My 5-6 year old creative ballet class has been invited to perform on stage! It’s exciting because many of these students have studied with me for 2 years and I think it’s great that they will get the experience to perform. I am excited to go through the process of creating and choreographing a dance with them. I am even more excited about diving into all of the elements of performing. The first one we are exploring is ‘what is a choreographer?’ Here a few ideas that I incorporated:
1) Compare: A choreographer makes dances, just like photographers make pictures, writers write stories, and artists paint paintings. Ask your dancers to come up with as many creators as they can think of. They showed me that they really understand when they started naming all of these. I will ask them again next week to see if they can think of anymore.
2) Share examples, Show Pictures: Alvin Ailey, Jerome Robbins, Fred Astaire. Give examples of past and present choreographers in different genres. Share photos and talk about their styles. Ask them if they have ever seen a dance, on stage or on television. They may never think that there is a choreographer behind those dances. It is really eye-opening for them. I could see the light bulbs go off!
3) Give Opportunity: Carve space out in class to give each student a chance to choreograph. I love to get one movement from each student and then pull them all together to make a dance. We call it the “choreography workshop.” They love it and it really shows them that they can be choreographers too. It doesn’t only have to be famous people or me as the teacher. They can be choreographers too!
Are you rehearsing for a recital? Instead of just reviewing the steps of the dance, give the steps meaning and educate. I’m confident you can do this lesson with as young as 3-year-olds. Have you ever talked to your students about choreographers? I would love to hear!
Maria Hanley is an independent early childhood dance educator in New York City.
Maria serves on the 
This is fantastic, Maria. I think it’s so critical that you get dancers choreographing and
talking about dance from a young age. These activities give them ownership of their own art and
will hopefully prevent them from being perceived as cogs in the ballet machine later on.
Keep up the great work!
Charemaine Seet
Sydney Australia
Thank you Charemaine! I’m not a big fan of just teaching children steps (as you can probably see from my blog) without something behind them. This element is so important and I want other teachers to educate their students about it too. They will remember it forever!
Thank you for stopping by!
I love this Maria! I am now continually checking in on your blog for my dose of daily tools for littles~ can’t tell you how much I love continuing to learn and pick up great tips. Sometimes its a bit like prepping for a mini-dance-battle, gearing up to go into the trenches and find that inspiration and liveliness that’s needed for the wee ones.
I am currently working on a dance w/my 5and6′s and plan on utilizing this “choreographer talk” next week! Can’t wait!
The company I work for is asking us to do a demo in about a month, I know the 5&6′s will strut their stuff in a routine (they’re really a mature, hard working bunch) but what is your advice for the 3 and 4′s? I thought about having them sit with me on the stage and do their warm-up song, as learning even a minute’s worth of choreo is seeming increasingly difficult for them/we have a hard time staying engaged (as is expected of this age group) any advice would REALLY help!…sorry if this is not the place for personal questions, please let me know if I am overstepping.
I am glad this is helpful! I love your “dance battle” reference. It’s so true, that’s for sure. Let me know how the choreography lesson goes.
For your 3′s and 4′s I like to do story dances better known as structured improv. If you are going to dance with them, this could work really well. If they dance by themselves, instead of having them remember “choreography” do the same improv (i have a lot of these on the blog, like the playground dance http://mariasmovers.com/2011/03/08/playground-dance/ or the under the sea dance http://mariasmovers.com/2010/04/27/octopus/ ) I think this is a great way to connect it to something they know and then also show new ways of moving their bodies. You can ask them what movement to do for each animal or word or you can allow them to come up with their own interpretation.
Does this help? I am going to start this for the stage for my 3-4′s really soon, so if I discover any more tips I will for sure share them!
Thank you for stopping by.
This DOES help! Thank you so much for your advice. I will keep you posted on the choreo-lesson, I am so excited for it!