Mangere College
9 Dance/Drama
Course Description
DANCE:
Dance is expressive movement with intent, purpose, and form. In dance, we transform, communicate, and interpret ideas, feelings, and experiences. All dance communication is transmitted through movement and mediated through the body and gestures of the dancer. Dancers are therefore both the performers and the instruments through which dance is expressed.
Dance is a vital and integral part of human life. It exists in many forms and styles and is practised in all cultures, taking place in a range of contexts for various purposes. Dance functions as ritual, as artistic endeavour, as social discourse, and as education, and people of all ages and at many levels of expertise are involved to varying degrees.
In dance choreography, body awareness, space, time, energy, and relationships are manipulated to make dance works. In performance, these works reflect and frequently challenge dance traditions. Dance is therefore always evolving, as innovations develop alongside or from traditional forms and practices. Dance works may be seen as social and historical texts reflecting the cultures from which they emerge.
Dance is a unique medium for learning about self and the world. It is an essential component of artistic, aesthetic, and cultural education and develops creative potential through physical, non-verbal expression.
DRAMA:
Drama is the expression of ideas, feelings, and human experience through movement, sound, visual image, and the realisation of role. In drama, real or imagined actions and events are enacted by placing a role in a setting of time and space, where action and tension create a focus. These dramatic elements combine with contrasts between movement and stillness, sound and silence, and darkness and light to communicate meaning in drama.
In process drama, which is not intended for an audience, participants build belief in roles and situations and explore them together, negotiating, interpreting, and reflecting on role and meaning.
Drama intended for audiences may take place in formal and informal performance settings. It may be experienced as a fully developed theatre production; in such forms of live entertainment as cultural festivals and street theatre; and in works for electronic media, such as film, video, and television. Communication in drama involves performers and audiences in interpreting meanings and developing skills of critical judgment.
Drama permeates our everyday lives and serves a variety of purposes. It enables us to understand ourselves, the people around us, and the world in which we live, enriching the lives of individuals and giving voice to communities.
Drama is integral to children’s play and is found in the oratory, rituals, ceremonies, and celebrations of traditional and contemporary world cultures. Drama both expresses and is defined by the culture from which it emerges. Dramatic works may be regarded as social and historical texts that make a vital contribution to individual, social, and cultural identity.
Pathway
Education in dance is fundamental to the education of all students. Dance is a significant way of knowing, with a distinctive body of knowledge to be experienced, investigated, valued, and shared. Students become increasingly literate in dance as they engage in practical and theoretical investigations and explore dance forms, develop dance ideas, and articulate artistic and aesthetic understandings about dance works in various contexts.
Drama in the New Zealand Curriculum enables students to link their own imaginations, thoughts, and feelings with drama practice and history in ways that give voice to the cultural diversity of New Zealand. Students become increasingly literate in drama as they work with the elements of role, time and space, action, tension, and focus and develop skills in using the techniques of voice, movement, gesture, and facial expression. They use these elements and techniques with the conventions of drama to add richer meaning and colour to their drama work.
As they participate in and interpret their own and others’ drama, students develop cognitive skills and gain understandings about themselves and their wider communities. They investigate the forms, styles, and contexts of drama and recognise that it can affirm or challenge attitudes and values. They work collaboratively to develop ideas, to express feelings, to experiment with sound and action within a dramatic space, and to reflect on live and recorded drama.
Assessment Information
Achievement Objectives in Dance:Developing Practical Knowledge in Dance:
In this strand, students explore and use the vocabularies, practices, and technologies of different dance forms, genres, and styles. They use the elements of dance to explore how the body moves and the body’s relationship in movement to other people, objects, and environments.
Students extend their personal movement vocabularies and movement preferences, and they learn about and apply safe dance practices in individual, pair, and group activities.
Developing Ideas in Dance:
In this strand, students initiate, develop, conceptualise, and refine ideas in dance through the creative process of choreography. They use dance ideas derived from such sources as imagination, feelings, experiences, or given stimuli. They manipulate the elements of dance to develop dance works, individually and in groups.
