Dance: Grade 4

Technique

Choreography

Nonverbal Communication

Critical and Creative Thinking

History and Culture

Healthful Living

Making Connections

The student will identify and demonstrate movement elements and skills and apply them while performing dance.

The student will implement choreographic principles, processes, and structures.

The student will use dance as a medium to communicate meaning and/or artistic intent.

The student will demonstrate and apply critical, creative, and analytic thinking in response to dance.

The student will demonstrate an understanding of dance in various cultures and historical periods.

The student will identify and apply healthful practices related to dance.

The student will make connections between dance and other arts disciplines, other content areas, and the world.

Demonstrate a developing sense of strength, range of motion, agility, and coordination when alternating between locomotor and nonlocomotor movements.

Identify and demonstrate basic dance steps, positions, and patterns in two or more genres or forms of dance.

Explore transitions between shapes formed on low, middle, and high levels.

Identify and demonstrate a range of movement qualities (for example, sharp, smooth, swinging, shaking, loose).

Demonstrate increasing kinesthetic awareness, concentration, focus, and projection when performing movement skills.

Demonstrate accurate memorization and replication of brief movement sequences.

Demonstrate and use correct dance vocabulary to describe the actions (for example, skip, gallop, swing, bend) and movement elements (for example, levels, direction) in a brief movement study.

Continue to refine technique through teacher correction and self-evaluation.

Use movement exploration to discover, compose, and perform solutions to movement problems based on a variety of stimuli (for example, sensory cues, ideas, moods).

Create a dance sequence, repeat it, and then vary it by making changes in the time, space, and/or force/energy.

Identify and demonstrate the structures or forms of AB, ABA, canon, call and response, and narrative.

Explore and demonstrate the principles of contrast and transition.

Work alone, with a partner, or in a small group during the choreographic process.

Demonstrate the following partnering skills: creating contrasting and complementary shapes and receiving and supporting small amounts of weight.

Analyze and describe the choreographic tools used in major dance works and in those of his or her peers.

Use motif description/dance notation to create and record brief dance phrases.

Identify and demonstrate the difference between literal and abstract gestures.

Respond to and interpret dance using dance terminology (for example, movement vocabulary, descriptive language, dance notation, dance elements)

Respond to the accompaniment in a dance and identify the mood it creates (for example, sound, music, spoken text).

Explain the manner in which lighting, costuming, props, and other scenic elements can contribute to the meaning of a dance.

Explore and perform dances and create brief movement sequences that communicate feelings and ideas.

Create and demonstrate multiple solutions to several complex movement problems (for example, moving through space in a curving pathway while changing levels) and identify the most interesting solutions.

Compare and contrast two very different dance compositions in terms of space (for example, shape, pathways), time (for example, rhythm, tempo), and/or force/energy/movement qualities (for example, weight, flow).

Identify and describe aesthetic criteria within dances (for example, skill of the performers, originality of the choreography, intent of the choreographer).

Demonstrate appropriate audience behavior while watching and responding to live or recorded dance performances.

Perform three or more simple folk dances, social dances, classical dances, and/or theatrical dances from a variety of cultures and identify and describe the similarities and differences among them.

Compare and contrast the cultural and historical context of dance in different communities and cultures.

Compare and contrast the works of past and present notable figures in dance.

Observe and/or perform brief movement sequences from masterworks (with all copyright restrictions observed).

Recognize the ways that healthy practices enhance one's ability to dance, demonstrating respect for his or her own physical well-being and that of others

Identify and describe the ways that dance promotes strength, health, physical safety, and reduced risk of injury.

Demonstrate warm-up exercises and explain the ways that warming up prepares the body for dancing.

Identify and describe the similarities and differences among the arts.

Respond to a dance by using another art form; explain the connections between the dance and his or her response to it (for example, use a painting to respond to a dance that he or she has seen).

Explore movement and create a brief movement phrase that demonstrates an understanding of a concept or idea from another discipline or everyday life (for example, symmetry, asymmetry).

Identify and describe the similarities and differences between the choreographic process and the process of another discipline (for example, the writing process, scientific inquiry, and the creative process across all of the arts).

Identify and describe applications of technology and documentation in the field of dance (for example, technical production, dance notation, research, choreography, reconstruction of historical dance works).

Identify and describe the responsibilities associated with various careers in dance.