Dance & Movement in Hamlet...
This Spring, Mary Carbonara, a known Bay Area Dance Educator and Choreographer, and former head of Education at Lines Ballet, visited 7th Grade Drama classes to teach students and myself, the building blocks of choreography so we could explore creating a movement sequence for the Ghost scene, Act 1, Scene 4, in William Shakespeare's, Hamlet. Students were lead in a dynamic dance warm up by Carbonara and then, rather than being taught a dance, were asked to think about and analyze the role movement plays on stage and in performance. Carbonara posed a series of critical questions and lead us in discussion on dance in performance: What is the difference between one person standing on a stage, and a group of people? How does that make you feel? What is uniformity? When do we see uniformity in daily life? Why and when would a group of humans do the same thing? Is it rare to see this or a regular occurance in daily life? How can changing one thing change an entire dance? Why have an ensemble on stage at all? What does it DO? These questions were specific and at times, a bit challenging. Students grappled with the need to get it right, versus have a discussion and explore, make associations and discoveries. The dance and movement portion of class was no different. Rather than music being played and choreography being taught, Carbonara lead is us in a series of exercises with partners where we had to do and then analyze, do and then see what happened, do and then observe and discuss. It was less "fun" than learning a dance routine, and it was more empowering as it required students to take responsibility for themselves within the exercise and to slow down and think about their movement choices each step of the way. Carbonara also lead us in a structure for giving critique and observations as artists: I See, I Think or I Feel, I Wonder... This was meant to slow down the process we go through from viewing to interpreting meaning right a way, and was meant to soften and open up how we give and hear a critique through observation and questions, rather than judgement. During the final session, Carbonara did set choreography for the Ghost scene and students added in their own movement sequences as well (see video below - tried to post several times, but there is a website glitch and then I cannot publish this post!). Overall, it was a more technical, scientific and slow process to learning dance and creating choreography... and was ultimately rich, rewarding and certainly expanded our thinking and vocabulary as artists.
