Series

Week 13: Designing the Dance Performance Season

4 Min Read  •  Arts Appreciation

The Art of Curriculum Design.

     As we enter week 13, we hit the 2/3rd mark of our six month series, where we have explored the why and how of curriculum design, via an Arts Appreciation course created through arts collaboration.

During the current portion of the series, we are looking at weekly objectives, outcomes, and assessments designed for the Arts Appreciation course. Links to the entire series can be found below. The full curriculum including daily lesson plans, handouts, and assessments will be available at the culmination of the series.

Remember:
When Planning Like an Artist, everything is designed with the end performance in mind. So, as the course was designed, we remained focused on the aim of this course and the final assessment/performance task; how the students are going to demonstrate the aim.
Aim: After this course it is our hope that students are able to articulate an appreciation of all art forms while defending artistic preferences.
Final Assessment/Performance Task: Students will design an arts company, and create a performance season utilizing a common theme based on their personal artistic preference. They will then present their performance season to a board, in the form of a proposal, for funding as a way to articulate an appreciation of all art forms.

In the current portion of the Arts Appreciation course, we take an in-depth look at the Dance unit. Throughout this unit, students will continue to develop their final project, which is a theme-based performance season for their arts organization.

Week 13: Designing the Dance Performance Season
Objectives:
At the culmination of week 13, students will be able to:

  • Articulate comprehensive reviews of dance and movement performances
  • Determine official theme for their performance season
  • Defend dance choices for their performance season
  • Connect dance choices with their class definition of art
  • Design an artist statement for the pieces they have included in their performance season

Week 13: Designing the Dance Performance Season
Outcomes:
At the culmination of week 13, students will demonstrate:

  • Clear understanding of artist intent for each dance piece chosen
  • How the artist intent fits their personal definition of art
  • How the artist intent connects to the theme of their performance season

Week 13: Designing the Dance Performance Season
Assessments:
At the culmination of week 13, students will be evaluated on:

  • Descriptive artistic statement for the dance portion of their performance season
  • Defense of the chosen pieces and how they fit the performance season theme
  • Defense of how the chosen pieces fit their arts organization brand
  • Advertisement for the dance pieces
  • Gallery walk responses to colleagues dance performance season advertisements

Series Recap

The first few weeks were devoted to the how and why of the curriculum design process.
The Art of Curriculum Design
The Art of Curriculum Design: The “Why”
The Art of Curriculum Design: The “How”

We then took a look at applying the Plan Like an Artist method of Curriculum Design to create a secondary level Arts Appreciation course.
Arts Appreciation: Planned Like an Artist

Arts Appreciation Weeks 1-5
The first 5 weeks of the Arts Appreciation course provided the foundational information for students to participate in viewing and discussing art in preparation for building their own arts organization. Week one built a class definition of art, the second week focused on applying the class definition to artistic work, and the third week helped students to identify artist intent. Students should able to identify the intent, defend the intent, and determine the effect of artist intent on the emotional landscape of the art as viewed by an audience, and as viewed through the lens of the class definition of art. Through viewing controversial art, students continue to defend what they believe art “is” and “is not,” and acknowledge the emotion behind the art, as well as identify the artist’s intent. By taking a look at a theme, students will conclude the fourth week with the foundational information they need to actively view art. The ability to identify the theme behind the art will help students to create their final project. Furthermore, the goal of the fifth week was to start helping students profile their arts advocacy, by brainstorming the ways in which they want to showcase art for their final assessment. This involved composing an artist statement, determining the theme of their performance season, developing their artistic brand, and drafting the mission/vision for their arts organization.

Arts Appreciation Weeks 6-9: Theatre
The Theatre unit was divided into 4 weeks.  The first week introduces Theatre, while the second week looks at understanding theatre through scripts and structure. The third week walks students through how to view and critique Theatre, and the final week of the Theatre unit helps students design their Theatre portion of the performance season for their arts organization.

Arts Appreciation Weeks 10-13: Dance
The Dance unit was also divided into 4 weeks.  The first week introduces students to dance as art, the second week takes a look at the history and foundation of the oldest forms of dance, Ballet and Modern.  Then, the third week takes a look at the more contemporary forms of Jazz and Hip Hop.  Finally, the week listed above guides students to bring all of their dance knowledge together to determine what they will include in their performance season for their arts organization.

Next Week: Week 14 Introduction to Music
Week 14 of the Arts Appreciation course, including lesson plan objectives, outcomes, and assessments.

***To help encourage students to think more independently about the elements of dance, check out our printable Arts Integration Student Placemat:

https://artsintegration.com/2018/01/01/arts-integration-student-placemats/