[An approach to teaching composition in dance – A resource for Stage 4 and 5 dance]

[Inspiring music plays, students dancing]

Evie Morris

Hi. I'm Evie Morris. I'm a contemporary dancer and choreographer, but I'm also a teacher. I have my Masters of Arts in Education, and I work a lot in the school system with the Arts Unit and the Department of Education, coming into schools and working on various things and with students of lots of different ages. But specifically, in composition, what I really enjoy doing is seeing the creative development in students.

My approach coming from an industry perspective but also an education perspective, I really want to make sure that in composition classes I'm developing student agency and their creative minds as the forefront and the focus of my work.

[Warm-up in composition]

[Evie speaking to students and leads through dance movements]

Starting with the hands and the wrists, take a bend through, both your knees staying in parallel, finding some rolling through the wrists and through the joints. So you're not going too quick at this stage. You're just trying to make some circles with the arms. Maybe you're trying to reach and touch the sides of the room and the ceiling. Try to keep it just in that limb phase at this point, so arms, elbows, shoulders. Good.

[Evie speaking to camera]

When I start composition classes with a warm-up, which is obviously super important not just to get them physically ready and get students really in their bodies, I do want to make sure that they're starting to focus in mentally on the approaches of the day.

[Evie speaking to students]

Taking a nice deep breath in through the nose, filling the lungs, breathing nice and wide into the ribs, and then exhale through the mouth. Let it all go. Do that again. Inhaling in through the nose. Exhaling through the mouth. Good.

[Evie speaking to camera]

So I never really start with technique exercises or feeding in too much physical information. It's about them exploring their bodies and the possibilities available to them today. So I'll always start to develop a shared language and oftentimes that is using language around the elements of dance, asking them to explore various levels, lots of different shapes, especially dynamics in their texture. And I personally really love to play with speed and stillness too because I think it's something students often forget about.

[Evie speaking to students]

Good. Can we move our fastest for 10 seconds? Go. 10, 9, 8, 7, lovely, 6, 5, 4, faster, 3, 2. Can we move our slowest? What does that feel like? Minuscule, almost imperceptible.

[Evie speaking to camera]

I really like to ask them to go super quickly. Or what does it feel like to go really slowly? And that helps them to move their bodies in different ways that are super important for them to generate that heat and start to feel really physical, but also understand what is useful to them and what's available to them. The other way I do that is asking them to open themselves up to the room and to the other dancers that are here as well.

[Evie speaking to students]

If you're fast and you're slow, Josh, you have to move down the room as slowly as you can using this kind of textured speed, whatever makes sense to go slowly for you, while you move quickly. That doesn't mean if you're moving fast that you travel further and you leave someone behind. You have to maintain the same space but move at a different tempo. When you're ready. You do have to keep some eyes on each other. Beautiful.

[Music plays]

Nice. Laura, you might have to move a bit faster to show us that we're really going quickly. Good.

[Evie speaking to camera]

Seeing what their relationship building can be and getting them to build that rapport with each other is another really important element, especially at the start of a day. Knowing that I oftentimes will go into group work, letting them have a little bit of a relationship with each other. That is, we've already spoken about consent, and safety, and physical comfort and allowing them to step out if they need to, but also letting them start to feel like they understand each other through this movement without even words yet.

[Evie speaking to students]

Good. Teeny, tiny, micro. Good. Keep eyes on each other if you can the whole time. You'll still be traveling down the room. But what we want to find is this kind of magnetised, negative space around each other.

So we're trying to move but take up the gaps as we go through, as we continue to make our way. So you're trying to stay as close as possible to each other without actually connecting.

[Supporting students in improvisational practice]

[Evie speaking to camera]

I guess when I'm speaking to students at the start of the day and setting up their structure so they kind of understand where they're starting to go a little bit more, it's important for me to set some ground rules with our improvisation as warm-up. So getting them to understand that a stop and start process isn't very fruitful, that as much as possible, they should always be moving through even if I'm giving an additional cue.

[Evie speaking to students]

We're just starting to notice what's happening around us. If you catch eyes with someone and you smile and laugh, that's a wonderful thing. Don't shy away from that. What this can do for us is help us open up our movement possibilities. If you see someone doing something interesting, feel free to mirror or to find some residue of that.

[Evie speaking to camera]

They can keep their attention on me but continue their movement at that time so they're not having to start again each time they re-enter the space. The other thing is is that I do stay with them most of the time, not just in the space, but with constant verbal cues coming in. That's not to say that I don't leave them space and time to explore without my voice coming in and giving them something new to work on.

