by Susan Babcock
The human body was designed to move. This has never been more evident than at Orcas Elementary, where through the Orcas Arts Education Project, each class is discovering the amazing impact dance can have on one’s life.
OAEP dance classes are not designed to result in students doing triple pirouettes or soaring leaps, although that is a definite possibility. They are teaching the fundamental elements of dance. The OAEP dance instructors are following our state’s Essential Academic Learning Requirements Fine Arts Curriculum, adding their own creativity to dance fundamentals and making the program unique and fun for students.
The first year of the dance program focuses on the elements of dance – space, shape and time, as well as on accomplishing the eight basic locomotor movements (crawl, walk, run, jump, hop, gallop, skip, leap). This instruction provides a foundation for second year students to master choreography – creating their own pieces by developing dance steps and technique from the basic locomotors. A simple walk in three-quarter time becomes a triplet step, which becomes a beautiful waltz!
The sensory stimulation during each class requires the dancer to absorb instruction with eyes and ears, while also hearing the dictating rhythm of either music or sounds. Meanwhile, their body is moving, arms and legs in different patterns, while traveling on a distinct pathway. All this, with muscles engaged and brains functioning on all cylinders! As physical as this process is, amazingly these youngsters go back to their classrooms energized and focused.
It is possible the OAEP dance classes will produce the next Mikhail Baryshnikov or Martha Graham. At the very least, these students will gain a profound understanding and appreciation of the tenacity and dedication it takes to be a dancer, choreographer and production manager. These kids are developing respect for the art of dance.
Perhaps most important, however, are the deeper, long-lasting lessons these children are learning: to share space in a safe, effective way; respect for themselves and each other; to control one’s body and take PRIDE in that body (think adolescence!), thereby creating a more confident young person; self-reliance; teamwork; and working in harmony towards a common goal. They are learning to never make fun of each other’s efforts, because dance “comes from within,” a very special place.
May is Arts Education month. The public is invited by the Orcas Arts Education Project to enjoy informal dance presentations of Susan Babcock’s elementary school dance students on the Orcas Center Mainstage on Friday, May 22. Students will demonstrate at the following times: Sharon Harvey’s 3rd grade class, 9:30 to 10:30 a.m.; Ann Ford McGrath’s 2nd grade class, 10:45-11:45 a.m.; Martha Inch’s Montessori class, 12:45 to 1:45 p.m.; Lorena Stankevich and Marny Gaylord’s 4th grade class, 2 to 2:45 p.m.
The Orcas Arts Education Project is an initiative led by the Orcas Island Public School District, the Orcas Island Education Foundation and Orcas Center to provide sustainable high quality, sequential, developmental, curriculum based arts education in grades K-12.
Susan Babcock is a teaching artist with the Orcas Arts Education Project.
