Calypso is a practical tool for teachers and dance mediators who want to bring dance projects to schools. Calypso makes materials for dance lessons available and gives tips for everyday practice in schools. Calypso also inspires practitioners to find their own ways to approach the topic and develop their own mediation styles and creative working methods.
Co-operating, getting interested, getting to know one another, tackling topics, reflecting, choreographing, wrapping up – Calypso revolves around these seven objectives and provides materials for pursuing and achieving each of them.
These objectives serve as orientation for developing the schedule for a project, though they are intended to work as an open structure. For, as we know, creative processes often do not unfold in a linear fashion, methodological approaches can vary widely and collaboration with school students requires large amounts of situational and individual action.
A click on this icon on the top right-hand side of the menu will take you directly to the seven objectives.
In Calypso, you will find numerous videos, audio tracks and image galleries. The open Creative Commons license CC-BY-SA allows you to transform and distribute the materials without restrictions as long as you credit the original source.
In order to make potential subject matter related to dance in schools easy to grasp, Calypso features six focus areas.
Each individual focus area concentrates on one perspective, from which a selected topic is considered. With the materials and methodological suggestions contained within, a whole range of assignments can be created for lessons using the focus areas, which can also be combined with one another.
Surveys and conversation guidelines are present throughout the entire process of a project. The questions and suggestions featured here sharpen awareness for one’s own actions and feelings and provide a framework for constructive feedback.
Here are just a couple of examples:
This conversation guideline helps dance mediators and teachers to shape the content of the first meeting.
Using this conversation guideline, dance mediators and teachers can share their feelings about the development of the project to date when at or near the halfway point of the project.
With this survey, students, dance mediators and teachers are all given the opportunity to summarise their final impressions of the project.
The Calypso card sets assist in the shared search for subject matter for the dance project and show game-based options for treating topics through dance.
They also work well for getting to know one another, they make the steps on the path to creating your choreography transparent and they involve all participants in the creative process.
In this game, each player is tasked with choosing a term that interests them thematically from the set of cards and coming up with associative questions related to the term. After a period of individual reflection, all players share their respective questions with the group and discuss them.
The choreographic travel cards accompany you and the class on the path to creating your collaborative choreography. All participants play an active role in shaping the piece, from the first idea to the world premiere.
These 15 portraits of famous choreographers give readers an excellent introduction to their lives and work. Extensive descriptions provide fascinating insight into their working methods.
These videos show what is important for a choreography and demonstrate the wide range of presentation options available, from a traditional stage performance to performances in public space.
How do we get students excited about contemporary dance and help them to relate more deeply with the topic? Calypso presents approaches for different age groups and gives tips for films, comic books and video games that create connections to the potentially familiar and help to break the ice.
Here you can find everything you need to access materials and tips quickly, including an extensive collection of music.
Are you looking for a certain kind of music for your project? This extensive collection of music pieces will inspire you and give you ideas for searching on your own outside the collection too.
Do you have to be online to use all of this? Nope: all the materials that you need for your project are available as PDF documents. That means that you can put together your own project documentation and take it along with you to your dance lessons.
What to do when things get a little heated? Calypso gives you tips for tricky situations, as they sometimes arise in the everyday teaching world, as well as a number of valuable suggestions on the topic of contemporary dance.
So that you can find your way around well from the very beginning, we’ll show you here the three most important tools:
With the main menu on the top right, you can keep an overview of all objectives and materials at all times.
For every piece of material, you can find instructions and supplementary information on the left edge of the image.
In certain places, we’ve given you tips regarding the materials in question.
Calypso is a practical tool for teachers and dance mediators who want to bring dance projects to schools. Calypso makes materials for dance lessons available and gives tips for everyday practice in schools. Calypso also inspires practitioners to find their own ways to approach the topic and develop their own mediation styles and creative working methods.
Within Calypso’s seven objectives, you will find materials – such as games, surveys and conversation. The open license CC-BY-SA allows you to edit and distribute all materials without naming the author.
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