Units of Study / ARTS ACHIEVE DANCE UNIT: ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Tales in Motion

ADAPTATIONS OF CINDERELLA AND BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

UNIT SUMMARY | STANDARDS | RESOURCES | OUTCOMES

LESSONS 1-3 | LESSONS 4-7 | LESSONS 8-12

Lessons 4-7

To explore movement qualities, the facilitator introduced eight Laban effort actions through imagery and guided improvisation: thrust, press, flick, glide, tap, wring, slash, float.

Then the facilitator led students through an imaginary landscapes in “The Dream,” a fantasy narrative movement exploration, utilizing the eight effort actions in different scenarios. As ‘movement detectives’, students then identified the effort actions in the context of a narrative.

After describing the pure actions, the class discussed the connections between movement qualities and emotions. For example, thrust corresponded to angry and aggressive feelings. Then students brainstormed links amongst characters, movements, and emotions. Characters were now connected to spatial relationships as well as the expressive capacities of movement qualities.