But the way I like to do it is to give a cue. Maybe it's an imagery cue. One I like to use a lot is getting them to find stillness in a high level and melting down slowly to the floor, becoming a puddle.

Giving them that initial cue, letting them go, but then giving them supporting cues as well. Can you move slower if I feel like they're going too quickly or they just want to get to the floor. Can you isolate a drip? What does it feel like to be a puddle?

And just I think they feel reassured having this voice behind them. It keeps them connected to the work and really engaged. And so they don't really have a chance to wander or get bored, which is very common, and it still happens. But I think they just feel like they have this little safe handhold if I've just got this pretty constant stream of cues assisting them to find new spaces within their movement.

It's really common for students to feel very vulnerable in this space, and especially if they're inexperienced in a creative role or in a composition style class, that comfort level can be quite low, especially when you're asking them to make decisions with their bodies in movement that other people are going to watch. So that's a very difficult position, especially for younger dancers to be in. So, my strategy is to help alleviate some of that pressure is, one, getting them to understand that this is a developmental process. So, this does take time, and your first choices don't have to be your best. It's all about exploration and curiosity. So definitely having that open conversation at the start of any creative process is really important to me.

But also, the group work aspect does give them a feeling of safety in numbers, so not letting anyone kind of go off by themselves, although we do get there. At this early stage, allowing them to work in pairs or threes or larger groups even and start making decisions together means that all the pressure is not on them to do something right. They're allowed to be wrong, and especially if they're with peers who they're more familiar with, that definitely gets easier.

If I see students still feeling uncomfortable and a little bit reserved, the approach I might take at that time is telling the whole room. So I'm not isolating a single student, but getting everyone to do a round robin within their group. So if they're in little groups of three, asking them to go one at a time, everyone makes a movement decision. We take one into the next into the next.

And that doesn't force them in a way, but it just requests any movement, anything at all from them so that they can continue on and know that someone else is taking the reins after that. And even if we do that a few times, we end up with really rich content that they have contributed to and that should help build their confidence.

[Using stimulus to generate movement]

[Evie speaking to students]

OK, everyone, we're going to start to look at some visual stimulus now just to spark some ideas and have a discussion about what thoughts or feelings or objective or subjective responses you have to these. We have three of them, so we'll go through them in order. But anything that comes to mind. We're kind of just brainstorming at this point.

[Evie speaking to camera]

When I'm introducing stimulus to students, so getting them to respond to something, there's a plethora of things that you could go to from audio, and film, anything like that. Visual stimulus is really easy.

Getting students to respond in a group setting, whether you're looking at a range of different stimulus or just one, getting them to brainstorm and write a whole lot of words up on the whiteboard so that they all have something to say, that all their perspectives are really valued, whether it's an objective response to the visual stimulus, like I see the color green or this looks like water. It can be that simple to spark other ideas.

[Speaking with students]

Student

Closed shapes, and like feeling lonely.

Evie Morris

Closed shapes is a great one. What does it make you feel when you look at this kind of sad, closed, curved woman?

Student

She looks like she could be grieving possibly.

Evie Morris

Possibly grieving. That's a good one.

[Evie speaking to camera]

The other prompts I'd like to give is, especially if it's people or animals or nature, how does this make you feel? We're looking for subjective responses too.

Maybe they're going on a journey. Maybe it's the end of a long, hard day. Maybe they feel sad. Maybe students want to go into a backstory and create a story around the image.

[Speaking with students]

Student

Maybe it could like represent the stages of something like maybe grief. So like, you start as all colorful and full of life. And then you slowly turn into more dull.

Evie Morris

All those things are really fruitful places to start. We know that words can often lead to many, many other words and ideas as we go, and that's a huge part of the process, not just stopping at the point of mimicking the visual stimulus, but allowing students to have their own ideas beyond that seed, beyond that starting point.

So definitely the group brainstorm is a nice place to start and then asking students to choose the words or the ideas that they're most curious about. Again, it's about agency for them, going, I really like this part of the concept or this part of the visual stimulus. So that's what I'm going to explore in my body.

I do like to, after that brainstorm, lead them into another improvisation and just get them to explore in their bodies with a bit more focus and nuance on single ideas or maybe 3 or 4 words from what we've written up on the board just so they can start to understand what their natural response physically is to those ideas. And from that, we can start to develop our motifs and select a few shapes or textures or timing, things that help to communicate what they're thinking a little bit more.

[Evie speaking to students. 'Developing motif using the elements of dance' appears.]

[Developing motif using the elements of dance]

Okay, so show us motif 1.

