SPEAK: Tap & Kathak Unite (Grades 6-8)

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

The Broad Stage presents

SPEAK: Tap and Kathak Unite

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STUDENT MATINEE

THURS MAR 22, 2018 11 AM Grades 6-8

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SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Jane Deknatel Director, Performing Arts Center EDUCATION & COMMUNITY PROGRAMS STAFF Ilaan E. Mazzini, Director of Education & Community Programs Alisa De Los Santos, Education & Community Programs Manager Mandy Matthews, Education & Community Programs Associate LINCOLN MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER ADVISORS Sara Greenfield Sharon Hart

THE BROAD STAGE 1310 11th Street Santa Monica, CA 90401 Box Office 310.434.3200 Fax 310.434.3439 info@thebroadstage.org thebroadstage.org Education and Community Programs at The Broad Stage is supported in part by The Herb Alpert Foundation Virginia Blywise The California Arts Council Johnny Carson Foundation City of Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Arts Commission The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Leonard M. Lipman Charitable Fund Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation Sidney Stern Memorial Trust Sony Entertainment Dwight Stuart Youth Fund Ziering Family Foundation, a Support Foundation of the Jewish Community

Foundation of Los Angeles.

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EDUCATION & COMMUNITY PROGRAMS Phone 310.434.3560 education@thebroadstage.org thebroadstage.org/education

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Greetings from The Broad Stage!

Dear Educators,

Collaboration, arts integration and nonverbal communication is at the core of SPEAK. Lesson one provides a context for the two art forms by exploring the origin stories and deep histories of Kathak and tap dance.

Students will observe and read about Kathak and tap’s development and compare and contrast the two.

Lesson two focuses on nonverbal communication through movement, and will highlight the importance of conversation in dancing. Students will play with rhythm in lesson three by discovering different ways to make rhythms with their feet and joining teaching artist, Robin Sukhadia, with making tabla rhythms. Lesson four helps students feel prepared to view a dance piece that is non-narrative, and explores theme and variation.

Students will read artist statements and learn how to write their own impact statement in lesson five.

Please take some time to work through some or all of the activities in this guide with your students. Each element of the guide has been developed by dancers, tabla artists and educators to help explain the concepts behind the performance and coincide with subjects you are teaching in your classroom. As always, the activities support the California Common Core and the VAPA Standards with arts integration as the focus.

We hope that this guide proves to be helpful in preparing your students for the presentation.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us with questions or ideas. We’ll see you at SPEAK: Tap & Kathak Unite!

Sincerely,

Education & Community Programs Staff

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We are thrilled to bring Michelle Dorrance, Rina Mehta, Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards and Rachna Nivas’ collaborative piece, SPEAK: Tap & Kathak Unite to The Broad Stage. SPEAK connects two art forms from two separate places of the world by exploring the bridge between tradition and innovation, history and progress.

The dancers are joined by leading Indian classical and American jazz musicians, adding to the conversation with the rhythms and beats that they provide. We created this Study Guide in collaboration with two seventh grade teachers in order to align middle school concepts with the themes and topics in SPEAK. SPEAK: Tap & Kathak Unite is the perfect collaboration for middle school teachers (like you!) with curious and capable students.

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Contents Lessons Lesson 1: Kathak and Tap Unite - 5 Handout 1: Elements of Dance - 9 Handout 2: Kathak History - 10 Handout 3: Tap Dance in America - 13 Lesson 2: Nonverbal Conversations - 18 Lesson 3: Rhythm - 21

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Lesson 4: Theme and Variation - 27 Lesson 5: Artist Statement - 30 Handout 5: Leela Dance Collective and Dorrance Dance Artist Statements - 32 Handout 6: Anna Deavere Smith Artist Statement - 33 Handout 7: Personal Statement - 34 Handout 8: Impact Statement - 35

Additional Resources Glossary – 36

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Handout 4: Examples of Rhythm in Poetry and Rap - 26

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Lesson 1: Kathak and Tap Unite Lesson at a Glance

Lesson Objective: Students compare and contrast the origin stories and movement qualities of Kathak and tap dance, learn how traditions survive many generations and work in groups to make deeper connections with other cultures.

Duration: 2 class periods Materials: Handout 1: Elements of Dance, Handout 2: Kathak History, Handout 3: Tap Dance in America, access to internet

CCSS Reading Standards for Informational Text, Grade Seven: 2 Determine two or more central ideas in a text and analyze their development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.

CCSS Speaking and Listening, Grade Six: 4 Present claims and findings (e.g., argument, narrative, informative, response to literature presentations), sequencing ideas logically and using pertinent descriptions, facts, and details and nonverbal elements to accentuate main ideas or themes; use appropriate eye contact, adequate volume, and clear pronunciation.

VAPA Dance, Grade Six: 3.1 Compare and contrast features of dances already performed from different countries.

VAPA Dance, Grade Eight: 3.2 Explain the variety of roles dance plays among different socioeconomic groups in selected countries (e.g., royalty and peasants).

Concepts/Vocabulary: Elements of dance - Foundational concepts and vocabulary that help develop movement skills and discuss movement: body, action, space, time and energy etc.

Hinduism – religious practice that originated from India that includes the worship of many gods and a variety of beliefs and practices.

