Teaching Teachers

FLOCK Dance Troupe seeks to move individuals toward new recognition of our place as human beings in the natural order of life on Earth. In our work with students and teachers, we explore through dance how nature and spirit can empower individuals and communities.

A Sense of Place
We are all unique beings, and our initial experience of the world through learning comes to us via the senses. Each of us has our own place, where we live and grow, and this place provides a unique theater for environmental learning and endless opportunities to sensitize awareness to our surroundings, using the mediums of dance and acting.

DANCING OUR SURROUNDINGS — The Course (syllabus)
Carol Langstaff, Artistic Director of Flock Dance Troupe, will lead participants through a dance experience stemming from close observations of our surroundings, entwined with environmental and social themes. Lessons will include specific useful ideas for thematic planning and effective ways of creating movement within a given structure. Participants will be given a CD of music drawn from a rich diversity of traditions.

Texture and Feeling of the Work Ms. Langstaff will utilize simple stretches and warm ups, movement vocabulary, folk dance techniques, and explorations of the mythic/natural elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. She will offer participants an introduction to movement theater, focusing on ways of dramatizing how humans interact with the elements. Sessions will incorporate observing and inventing, individual improvisation and blending in, and experimentation with various manifestations of energy to reveal how these affect our natural world and the quality of our lives. The adventure will feature activities meant to heighten awareness of natural wonders, for instance the spatial-movement patterns of birds, insects, bats, deer, and humans

FLOCK workshops will highlight flow forms from nature, the use of gesture and body language, and dance and acting.

The Benefits of Creative Learning Classroom study of scientific or social information is enriched with a complementary approach to discovery through art and physical activity, bringing many students more fully into the experience of learning. An interdisciplinary experience often allows our minds to grasp information more memorably and completely. When feelings and tensions are released through artistic expression and movement, we enter the classroom experience better attuned to our senses and more receptive. And the process of imagining then enacting a vision creates the basis for leadership in the classroom and beyond.

For more information, call (802) 765-4454 or email carolang@aol.com

DANCING OUR SURROUNDINGS
COURSE SYLLABUS/OUTLINE
Instructor: Carol Langstaff: caroling@aol.com

Objectives:

• To teach how nature and awareness of place can empower the lives of individuals.
• To sensitize awareness to our surroundings by offering a wide array of opportunities
• To open the senses to environmental discovery by using the mediums of dance and acting
• To interact nonverbally with children, youth and adults with and without disabilities, and others at-risk.

Course Description:

Sessions will explore the elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, singularly and in combination with one another.

Sessions will develop examples of humans interacting with these elements, through observation and expressive movement skills

Method of Instruction: lecture, demonstration, observation, participation and personal experience.

Course evaluation: individual projects and degree of class participation

Specifics Skills Taught:

• Breath and Energy
• Balance
• Phrasing
• Spatial Sense – path and distance
• Contrast of dynamics and levels
• Responding to the music
• Observation skills
• Uses of each element
• Exploring self expression
• Envisioning what is possible

Styles of Movement: Flow Forms from Nature, Imagery, Mime, Modern Dance, Personal Expression, Ethnic Dance, Children’s Traditional Games, Body Language, Envisioning, Ritual

Each class will contain

• Initial locomotive response to a specific piece of music
• Simple warm up stretches introducing dance vocabulary
• Adagio – Imagery exploration of movement
• Verbal observations of a particular element, then expressed in gesture
• Exploration of flow within a given sound or musical structure
• Celebratory Ethnic dance
• Exploring the elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water
• Discussion of our uses of the element - creating a dance/mime depicting each use – spatially blocked into a dance
• Pollution discussion - into dance creation
• Solution discussion – into healing dance
• Learning specific choreographed dances
• Ritual Dance carrying an intention for change