Building Dances

Book excerpt: Even if you've never taught or choreographed dance before, Building Dances provides all the tools and blueprints you need to create and facilitate dances. This how-to book will help you introduce, develop, and assess the basics of choreography in grades K-12. Building Dances takes you step-by-step through the choreographic process. You'll find sample lesson plans; guidelines for teaching the skills involved; suggestions for organizing movements; ideas for stylizing and individualizing dances; dance construction models for designing dances; age-appropriate adaptations for grades K-3, 4-6, and 7-12; student outcome/assessment forms and sample criteria; summaries and a glossary that explains important dance terms in everyday language. The book is accompanied by a unique deck of 112 Deal-a-Dance cards that provide movement examples students can try out right away. These cards offer 224 teacher-tested and student-appreciated ideas for choreographing dances.