IMPROVISATION

I include improvisation as part of my regular curriculum. I give constructive context to obstruct ideas so students can learn to express new movement within a simple idea and theme. One of my favorite exercises asking students to write their own name in cursive with their body. We use different areas, the wrists, elbows, knees and all five distal edges to express the movement concept of writing their name. Then we set it to music. I then change up the music to explore how that affect time, space and energy.

 

I also like to use the basic concepts of levels, mirroring, flocking, and weight sharing for students to see how they can change their movement vocabulary. 

 

I've also done improvisation exercises using notes and rhythms so students can correlate note reading to actual timing of their bodies. Some will execute movement that is slow and holds out for 4 counts, an equivalent of a whole note. While others will be assigned shorter durations of musical notes, such as 1/2 notes, quarter notes, 8th and 16th notes. Students can then see how the difference rhythms change the movement and they can also solidify what they have learned in music class for reading note values.