Phoenix Union High School Performing Arts
Guidelines for Curriculum

Dance Level II, June 1997
This one-year course provides continued study for dance students who have achieved basic levels of skill, technique, and knowledge in ballet, modern, jazz, improvisation, and dance composition. Emphasis is placed on student choreography, performance and ongoing artistic growth. This course demands a high level of effort and commitment while encouraging enjoyment of creative expression.

Standard 1:
Identify and demonstrate elements and skill in performing dance

• Subheads: assessment and suggested activities follow as in Standard 2.

Standard 2:
Understand and explore choreographic principles, processes and structure.

• Create and perform combinations using a variety of choreographic elements and movement qualities
  
  • Assessment Strategies: checklist * class evaluation
    
  • Suggested Activities:
    
    • Choreograph movement sequence using level only
      
    • Perform sequence using two qualities of movement
      
      
• Identify and demonstrate a variety of choreographic processes
  • Assessment Strategies: peer interviews * video portfolio
  • Suggested activities:
    
    • Create a dance or movement phrase showing fluid transitions
      
    • Show contrasting movements within a movement study
      
    • Create a movement study using choreographic forms (AC, ACA, canon, theme and variation)
      
    • Analyze peer choreography
      
      
• Work in a group to choreograph a dance with coherence and aesthetic unity
  
  • Assessment Strategies: class evaluation * teacher observation
  • Suggested Activities:
    
    • Create a dance where movement is appropriate to theme
      
    • Create a duet using symmetry and/or asymmetry
      
    • Choreograph a dance specific to an alternative environment
      
      
• Structure production elements to enhance choreography
  • Assessment Strategies: checklist * rating scale
  • Suggested Activities:
    
    • Design costuming for a dance with a specific theme
      
    • Design lighting for a dance to set a specific mood
      

Standard 3:
Understand, create, and communicate meaning through dance observation, composition, and performance

• Explore how movement choices communicate abstract ideas in dance
  • Assessment Strategies: class evaluations * rating scale * essay
  • Suggested Activities:
    • Demonstrate movements that express various feelings
    • Observe and interpret a dance through verbal or written expression
      
      
• Create a dance that effectively communicates a theme
  • Assessment Strategies: video * teacher observation * class evaluation
  • Suggested Activities:
    • Choreograph an autobiographical solo
    • Create a dance from news headlines
      
      
• Participate in a formal dance concert
  • Assessment Strategies: checklist * teacher observation
  • Suggested Activities:
    • Perform in one or more dances
    • Participate in group or solo choreography
    • Participate in other aspects of concert (technical crew, publicity, video, stage manager)

Standard 4:
Apply and demonstrate critical and creative thinking skills in dance to express perceptions, feelings, images, and thoughts

• Subheads: assessment and suggested activities follow as in Standard 3.

Standard 5:
Develop knowledge and understanding of human diversity through dance, and the role of dance in historical and contemporary cultures

• Demonstrate and discuss the history and development of ballet, modern, and jazz
  • Assessment Strategies: research paper * teacher observation
  • Suggested Activities:
    • Research Martha Graham and develop a movement study in her style
    • Develop a time line for the development of jazz dance in America
      
      
• Investigate historical differences of two or more dance styles
  • Assessment Strategies: written test * concert critique
  • Suggested Activities:
    • View videotapes that show historical differences of dance styles
    • Attend two or more dance performances of historically different styles
    • Report on how social dance has influenced jazz dance in the 20th century
      
      
• Research the style of a choreographer, dancer, or a cultural form of dance
  
  • Assessment Strategies: class presentation * research paper * class discussion
  • Suggested Activities:
    • Create a presentation showing how slaves kept their African heritage alive through dance
    • Research and study a choreographer
    • Choose and study a contemporary dancer's style
      
      
• Analyze the role of dance in contemporary society
  • Assessment Strategies: essay * class evaluation
  • Suggested Activities:
    • Write a paragraph on the role of dance in your family
    • Investigate and report on local professional dance companies
    • Create a dance expressing contemporary culture; hypothesize, compare and contrast how the dance would have differed if created by parents or grandparents

Standard 6:
Make connections between dance and healthful living

• Subheads: assessment and suggested activities follow as in Standard2 and 5.

Standard 7:
Make connections between dance and other disciplines

• Discuss how skills developed in dance are applicable to a variety of careers
  • Assessment Strategies: class discussion * essay
  • Suggested Activities:
    • Identify possible career choices related to dance
    • List skills that you have developed in dance and how those skills can be used in other career fields
    • Choose a non-performance career and show how your skills in dance can be applied
      
      
• Explore other disciplines through dance
  • Assessment Strategies: teacher observation * rating scale
  • Suggested Activities:
    • Study fractions while learning rhythms
    • Create a dance that demonstrates cell division (mitosis)
      
      
• Demonstrate how technology can be used to enhance, reinforce or alter dance
  • Assessment Strategies: check list * rating scale
  • Suggested Activities:
    • Use at least one technological medium to enhance a dance presentation
    • Create a web page for the Dance Department

Standard 8:
Use aesthetic principles to analyze, interpret, and critique dance

• Explain how personal experience influences the interpretation of a dance
  
  • Assessment Strategies: oral presentation * journal * class discussions
  • Suggested Activities:
    • View a dance and write a personal interpretation of that dance; discuss interpretational differences
    • Imagine various life experiences (homelessness, loss of a loved one); view and interpret a dance based upon the emotion of that life experience
    • Identify and apply specific criteria of making informed critical evaluations of the quality and effectiveness of performance, choreography, and improvisation
      
      
• Assessment Strategies: checklist * written test
  • Suggested Activities:
    • List the qualities of a well-structured dance and use as a checklist to evaluate a dance
    • List the qualities of a good performer and use as a checklist to analyze a performer

A series of assessment tools follow: Performance Points: Dress Rehearsal; Performance Evaluation Criteria; Peer Evaluation Norms; Evaluation: Oral Presentation; Dance Journal forms; Modern Dance History forms for: Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Mark Morris; Ballet Terms Test

Contact: Joan Mason, Curriculum Director, Arts and Foreign Languages, joan.mason@qm.phxhs.k12.az.us