The ArtsDance

Learning in Dance involves students exploring elements, skills and processes through the integrated practices of choreography, performance and appreciation. The body is the instrument of expression and uses combinations of the elements of dance (space, time, dynamics and relationships) to communicate and express meaning through expressive and purposeful movement.

Making in Dance involves improvising, choreographing, comparing and contrasting, refining, interpreting, practising, rehearsing and performing.

Responding in Dance involves students appreciating their own and others’ dance works by viewing, describing, reflecting on, analysing, appreciating and evaluating.

In both strands, students engage with the elements of dance by learning the processes of choreography, performance and appreciation. They also learn to use safe dance practices. With an understanding of the body’s capabilities applied to their own body, students develop kinaesthetic intelligence, critical thinking and awareness of how the body moves in dance. The elements of dance work together and underpin all dance activity as students learn to make dance using their developing movement vocabulary with the body. With increasing experience of making and responding, students develop analytical skills and aesthetic understanding. They engage with different types of dance and examine dance from diverse viewpoints to build their knowledge and understanding. Dance skills, techniques and processes are developed through students’ engagement with dance practices that use the body and movement as the materials of dance with, in later bands, the addition of production components.