Dance Arts Club
Elizabeth Rangel, Teacher
Rahila Coats, Teaching Artist
Elizabeth Rangel, Teacher
Rahila Coats, Teaching Artist
This summer we focused on communication. We asked: How do I communicate? How does nature communicate? How do people use their emotions to communicate? How do animals communicate? How do I communicate kindness to others? These questions came as we realized that our students spoke a mixture of English and Spanish, and were interested in making our summer club where everyone is a teacher and student. We made marionettes out of recycled material, created dances, and played many games. We practiced patience and kindness with each other, and most importantly to ourselves.
Our collage came from the creativity we fostered when dancing outdoors. Each dancer created movement working with the balance and flow of leaves and branches in the garden, and we captured one of their unique shapes. We then designed our own world and placed our photos within that world. We finished our collages with our favorite things and images from magazines to add some more color, our interests and likes.
Our journals were used to write our choreography, remember pieces of nature that moved us, and write about ourselves. Everyone spent time writing things about themselves that made them unique- some wrote in spanish, some wrote in english, and others practiced writing in both languages. We wrote stories and both in words and pictures.
Throughout the summer we realized that our artists needed more space to express complicated feelings: anger, sadness, fear. We invited them to recognize the nuance of emotions, and use their art projects to express how they feel in that moment. This lead to projects taking different shapes than what was expected, but one that spoke a clearer idea. We learned how to communicate when we needed space to process our feelings, and ask for help from teachers and students. Each artist contributed their artistic ideas, passions, and communicated with authenticity and excitement.