Workshop #5: Telling stories: Aboriginal to Hip Hop

Workshop #5: Telling stories: Aboriginal to Hip Hop

Teaching traditional and popular culture through dance

Date: 1/10/2012

Background Knowledge:

Hip hop is a subculture music that originated in African American and Latino-American communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically within the Bronx. While the term is often used to refer to hip hop music, in its broader sense hip hop culture is characterized by the four elements of rapping, DJing, hip hop dance and graffiti.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop)

Hip hop is often improvisational dance and involves the use of ‘dance off’s’ and ‘battles’ and can be seen in many contemporary films. It was said that is soared and was made famous by people such as Michael Jackson and James Brown and is now a world wide phenomenon.

Hip Hop requires skills of jumping and upper-body strength and is defined through the following:

·         Forceful

·         Full of passion

·         Sharper Movement

·         Angular

·         Uses Gesture

·         Non Contact

·         Aggressive

·         Sexually Tense

·         Low to the ground

·         Improvisational

'Hip-Hop allows artists to channel

their ideas and express them through

the arts. Therefore the real essence

of Hip Hop is about love, peace,

respect for one another, individuality,

creativity, self determination and self

realisation'

(Price 2006).

Safety Precautions:

 When teaching Hip Hop we must ensure that children do not try to break-dance by doing the worm or wheel-barrowing as it can cause strain and injuries to their upper body as they do not have the strength or skills to perform them.

We must also ensure that the music we choose is appropriate for the age without swearing or provocative language.

We must also ensure that the dance moves children are performing are not sexually explicit and if children are incorporating the use of symbols, that they understanding the meaning and intentions behind them.

Over View of the dance:

We began todays class by first understanding the background and importance of Hip Hop dancing. I believe that understanding the knowledge behind a dance, helps us connect with our understanding of the dance more thoroughly.

We then continued by stretching our muscles on the floor.

It is always important to stretch as it has been researched that 'Stretching before physical activity is beneficial for a variety of reasons. It helps increase range of motion, reduces muscle tension, and helps decrease the risk of activity-based injuries' (http://dancedaze.org/2011/02/25/the-importance-of-stretching/)

 We also warmed up our muscles by walking around in the space with Hip Hop movements.

Jacqui Dreeseens then took us through a teacher directed Hip Hop dance routine which allowed her to introduce a series of Hip Hop movements which we then used to adapt and draw on to create our own personalized dance choreography piece. 

Once in pairs and familiar with a series of taught Hip Hop movements, we then had the opportunity to discuss and experiment with incorporating our own movements into the teacher directed routine.

This allowed us to add our own touch and our own personal interpretations on how we felt we would experiment with the art of Hip Hop.

We then performed our Hip Hop routines by first walking around the space by adding in some of the learnt movements from the day.

We then took our positions as each group presented their personalized Hip Hop routines.

We then formed a circle where we each stood in the center and performed a solo Hip Hop movement.

We then took various poses and movements as a whole group.

The following video shows our final performance. 

Dynamics of Hip Hop

ACTION!

-          Travel, Jump, Turn. Gesture, Stillness, Fall

RELATIONSHIP!

-          Dancer to Dancer, Dancer to Self, Dancer to Group, Dancer to Accompaniment, Dancer to Object, Dancer to Space.

SPACE!

-          Pathways and Patterns, Levels, Different Planes, Staging, Focus, Body Shape.

DYNAMICS!

- Effort, Time, Weight. Space, Flow

Four Main Elements of Hip Hop:

1. Fashion

2. Graffiti

3. Movement

4. DJ Music

VELS:

Hip hop can be incorporated into the curriculum through the VELS domain, the arts.

·         Dance is incorporated into the curriculum from a basic group work development in level one to being able to present independently at level 4.

·          All aspects of this lesson fit into VELS however the moves would need to be shortened for students at level 1. 

·         The group hip hop routine is suitable for level 3 students onwards.

·          However the extension of the hip hop routine relates directly to level 4 students as they are encouraged to, investigate new ideas, manipulate moves and explore different resources to incorporate influences from their own culture and interests. (VELS 2009)

Could also be incorporated into:

Health and Physical Education

Movement and Physical Activity:

At Level 3, students create and perform coordinated movement sequences that contain a variety    of motor skills and movement patterns.

Thinking Processes

Creativity:

At Level 3, students apply creative ideas in practical ways and test the possibilities of ideas they generate.

Interpersonal Development

Working In Teams:

At Level 3, students cooperate with others in teams for agreed purposes, taking roles and following guidelines established within the task.

(VELS 2009)

References:

 Price, E 2006 Hip Hop Culture ABC-­‐CLIO Publishing 2006

Victorian Curriculum & Assessment Authority 2007 Standards and Progression Points􀁠

hQp://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/assessment/progresspoints.html

(accessed 28th September 2012)

Hip hop - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2012. Hip hop - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop. [Accessed 02 October 2012]

The Importance of Stretching « Dance Daze | Dance Education & Youth Development. 2012. The Importance of Stretching « Dance Daze | Dance Education & Youth Development. [ONLINE] Available at:http://dancedaze.org/2011/02/25/the-importance-of-stretching/. [Accessed 02 October 2012].