Deborah Abel School of Modern Dance

In these Creative Movement/ Modern Dance classes the focus of the class is developing the child's self expression and innate creativity, while learning the foundations of modern dance technique. The classes have a warm up that mixes journeys of fantasy such as safaris, scuba diving, space travel, animals and many more, while mixing in a warm up from head to toe as they learn the beginning fundamentals of modern dance. The Kindergarten class has a more advanced and technical warmup while still having a creative and fun flavor to the warm up.

This modern dance /creative movement class begins with a structured warm up in which the students continue to learn the fundamentals of modern dance. The weekly theme for the class comes from a repertory piece that has been performed in a past student performance. After a brief creative improvisation to the music with the theme in mind, a repertory dance phrase is taught and practiced. During the last part of class the students are put into smaller groups to share in creating choreography to the music and theme of the day. They co-create a small piece, practice it, and show it at the end of class. The skills learned in doing this are invaluable: making creative choices and the creative envisioning that comes with choreography, teaching one's own movement to others, listening and learning others' movement, the challenges and joys of team work, collaboration, performance, and the satisfaction of a creative accomplishment. In March there are rehearsals as we prepare a piece to perform in the June student performance. The students contribute a large part of the choreography for the piece. In their smaller groups a section of the larger piece is created, crafted and edited over time for the stage performance.

At this grade level modern dance and street funk classes alternate on a weekly basis. Each style has it's own technical warm up after which a different dance phrase is taught each week. The modern dance is Limon influenced and the street funk is a meld of hiphop and jazz. The weekly theme for the class comes from a repertory piece that has been performed in a past student performance in that style. During the last part of class the students are put into smaller groups to share in creating choreography to the the music and theme of the day. They co-create a small piece, practice it, and show it at the end of class. The skills learned in doing this are invaluable: making creative choices and the creative envisioning that comes with choreography, teaching one's own movement to others, listening and learning others' movement, the challenges and joys of team work, collaboration, performance, and the satisfaction of a creative accomplishment. In March rehearsals begin as we prepare a piece to perform in the June student performance. The students contribute a large part of the choreography for the piece. In their smaller groups a section of the larger piece is created, crafted and edited over time for the stage performance.