I was watching Jimmy Fallon because a) I am up to late and b) it's awesome and he had a lip sync off with Joseph Gordon Levitt and Stephen Merchant (who is a giant).
It was hilarious.
And it got me thinking about kids (and adults) who are afraid to sing. The lip sync off (much like a good old fashioned Air Band contest, Brandon knows what I'm talking about) is a great place for the dramatic kids who may be tentative about their singing talent. It would take some confident kids, but it looks like so much fun and it could meet dance, drama and music PLOs. I also feel that it should be included in our Christmas play. I'm just saying.
When I lived in Saskatoon, I went to "The Big Fat Ass Dance Class" (Big Fat Ass not required, but it helps) for about 3 years. It was an amazing place (with no mirrors) and I loved every minute of it because I could just move to music in a variety of ways. I didn't feel self conscious because everyone there was in the same boat and as nice as it is to dance alone at home (we all do it), dancing with others is amazing (although I was always uncomfortable having to dance touching people, I don't like that).
When I saw this trailer for a new documentary about a dance troupe, some of what they said really resonated with me.
I am not a good dancer, like these teens but it doesn't matter because quality is not really what dance has to be about. Joy in movement can come in many forms.
I spent 5 years planning literary events for two different bookstores (McNally Robinson in Saskatoon and Books and Co here) and I rarely had to confer with anyone other than the author, or sometimes an author representative from publishing house, which made planning easy. But planning events by committee is far more complicated because everyone has an opinion and wants their ideas to be heard and valued.
Based on our discussions in and out of class, planning a school wide event can become very complicated, but the process of planning is a valuable exercise if only because ideas that may not be apparent to the original person who proposes the event are brought forward.
For example, deciding on how the event will be shaped (how many pieces of art per class, where it will be held and when) can be fraught with complications if one party is inflexible and feels their ideas should be given more importance or if someone on the committee is unwilling to change simply because that is the way it has always been done. However, as with anything done by committee, if things are run on a consensus model, where everyone has a chance to put forward ideas, things run more smoothly.
I came across this on Facebook and I thought I should share, especially after our discussion about cultural contexts in class today.
This is such an interesting form of protest and gives us another avenue of discussion about why art is used instead of something else (like a picket line or the more traditional petition at the beginning). Here dance is used to protest working conditions and the response from the Walmart customers (and take a look at the smiles on the workers' faces towards the end) is very positive although the manager did call the police. It's pretty serious if you get arrested for dancing.
I was thinking about drama mostly because I love the BBC radio plays and dramas that are broadcast in Britain (and here via the web) and how voice is so important to drama. Which reminded me of the presentation Sandra Huggett (who also happens to be my AFL mentor) did for our class last year where she talked about oral language and how to encourage kids to use oral language.
Oral language instruction (which sounds way more formal than it is) covers PLOs in Drama (for example Grade One B1: It is expected that students will use voice to explore a range of ideas and feelings) and Language Arts (all of the A PLOs are about Oral Language). If we think of this in terms of choral reading, ("now we are going to read this like a tiny mouse, how would that sound?" or "now we are going to read this as if we are very, very tired, how would that sound?") we've got something great and easy to do. I love the idea of playing with language and I really like incorporating drama into my Language Arts.
So, I was reading the IRPs for Fine Arts (because hey, it's the weekend, what else is there to do) and thinking about how in the Presenting and Performing (Music, Drama, Dance) and Exhibition and Response (Visual Arts) sections we, as teachers, are supposed to be able to teach our students how to evaluate art and apply critical thinkings skills to why they like a piece of art or music or drama (whether it is their own work or the work of their peers or the work of professionals) and I wondered how many of us feel comfortable actually judging the arts.
I, for one, do not have a brilliant background in terms of my knowledge of what makes a good dance (well, I do watch a lot of "So You Think You Can Dance" and "Dancing with the Stars, but I don't think that makes me an expert) and while I enjoy music and love to sing, I am not up on the recent trends and have no idea what a good rap looks like (it's all noise, you kids get off my lawn). But, I think we're going to have to figure that out, especially when it comes to things our students value which means I might have to get to know some rap (at least I like Common as an actor and a visitor to the Daily Show, that's a start, right?) and I'll probably have to look for the redeeming features in One Direction (or as a dad at my bookstore recently called them One Dimension) so that I can connect to my students and maybe teach them about things that are better than the current boy band of the week, not just because I think those artists and musicians are better but because when compared by objective criteria they just are.
And because I really think everybody should listen to him, here's a little Stan Rogers.
I was thinking about how we are supposed to, according to PLO C2 ("It is expected that students will identify distinctive styles of visual images from various historical, cultural, and social contexts") for the intermediate grades at least, introduce our students to the art of different time periods and also how Canadian artists don't always leap to mind when it comes to that which got me thinking of the most famous, at least until Alex's sister is more well known, British Columbia artist, Emily Carr.
Not only is Emily Carr an important artist simply because she was a magnificent painter, but she also documented BC Coastal First Nations culture. Her paintings of totem poles are breath taking and evocative and I think her art would be a very interesting introduction to units on BC history, geography and culture.
