It was almost 2 weeks ago now, but on the Tuesday of the half term break was an all-day dance workshop, where we focused on musical theatre songs! After a long warm-up and a few ice-breaking games we danced to ' We Go Together' from 'Grease'. I'm a sucker for 'Grease' the musical (it is my dream to play Rizzo in the West End :) ) and so I was in my absolute element! It's such a happy, high-energy song and the lyrics are quite simple too so I encouraged the students to sing along. We did lots of hand jiving, making 'trains', strutting and strolling, shoulder shimmying, and general 50s rock 'n' roll moves!
The second song was from 'Seussical the Musical' based on Dr Seuss, and was a jungle themed song. This dance was a bit more contemporary and I encouraged freedom of movement and expression. First, students chose a jungle animal (or they could be a tribesman). They moved in the way that this character/animal does, thinking about their qualities, behaviours, and so on. Monkeys, for example, are bouncy, loose, arms hanging, 'naughty', flexible, often seen swinging. Birds are more elegant, free, depending on the type of bird - flamboyant.
Once they had found their way of moving, we entered the stage at different points and went through a process of 'exploration' before all freezing to create a frozen jungle image. Then there were simple moves like looking to the left (what was that noise?) and then to the right (who's there?) before moving around 'scared'. They also looked for food, and participated in a small 'fight' with another animal, before all going off to sleep (the dance ended with all animals on the floor sleeping).
