A DANCE OUTING
A DANCE OUTING
First of all, welcome to Bouge de là! Thank you for visiting our site. You are the instigators and point of contact for the dance performance your students will see, and we feel it is extremely important to offer you our support.
At Bouge de là we believe that attending a dance show with children is a stimulating and enriching activity. We feel that a bit of in-class preparation beforehand will greatly increase the pleasure of the performance for the students (and for you!) once they are in the theatre. The return to class after the outing is an opportunity to allow them to give their impressions and opinions about what they saw, thereby reinforcing the dance experience.
In an ideal world we would like to be able to personally accompany each group in discovering, exploring and discussing dance and choreography, but for the moment we will simply present a few ideas worth pursuing so that you and your students can better appreciate the dance outing. We realize that you put your heart and soul into such activities with your students, and we thank you for your interest and commitment.
We are including in this section–and in the teaching guide that accompanies each Bouge de là show–a few tools that will help you better understand and prepare for a dance performance, thereby facilitating your work with the children before and after seeing the show.
Enjoy both the preparation and the discovery!
ABOUT OUR SHOWS
ABOUT OUR SHOWS
She closely observes how children perceive reality and all the manifestations of their imaginations, as well as their concerns and their needs. While giving free rein to her own creativity, the choreographer remains attentive to the cognitive development of her young audience. Dance remains the driving force of her artistry, and she puts it to effective use with short dance sequences rich in contrasting atmospheres and rhythms.
Our shows combine various artistic disciplines (theatre, visual art, live video, shadow theatre) in a blend of story elements and situations that children recognize and can identify with. The aim of our creative approach is to capture the child’s attention and thus allow him or her to open up to the dance experience on offer.
Bouge de là shows are designed to stimulate a response from the young audience. The only word that is not part of our vocabulary–and one to be avoided during our presentations–is sshh!
WHAT IS DANCE?
Dance also means:
- taking delight in body movement
- inventing our own personal movements
- discovering new ways of thinking, imagining and creating
- expressing images, states of being and feelings with the body
Dance has many benefits:
- reduces stress, for a body in rhythmic motion helps clear the mind
- develops kinetic, spatial and musical intelligence
- increases concentration
- improves posture, musculature, coordination and endurance
- raises self-esteem
- strengthens the individual in his or her basic nature and well-being
* Excerpt from the book La danse pour tous les enfants à l’école, by Marie-France Bonnard (Éditions Retz, collection Pédagogie pratique).
WHAT IS CONTEMPORARY DANCE?
TALKING ABOUT DANCE WITH CHILDREN
QUESTIONS FOR THE CLASS
- How would you describe dance?
- Do you dance at home?When do you dance?
- Who do you dance with?
- Do you make up dance shows with your friends, or with your brothers and sisters?
- What do you like about dance?
- Do you know different styles of dance? What style do you prefer?
BEFORE THE SHOW
BEFORE THE SHOW
Talking about dance with the class before the show is also an opportunity to make use of the teaching guide for the dance piece being presented. The guide is an official presentation of the show you will be attending, and also one of many ways of explaining the piece to the students. It includes certain dance vocabulary words, as well as an interview with the choreographer where she describes her creative process. Each guide also proposes activities to be done in class, both before and after the outing. These activities are related to dance or to the theme of the piece. Also included is a bibliography of books used by the choreographer in her research, which can be helpful in further discussion of the themes of the piece.
You are of course free to use these teaching guides as you see fit. The guide is a tool that can help the class prepare for the outing, but by no means a mandatory prerequisite!
AFTER THE SHOW
AFTER THE SHOW
Questions to ask the class:
- What was their favourite moment or scene?
- What sort of feelings did the show generate?
- What did they understand about the piece?
- How did they interpret it?
- Do they remember specific dance sequences and if so, which ones?
- What would they have done differently?
Some of the activities in the guide are to be done after the dance outing. We urge you to explore them with your students and thus enrich the overall dance experience.
Nothing would make us happier than to receive comments from your students about the dance show, to discover how they responded to the performance and to the activities (drawings, telling stories through dance, etc.). You can contact us:
Complementary workshops
Workshops
To complete your student’s experience, Bouge de là offers dance workshops in the classroom that focus on the underlying themes of the dance piece they will be seeing. It is a way of introducing youngsters to the art form by means of improvisation and creative dance exercises.
The choreographer or one of the performers can conduct a creative dance session to prepare the students before the show, or to enjoy the experience of dance themselves in a post-show workshop. The objective is to raise their awareness and appreciation of dance.
Bouge de là is listed in the Répertoire culture-éducation (Culture-Education Directory). La culture à l’école program offers support to schools interested in hosting our creative dance workshops.
Workshops are held face-to-face, but can also be offered virtually via Zoom or Teams! Contact us for further assistance.
GLITCH
2022