Through the active and reflective process of choreography, students develop their ability to express experiences, ideas, beliefs, feelings, and information through dance, using a variety of choreographic structures, devices, and processes.
Communicating and Interpreting in Dance:
In this strand, students develop knowledge and understanding of how dance communicates and is interpreted and evaluated. As dancers, they learn, rehearse, and share dance works and perform them to a variety of audiences in formal and informal settings. They develop performance skills and reflect on and evaluate their own dance.
As audience members, students learn to appreciate dance in its many forms. They respond to, reflect on, analyse, and interpret dance, and they make increasingly informed judgments about the value, intentions, and qualities of work performed by others.
Students learn about and use production technologies, such as video, lighting, costumes, and sound. They explore the influence of such technologies on communication and interpretation in dance.
Understanding Dance in Context:
In this strand, students develop knowledge and understanding of the forms and purposes of dance and its integral part in past and present cultures and societies. They come to appreciate that dance is firmly rooted in tradition yet constantly evolving to reflect changes in contemporary culture.
Students engage in practical and theoretical investigations of dance and explore the ritual, social, and artistic purposes of dance within global contexts. They investigate and celebrate the unique forms of traditional Màori dance and the multicultural dance heritage of New Zealand society.
Achievement Objectives in Drama:
Developing Practical Knowledge in Drama:
In this strand, students use the elements, techniques, and conventions of drama to discover how meaning is shaped and communicated. They work with the elements of role, time and space, action, tension, and focus and become increasingly skilled in using techniques of voice, facial expression, gesture, and movement to explore a range of roles and situations. They use such conventions as narration, freeze-frame images, and mimed activity to extend and deepen their experience of drama.
Students use their growing understanding of elements, techniques, and conventions to interpret scripts, develop process drama, improvise stories or scenes, and explore issues. They become fluent in describing and shaping their drama practice, and they explore how different technologies contribute to the design, production, performance, and recording of dramatic forms and styles.
Developing Ideas in Drama:
In this strand, students work individually and collaboratively to initiate, improvise, develop, and refine ideas in drama. In a safe and co-operative environment, they contribute stories from personal and shared experience. They express ideas and feelings, negotiate shared understandings, and explore and reflect on their own and others’ perspectives.
Students develop ideas for and participate in classroom process drama. They also develop ideas for performances by interpreting existing dramatic works or devising drama based on a wide range of sources. They plan, identify problems, test solutions, and make individual and collective decisions in drama.
Communicating and Interpreting in Drama:
In this strand, students rehearse and present drama to others through informal sharing of work and through structured presentations that involve increasingly sophisticated dramatic processes. They view and listen to live drama and drama on radio, film, and television, developing skills of interpretation and critical analysis.
Students reflect on their experiences of drama in a variety of ways. As performers and as responsive audience members, they interpret and respond to diverse dramatic forms and styles from their own and others’ cultures. They evaluate the form, purpose, and quality of their own work, and they examine how different technologies affect communication and interpretation in both live and recorded drama.
Understanding Drama in Context:
In this strand, students explore the forms and purposes of drama in both past and contemporary societies. They investigate how people use drama to express identity and to comment on personal and cultural values. They explore theatre traditions that have informed drama practice over time, and they investigate how society and culture contribute to changes in dramatic forms.
Students recognise that drama encompasses both everyday experiences and the interpretation of social and cultural histories. They appreciate how the development of contemporary theatre in New Zealand has been shaped by diverse cultural influences, especially those of Màori, Europeans, and people from Pacific nations.
Pathway Possibilities
Dancer, choreographer, lighting technician, stage crew, stage manager, stage director, tour manager, screenwriter, director, playwright, author, animator, radio jockey, voice narration, sound technician, arts consultant, movement therapist, roadie, event organiser, arts planner, make-up artist, costume designer, personal trainer, fitness instructor, mime artist, teacher, arts liaison, company director, musical theatre, actor, talent scout, model, usher, videographer, photographer, coach, special effects,
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