Dance and Social Studies

This activity integrates Social Studies into Art, more specifically integrating a global issue into dance.
Read the book If Kids Ran the World as a minds on, afterwards, students would brainstorm various global issues that we hear about in the news. Some issues that we talked about were deforestation, poverty, Trump as president, war, and global warming. Then, we got into groups and chose one of the issues to interpret into a dance.

The strategies that we had to use were:

Cat and mouse technique: Partner A will begin by performing a movement series while Partner B remains frozen. When A is finished, she/he will freeze; this is B's silent cue to begin her/his series. The communication continues back and forth until the 'conversation' is complete/ Remind students that they are not playing charades, but rather, communicating through movement.

ABA: The ABA form is derived from a musical form and has two sections, A and B, followed by an ending A section. In the first part, a series of movement phrases, or theme A, is stated and manipulated. Part B then presents a contrasting theme, and in the final section there is a return to theme A with a twist.

For the cat and mouse technique, we were in pairs, instead of alone. One pair started the theme A and then froze, then the second pair would complete theme B then freeze. Finally the first pair finished with theme A.  We also used scarves to create a visual effect.


As you can see, in the video we chose to interpret deforestation. We chose green and blue scarves for theme A to represent the forest and the sky/water, which has a more graceful tone. Theme B is much harsher because it represents cutting down trees and death, which is also why we chose to use black scarves.

This lesson was designed for grade 6 and addressed the Overall Expectation: People and environments: Canada's interactions with the global community, but it can be adapted to be used for a different grade and/or topic. This was a good activity to address a difficult subject, because global issues can be a sensitive topic. Addressing it through dance can really get students to express their feelings and opinions on the matters in a safe place.