[Students demonstrate a dance move. Text appears: 'NESA definition of motif: A thematic device. A distinctive, recognisable movement or pattern of movements that introduces and develops the idea andi ntent in a dance phrase and work'.]

Beautiful. And motif 2.

[Pause as students demonstrate a second movement.]

Good. Great. And motif 3.

[Pause as students demonstrate a third movement.]

Wonderful. Thank you. Really good. Really, really good.

[Evie speaking to camera]

Once students have started generating movement related to their ideas from the stimulus, they can start to explore how to more intentionally use the elements of dance to manipulate motifs to create and structure longer movement phrases.

Giving students specific tasks or prompts can be useful to help to guide their generation of movement. For example, looking at one element of dance at a time or selecting particular components to experiment with through scaffolded tasks. In this lesson, students are exploring how they can collaborate with more than one dancer to communicate ideas that resonated with them from the visual stimulus.

[Evie speaking to students]

So you've been working on manipulating your motifs and extending them into your phrase work a little bit, so selecting some ideas and varying using the elements of dance. We really want to see that progress now. So we'll just get you to talk forward but to the class about the idea that you were exploring, how you're communicating that idea using some choices in your movement, and how you are kind of manipulating your motif.

And then also I came around and gave you some feedback. So just saying what that feedback was and how you applied it and where you applied it. We'll start with group 1. So come on forward.

Student

So we had motif number 1. And we wanted to explore the idea of grief and like the progression of dealing with grief. So some of the words on the board we used were curved shapes and sadness. And Evie advised us to play a bit more with stillness and the timing of some of our movements, as well as manipulating our motifs more to see what other ways we can achieve them.

Evie Morris

Great. I'll take that. All right, when you're ready. Do you want to come forward a little bit more? Yeah.

[Three students perform a short dance routine. Student counts aloud to keep other students in time.]

Evie Morris

Wonderful.

Student

Thank you.

Evie Morris

Well done. Thank you. So you have your two phrases that you've developed based on your motifs. What I need you to do now is in your groups decide on what each of your phrases are starting to say. So we'll still keep them separate. We'll call it phrase A and phrase B. Decide together what is phrase A trying to communicate, and what is phrase B trying to communicate? This will be based on the words that you chose and the stimulus, obviously, what we did prior to this.

So it could be exploring two ideas and a transition between two states, or it might still just be exploring one single idea throughout the whole phrase. There's no right answer to that. But you all as a group need to be clear on what you're trying to say at this stage. Once you've done that, then we can start to vary these phrases more. So what I'll get you to do is work in your trios or in your duet and start to play with the relationship to each other in the space.

[Feedback]

[Evie speaking to students]

So as students start to get more comfortable with the process and as they move further along the creative development line, there's kind of two avenues I can go down in terms of allowing students to give and receive feedback and then also give feedback myself because the teacher input is really important so they still feel supported and like someone is there still leading them a little bit.

So we've opened up a lot of group discussion with each other and allowing students to work in groups kind of innately allows them to start to give and receive feedback to each other and explore other people's ideas and work off that framework. So that is a really nice kind of peer-bonding, relationship-building exercise that's already kind of built into a lot of this creative process.

As a teacher coming forward and giving feedback, knowing that students can still feel very vulnerable about their choices, it's always important for me to come forward and go, hey, team, can I have a look at what you've done, and can I give you some feedback? Is that OK? Knowing that oftentimes they'll go, yeah, OK?

Just I think for them, knowing that it's about to happen makes them feel a little bit safer. So I'll watch what they're doing. And then oftentimes, I'll really only select two things. And the things I select to give them to work on are things that I haven't really seen yet. So knowing the elements of dance, maybe the students have really worked beautifully on their shape and their dynamics, and everything's falling into place there. But their timing is pretty linear and not really going anywhere. So I go, OK, well, there's a lot of potential here for stillness or repetition or speeding some bits up, maybe explore some parts of that in the phrase that could help to elevate the work that you've already created.

It's important that we don't move them on too quickly and ask them to create too much, but going backwards and going, OK, how can we add an extra layer here? Just to make the work a little bit more complex and asking them to rethink some of their initial ideas. So whether it's timing or whether it's levels, just trying to select 1 or 2 things so I'm not bombarding them with information.

And then they go, oh my gosh, nothing was good. Let me change everything. Just seeing how they can reframe and recontextualise what they've got and make those adjustments.

And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. They can go back. But just them even having some spark of an idea of going, well, my teacher has led me down this path, and I think it works here. So let me add it in here, and we'll see where we go from there.

