Digital @ The Arts Unit Creative Classes

Displaced

Explore movement and choreographic choices through performance, composition and appreciation

Student dance resource developed by The Arts Unit

Years 9 and 10 dance

What will I learn?

You will:

  • apply the elements of space, time and dynamics to personalise dance movement

  • identify and develop movement motifs to communicate an idea

  • identify and describe how ideas for dances have developed from a stimulus.

Photo credit: Anna Warr

Before you begin

This Creative Class integrates the three components of dance to enable you to develop knowledge about movement content in dance and how the choreographer makes choices to communicate an idea.

You will need:

  • a clear space to dance safely

  • jacket/scarf/coat

  • a device to listen to the music and watch the performance

  • pen and paper for notes

  • access to software such as Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides to record your answers.

  1. Watch and reflect

Every minute, 30 people worldwide become displaced and have to flee their homes. That’s 37,000 people a day. Most displaced people have no official documentation and live from refugee shelter to refugee camp, never knowing where they are going to end up. Most of these people are children.

'Displaced' is performed by students from Years 7-12 in the NSW Public Schools State Ensemble 1 and is choreographed by Anouska Gammon.

This dance has been created to somehow consider this unfathomable situation for over 70 million people in our world.

Watch the performance of ‘Displaced’.

State Dance Festival 2019 – Displaced

NSW Public Schools State Ensemble 1Duration: 07:03

Watch the reading of the poem 'What they took with them' by Jenifer Toksvig.

Reflect on the work:

  • Describe how the work has been developed from the stimulus of the poem.

  • How has the choreographer used the elements of dance to communicate the idea?

  • How does the dancers' musicality contribute to the interpretation of the work?

What they took with them

Duration: 05:24

2. Create

Watch the dancers perform the spoken word section of the work.

Using the poem as your stimulus, select a section of the text and create a phrase of movement that represents the spoken word.

Repeat this process using another section of text.

Transition the 2 phrases together to create a sequence of movement.

3. Develop

Watch the dancers perform the coat section of the work.

This section explores the dancers fleeing across land and sea.

  • Discuss, how do we know this?

  • Explain the choreographer’s choice of movement in communicating this idea to the audience.

Create a phrase of movement that restricts the use of your hands.

Repeat the process, this time your hands momentarily are separated before being bound again.

Transition these 2 phrases together to form a sequence of movement.

4. Perform

Watch the two featured dancers (both wear coats/jacket).

Learn the movement that they perform.

Use the same movement motifs that the dancers demonstrated (bound/clasped hands and extending towards each other) and create two movement phrases of your own that manipulate this movement using the elements of dance.

Transition these 2 phrases of movement together to form a sequence.


Transition the 3 movement sequences you have together to form a short work.

Use the section of music below to perform your short work.

Displaced – music section

Duration: 00:39

Record your work and reflect on it by answering the following questions:

  • How did you apply dance technique and performance quality to realise an interpretation in the work?

  • How did you create movement in relation to the stimuli?

  • How did you use the elements of dance to manipulate movement?

Share your work with your teacher.

Great work!

You have completed this Digital @ The Arts Unit Creative Class.

Third-party content attributions

  • NSW Public Schools State Dance Ensemble 1 'Displaced', 2019, photographer: Anna Warr.