Workshop #3: African Body Percussion and Soundscapes

Workshop #3: African Body Percussion and Soundscapes

Integrating Dance into the Maths classroom.

The dance learnt today was a Gumboot dance which was developed from African roots. It began with men who were rural labourers who worked in the gold mines.

FACTS ABOUT THE DANCE

It was researched that 'facing oppression and hardship at the mines including punishment if they spoke to one another while working they were forced to

adapt and create new forms of communication and entertainment' (www.otoplasma.com)

The men worked for many periods at a time in hard repetitive jobs.

Men wore gumboots on their feet so whilst working underground they could send signals to one another by stamping their boots and feet and rattling their chains. 

The men would dance in their breaks or 'smokos' so that they could release the tension inside them from spending all of those hours chained underground. Here is a sample of how it is still used in Africa today.

OVER VIEW OF OUR LESSON

WARMING UP
We began todays lesson by a Carl Orff inspired piece where the students stood in a circle and the teacher walked around clicking, swishing and creating a variety of sound scapes. As soon as eye contact was made with the teacher you changed the sound scape to what she was modelling.

BODY

Using those movements, we then created a story based on what those moves could possibly represent. The task was: to create a sound scape on something man made or a natural disaster. Each sound and movement had to represent something beginning, creating and ending. 

The group in which I worked with

- Hannah Smith

- Justine Shay

Created: Tsunami

Our group used the clicking to represent the sounds of people walking and everyday life.

We then used stomping to represent the tremor of the earth.

We then used backwards working and the sounds of suction to represent the wave moving

Wooshing and movement of the arms to represent the wave collapsing over the area.

Collapsing to represent the destruction of lives and a township. 

Rising and walking and clicking to represent building and the concept that 'life goes on'

Working in groups such as these must be inclusive and everyone must join in to create their own movements. It must become learnt work and have a combination of learnt and group work. 

Following this activity were taught the Gumboot dance. 

Each section of the dance was broken into smaller parts to assist in the learning of the dance. 

We performed the dance several times in a circle, in groups and as a whole. 

‘Body percussion looks really hard. But then you break it up into small, achievable steps, suddenly people find that what at first seemed impossible has suddenly become possible. I know it works because I have seen it again and again...’

Victoria Leith, Tribal Groove Tutor 

The following Video sums up our performance.

http://www.tribalgroove.com/tg

REFLECTING

Through the learning of the dance I now understand how this could have provided the men with so much entertainment and happiness during such a dark and miserable time.
 The dance was extremely energetic (and sometimes painful- I left with a very red leg :) ) and it can be taught to our students as an area of learning about different cultures and era's in time. 

VELS

LEVEL 3

THE ARTS - Creating and making - students create and present works in a range of arts forms that communicate experiences, ideas, concepts, observations and feelings. They show evidence of arts knowledge when planning arts works for different purposes and audiences and identify techniques and features of other people’s works that inform their own arts making.

FURTHERING OUR LEARNING:

Could use the following rubric to assess students performances. 

	Achieved the outcome	Close to achieving the outcome	Needs more work	Comments
Creating	Able to  improvise to create a movement and sound pattern.	With help was able to think of some movements and sounds.	Was unable to think of movements or sounds.
Making	Able to put movements and sounds together and turn it into a performance.	Able to put some movements and sounds together and slightly turn it into a performance.	Was unable to put movements and sounds together and make a performance.
Performing	Able to perform the movements and sounds clearly and confidently.	Able to perform some of the movements and sounds.	Was unable to perform movements and sounds.
Skills	Demonstrated a wide range of dance and movement skills and techniques.	Demonstrated some movement skills and techniques.	Was unable to demonstrate movement skills and techniques.

References

Gumboot Dancers in Cape Town - YouTube. 2012. Gumboot Dancers in Cape Town - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSgFAG0mtac. [Accessed 28 September 2012].

What Is Tribal Groove African Body Percussion?. 2012. What Is Tribal Groove African Body Percussion?. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.tribalgroove.com/tg/. [Accessed 28 September 2012]

Cobi van Tonder, Artist - Resume. 2012. Cobi van Tonder, Artist - Resume. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.otoplasma.com. [Accessed 02 October 2012

Victorian Essential Learning Standards - VELS. 2012. Victorian Essential Learning Standards - VELS. [ONLINE] Available at:http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/. [Accessed 02 October 2012].