Dance/Dabke
Mission
King's Academy's dance program:
Promotes the body as an important pathway for students to connect with themselves, their surroundings, and each other.
Supports the development of unique artistic voices within a diverse and inclusive school community.
Connects with the local context by grounding in regional cultural traditions, especially dabke, by engaging with Amman’s contemporary arts scene, and by reaching across social and economic divisions in Jordan’s youth.
Aspires towards meaningful relationships with artists in minority communities as well as artists from beyond the West, in order to strive for a more balanced connection with the world.
Course Offerings
Dance
Dance class emphasizes individuality, creativity and choreography. Students gain skills to create their own dances and develop unique artistic voices. Students also learn contemporary dance techniques, and learn to dance together as a group. Students will connect with the dance scene in Amman through guest teachers and participating in events in Amman. In addition, students will learn the basics of dabke dance. Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced Dance will meet together in one class.
Dabke
Dabke class connects to the local tradition, and how dabke is practiced onstage and offstage. Students will follow the curriculum of Al Quds group, and learn to perform as a group. Beyond dabke, students learn to explore our bodies, improvise, and choreograph. Beginner dabke will meet separately from the upper level dabke course (intermediate and advanced).
Class Schedule
A typical class at King's meets every other day. For example, in the chart above, a class in blue might meet on Day 1, 3, 5, 7 on a rotating schedule, while a class in orange would meet on Day 2, 4, 6, 8.
Both dance and dabke classes are scheduled to meet only half of the times (for example: Day 1 and 5).
Since Islamic Theology also meets with a similar frequency, students would be able to take dance and dabke while also fulfilling the Islamic Theology requirement for Muslim Jordanians.
In addition, Dance will also meet weekly on Monday evenings 6-7:15pm, while Dabke would meet weekly on Tuesday evenings 6-7:15pm.
Dance Cocurricular
Interested in hip-hop, and contemporary?
Afterschool cocurricular activities allows students to explore a variety of dance styles with professional guest teachers. Every week, students will take one day of hip-hop dance, and two days of contemporary dance. Students will perform hip-hop dance as part of the school concerts!
Student Choreography
King's Academy's dance program encourages students to choreograph and perform original dances.
See below student work from the past year!
Entanglement with Freedom
By Ziqi Yu '23
Chantaje
By Kenzy Aldaher '23
Goosebumps
By Tia Sawalha '23
Breakthrough
By Ziqi Yu '23 & Eleanor Lardner '23
Once Upon a February
By Kenzy Aldaher '23
Heroine
By Sara Madanat '22 & Haily Cho '23
Mr. Ryuji (Dance Program Director)
Ryuji Yamaguchi, is director of the dance program and dean of residential life at King's Academy. Originally from Japan, Ryuji graduated Harvard University in 2003 and has lived in Madaba, Jordan since 2007.
Ryuji is a core member of the award-winning dance company Yoshiko Chuma & The School of Hard Knocks based in New York, and as creative producer has created nine major dance productions in Jordan and Palestine. Since 2018, his duo with Hungarian dancer Rita Gobi, “Vibration”, has been presented in Hungary, Jordan, Japan, and the Netherlands.
As a key leader in Jordan’s dance scene, Ryuji is founder of Midan: Amman Dance Lab. Through artistic projects, workshops, and microfunds, Midan promotes dance across socioeconomic, language, and geographic divides. Ryuji also teaches open classes in Amman regularly, and workshops in Jordan and abroad.
Dance students at King's Academy may engage with Amman's dance community through activities organized by Midan.