Take a calm look at the material that you have already gathered in the dance project and try to develop focal points from it.
Incorporate your observations of the class and the individual students from the getting-to-know-you phase (Class Scan and Everything is Dance Game game) and recall to mind the initial artistic expectation that you recorded in the self-survey at the beginning of the project.
School represents a special framework for a choreography. How do we define quality when working with students, what opportunities does such work offer, what can we ideally achieve in the end? Choreographing a dance project in a school contains the possibility to examine the highly specific social fabric present in a class and to approach it from an artistic perspective. Pedagogy and art are fused into something new here, in which the students also perceive themselves anew. Our video examples and quality criteria illustrate what constitutes quality when dealing with dance in schools.
Students, teachers and parents should be able to relate to the piece. Therefore, the challenge is to find a presentation format suitable for the group which can subsequently also be understood by individuals who have had little exposure to contemporary dance before.
In a choreography, the students place themselves in relation to one another. How do their relationships become visible? Are they physical, verbal or are they perhaps reinforced by looks they direct or exchange?
The students experience themselves in a role in which – in the spirit of empowerment – they can become active creators and make things happen themselves. They take part in the creative process while cultivating self-confidence and responsibility for their actions and decisions. For this to work, dance mediators have to transfer responsibility to them. The students’ limitations can serve as inspiration for the choreography.
In dancing, the individual students become visible, with their individual qualities and that which moves them. Is there enough space for your creative will? And is the artistic approach of the dance mediator(s) also visible?