Dance about Anything

Dance About Anything helps K-12 teachers learn the creative process for developing movement and dance around a theme--and how to integrate dance with other subjects. The book follows a logical progression of movement activities, increasing in complexity from inspiration and dance design to exhibition of the integrated project. It provides all the materials for teachers to facilitate the creative and critical-thinking skills related to planning integrated projects:

-Students explore the dance-making process through seven easy-to-follow tasks that take them from inspiration and choosing a theme to solving movement problems and making movement phrases, culminating with work that involves dance design, revisions, and performance.

-Students integrate dance with other subject areas such as science, math, social studies, visual arts, theater, language arts, and music.

-Students work through integrated projects involving multiple subjects around a common theme. They learn how to transfer the work habits and strategies they learn through dance making to their work in other subjects, and then they showcase their work.

Dance About Anything is organized into four parts. Part I outlines the creative process of choosing a theme for a dance and explains how movement phrases can be developed from almost any inspiration. Part II lays out the remaining tasks and steps on the path to exhibition.

Part III shows how to develop and implement integrated projects. It discusses practical concerns about who, what, how, when, and where and provides a step-by-step guide for project completion. Part IV details three ready-to-use integrated projects with themes (weather, community, and prejudice and human rights). These are semester-length projects and can be used in advocating for awareness of the value of dance, connecting with other subjects, and getting students to work together on a unifying theme.

The included CD-ROM provides more than 65 reproducible forms that fuel students' creativity and aid teachers in assessment. Among the forms are 8 Inspiration Activity Cards and 8 Dance Designing Activity Cards that cover a variety of themes, including those of the three complete projects provided in the book. The book includes ideas for written and oral assessment of students' progress, and the CD-ROM provides teachers with assessment forms for doing so. In addition, a template of integrated projects is included that gives readers an opportunity to create their own integrated projects, such as those found in part IV of the book.

Dance About Anything provides the information and guidance that teachers and students need in order to become dance architects, designing and building dances and integrated projects from start to finish.