Teacher's guide to In My Heart, I Am a Dancer
by Debora Kodish and Deborah Wei
Part Three: Lesson 6 (K-4): Gotta dance!
Objectives: To help students develop an understanding of nonverbal means of storytelling.
Procedure
Give students the handouts: the reading about Cambodian hand motions and dance poses. Ask them to try and make the movements with their hands.
Break students into groups of four or five. Tell them each student team will develop a short, three-minute dance piece which incorporates the use of prescribed motions which they invent and describe. In paralleling the elements of Cambodian traditional dance, the piece should tell a story and each motion should be assigned a meaning.
Student teams will present their dance piece to an audience of their classmates. Presentations should meet the following criteria:
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Students develop a series of stretching exercises which enhance flexibility required for the specific movements in their own piece.
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Students identify the motions they will be using and the significance of each motion.
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Students have a story line for their dance.
All team members must be actively involved in the presentation.
Final optional activity: Students may choose to design costumes and or masks for their dance piece. The costume designs do not actually need to be made - they can be simply drawings for each of the characters.
