Warming up shower

In pairs, the other one stands like in the shower while the other one is "the shower".  First with gentle fingers touching from head to toes, like water dropping down from the shower. Next we will add some imaginative soap and massage it to the other one's head, back, arms and legs. In the end rinsing the soap away with stronger sweeps from head to toes. Changing the roles.

Levels

We move in the space together starting from the floor, first being still, lying and then starting to roll around, crawling, moving while sitting on the floor, walking on fours, walking like a gorilla, standing up and dancing while using all the levels. This is at the same time an individual and group warming up, practicing being aware of the space and others.

After this we gathered around a circle and I asked the children:

“What is dance?”

 The first group replied:

“Like flying”

“Like an undulating stream”

“It’s like adventure alone”

“Exercise”

“Like skipping”

“I run and quite often I am an animal”

“Like a leaf dropping from a tree”

The second group replied:

“Lovely”

“Spinning”

“It’s the best”

“Nice”

“It's fun, because there are girls”

“The adult is teaching”

“Movement”

“Natural”

Dance soup

In groups of 3-4 dancing based on the images and words of dance written on the paper. Each child can for example choose one word or sentence.

My thoughts on the class:

I was interested to hear how children express in words what dance is and after that stepping back to the moving and creating. What kind of qualities come up, how dance is been embraced after a discussion. I have experienced that warming up exercises and moving together open the space for the movement exploration and dancing in smaller groups becomes more focused and easy.