and vocabulary;
• Evaluate their own and others’ work.