[Evie speaking with students]

Student

It's sort of like trying to say everyone's coming together in the end. So there's a happy ending, and it's being resolved.

Evie Morris

Right. And how are you showing that?

Student

Sorry. We started in like a circle. And we like slowly make our way into each other. And like, at the end, we're still alone, but we've got people around us.

Evie Morris

OK. Are you all doing the same thing at the end?

Student

Yes.

Student

Yeah.

Student

So we're all in unison so we don't have as much stillness or like anything like that to show. Like we're all one big group. And we're all, like, supporting each other.

[Refining intent and movement choices]

Evie Morris

So now you have your phrases that we've started to vary, we're going to continue down that development. But this is a good point for us to stop for a moment and start to solidify our intent a little bit. So your intent is a very clear statement of what you're trying to say in your movement, in your phrases. And if we were going to create an entire work, this would be what you were exploring and what you're trying to communicate to your audiences.

So what I want you to do in your groups is try to figure out or land on one sentence that describes or communicates what you're trying to say. And then I need you to also express even just briefly the choices you're making in the elements of dance, so that's your space, time, and dynamics, and how that supports your intent.

So we're using closed shapes and a heavy texture to help demonstrate these things. We're moving in isolation, all those things you guys have already started speaking about. But defining that a little bit more is going to help us progress into this next part as we make some bigger choices and start to select and refine the movement choices we've made.

[Evie speaking to camera]

As students develop their own movement phrases, it is important to give them opportunities to listen to and give constructive feedback. This allows them to practice articulating their decisions, explaining their choices, and using the language of dance composition in context. Guiding students on ways to give and receive feedback to peers in a kind, constructive, and inquisitive manner is important.

Feedback and focus on how the ideas and intent are being communicated by exploring the use and manipulation of the elements of dance. Using prompts and sentence starters such as what did you notice can be a nice starting point to encourage student responses and discussion. Another prompt can be guiding students to question each other's choices, such as what did this movement mean or with more specific information such as 'why did you choose to increase the tempo towards the end?'.

In composition, students need to make choices and decisions about their own movement. So whilst being open to feedback in different perspectives is important, they ultimately will need to be selective in the way they use that feedback to help them to clarify the communication of their intent.

[Inspirational music plays and students dance expressively to the piece.]

Allowing students time to choose music that helps to reflect and further communicate their intent is important. In this case, I played them three music options and asked the groups to respond instinctually with their phrases.

[Different darker song begins and screen depicts students dancing to the piece.]

They could then choose which best matched their movement and intent and could further refine the phrases to match the tempo and feeling of the music.

[Third piece of music plays as students dance.]

The groups were then asked to develop a transition between phrase A and B to create one long phrase to this piece of music.

[Inspirational music plays as students dance while student speaks to the movements.]

Student

We had stimulus number 1, and our intent was the exploration of the roller coaster of grief and the emotional toll it takes on an individual. So our focus was trying to get the individual to kind of feel overwhelmed with grief.

And we had two motifs in this phrase, number 1, using our hands on our head, which tries to communicate the stress and like the protection the individual feels in terms of grief. And then the second motif we have is using our hands away from our body, which we used when the grief gets to the individual, which kind of takes away a part of their identity or a bit of themselves.

[Students demonstrate their dance.]

Student

So we had stimulus 3, and our intent was trying to contain happiness when sadness is control. So we were really trying to convey someone being sad and someone being happy and just the journey through sadness taking over.

[Students demonstrate their dance as music plays.]

Student

So this is a picture of our stimulus and it's a picture of a journey. And our intent is the feeling of isolation and loneliness before coming together as one.

[Music plays as students demonstrate dance.]

Evie Morris

What I really like to see from students in composition classes is just how much they grow over these creative tasks. And it's a beautiful way to show and have them understand how we can all start from one single point but end up somewhere completely different. And allowing them to develop that agency in their choices and their confidence when making creative decisions, whether that's in a group or by themselves, I think is a really important baseline to establish or something that they can really hold onto and go, I did this, and I started from a very small place and developed something really big.

If they get to work in groups and start to understand each other a little bit more and develop those communication skills alongside their critical thinking and creativity, it's a really nice way to hit all those soft skills in such a wonderful way that they can really grow very far and wide and not just down a technical pathway where there's a correct answer because, there is none here and letting them understand that they can really go anywhere with all of these choices and all of these skills is such a pleasure to see. They really get to find out who they are both in the dance space but also who they are starting to become as people.

[Screen reads 'Thank you to the NSW Public School Arts Unit Dance Ensembles for your contribution to this project.']

[End of transcript]