Safe dance practice

Students investigate safe dance practice, developing knowledge, understanding and skill in both theoretical and practical forms.

Students will explore warm up and cool down, stretching, alignment, body awareness, body capabilities and limitations, and the causes, prevention and treatment of injury. Students will explore a PowerPoint presentation, literacy and research tasks and practical workshops within safe dance practice.

Outcomes

Stage 4

4.1.1 demonstrates an understanding of safe dance practice and appropriate dance technique in the performance of combinations, sequences and dances.
4.1.2 demonstrates aspects of the elements of dance in dance performance.
4.1.3 demonstrates an understanding of aspects of performance quality through the performance of locomotor and non-locomotor combinations, sequences and dances.

Stage 5

5.1.1 demonstrates an understanding of safe dance practice and appropriate dance technique with increasing skull and complexity in the performance of combinations, sequences and dances.
5.1.2 demonstrates enhanced dance technique by manipulating aspects of the elements of dance.
5.1.3 demonstrates an understanding and application of aspects of performance quality and interpretation through performance.

Duration

10 weeks.

Driving question

What is the importance of safe dance practice?

Content

Students will explore safe dance practice through appreciation tasks in the Safe dance practice presentation (PPTX 10.42 MB) and coinciding practical tasks based around correct dance technique. The connection of theory to practical work will further engage students, creating deeper understanding within safe dance practice.

Cross-curriculum content and key competencies

Literacy.

Process Diary

Students are to:

document the process through practical classes in a process diary. This should be a journal, exploring reflections of each practical lesson or element within safe dance practice. This can be their class workbooks, a dance process diary, or an online blog through sites such as Class Notebook or Google classroom.
investigate safe dance practice through a literacy lens, embedding discussions, summarising and TEEEC paragraphing in written form. These processes used follow literacy structures, language forms and features, as seen in the DoE text type support document.

Assessment

All activities require students to demonstrate their learning and are all formative assessment activities.

Teaching and learning activities

Students are to work both individually and as a group through discussion-based activities throughout this unit, investigating safe dance practice, in written and practical forms. The Safe dance practice poster (PDF 1.9 MB) can be displayed in your classroom when completing this sequence.

Suggested student learning activities include:

practical workshops throughout the entire sequence, linking the theoretical components to the practical;
practical contemporary classes exploring:
warm up
stretching
strengthening exercises in the centre including core, arms and legs
technique exercises including turning combinations, kicking combinations and jumping combinations
locomotor exercises travelling across the room exploring correct technique
development of contemporary routine throughout lessons, exploring performance quality and the elements of dance
cool down
reflections on practical lessons in process diaries
discussion and literacy strategies around safe dance practice elements;
TEEEC structuring to form sophisticated paragraphing, working with the TEEEC scaffold (PDF 4.3 MB) research and investigate safe dance practice through the activities below.