Katha – means story in Sanskrit.

Kathak – classical dance form from Northern India that originates from storytellers or kathaks. The style involves complex foot work and rhythm to match the music, and dancers wear ankle bells to highlight the percussive element.

Oral Tradition - form of communication where in knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved and transmitted orally from one generation to another.

Tap Dance – a dance in which the rhythm or rhythmical variation is audibly tapped out with the toe or heel by a dancer wearing shoes with special hard soles or with taps.

Guiding Questions: What preserves culture?

What is similar and different about Kathak and tap dance?

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Standards: CA History-Social Science Content Standards, Grade Six: 6.5 Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the early civilizations of India.

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Lesson Plan Mini Lesson: Discover the Elements of Dance Pass out Handout 1: The Elements of Dance and review the definition of the elements of dance as a class. The elements of dance is the universal language of dance that define the foundational concepts and vocabulary that help develop movement skills and to discuss movement. There are five categories within the elements, body, action, space, time and energy (BASTE).

Before reviewing each concept, ask students to brainstorm the meaning of each category in the elements of dance.

How would the concepts encourage movement?

What could that look like?

Review Handout 1 as a class and ask students to create a gesture or movement as you define each concept.

Body: Let your elbow initiate your movement around the space.

Action: Travel around the room using a locomotor movement (hop, slide, skip, crawl, etc.)

Space: Travel around the room in a straight pathway. Now travel in a curved pathway.

Time: Walk around the room with a steady beat. Now walk with an uneven or syncopated beat.

Energy: Move lightly around the room as if you are walking on the clouds.

Kathak and Tap Unite Part 1: Origin Stories Briefly introduce students to the show SPEAK: Tap and Kathak Unite. The performance will highlight two dance styles from two different countries and backgrounds, Kathak and tap.

Option to watch show trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ltsf3xeyQdQ Ask students to conduct research on both Kathak and tap. You can encourage students to do their own research, or they can read the two articles attached in Handout 2 and Handout 3. When reading, encourage students to take notes about the genres’ origin stories, movement qualities and political or social events that may have impacted the development of the genre.

Have students write and summarize what they read about each genre. Writing should include important information about the genre’s history, origin, development and qualities and should be presented objectively. Encourage students to make connections to what they are learning or have already learned in their classes about culture and society. After writing, have students discuss what they wrote with a partner.

After learning more about the origins of Kathak and tap, watch these two short videos to view the movement qualities that are distinct to each genre. The videos are performed by Rina Mehta and Michelle Dorrance, who will both be performing in SPEAK. Ask students to take notes on what they see and write about any connections they make from their research.

Rina Mehta performing Kathak: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0igHpZIAqM Michelle Dorrance performing tap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVzmyl9D5rE THE BROAD STAGE AT THE SANTA MONICA COLLEGE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER 1310 11TH ST., SANTA MONICA, CA 90401 / 310.434.3560

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Explore the elements of dance further by having students walk around the room and move to an element concept that you name. You can go through the concepts in each element on Handout 1. Below are some examples.

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Part 2: Compare and Contrast Have a discussion together and compare and contrast the two dance forms. You can record the discussion by writing students’ comparisons in a venn diagram on the board or having students create their own venn diagram. Compare and contrast the origin stories, development as an art form, movement qualities, etc. Ask students to provide examples from their research and use language from the elements of dance while discussing and comparing.

From what you observed, how is the movement in Kathak nd tap alike? How is it different?

What is the relationship to music in both Kathak and tap?

How did political or social events effect the practicing of Kathak in India?

How did political or social events effect the development of tap dance in the United States?

How and why do dance traditions change over time?

How were the genres taught to the next generation of dancers?

Part 3: Oral Tradition TASK: Students will discuss the process of oral tradition in the context of Kathak and tap dance, research other cultures’ use of oral tradition and present their findings.

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How can parents share ideas, knowledge, dance, etc. with their children?

How does a change in rule, establishment of new laws or other societal influences effect oral tradition and culture?

How can traditions survive over time?

To better understand how oral tradition works, play telephone charades with your students. Follow these steps for the activity.

1. Students stand in a long line throughout the classroom facing the back of the person in front of them.

2. The student in the back of the line (Student #1) will develop a charade. Examples include, William Tell, their morning routine, making a sandwich, etc. Student #1 will tap the shoulder of the student in front of them (Student #2). Student #2 will turn around and face Student #1, and Student #1 will show the charade or pantomime to Student #2. Students are only allowed to show the charade once.

3. Student #2 will turn around and tap the shoulder of Student #3 and repeat the charade.

4. After the charade reaches the last student, the last student will show Student #1 and the class what they saw.

After playing telephone charades, discuss the transformation of the charade, and encourage students to connect any insights with the previous discussion about culture and oral tradition.

Did the charade transform into something different? Or was it similar to the original?

What can happen to traditions over time?

What is the importance of taking time to train future generations?

During the discussion, make connections to cultures that students have previously learned or are familiar with and discuss oral tradition in those cultures.

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During the class discussion, it should be noted that both Kathak and tap dance are passed down to generations through oral tradition. Oral tradition is a form of communication where in knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved and transmitted orally from one generation to another. First, discuss with your students how traditions are shared across generations.

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Ask students to find their original small group, and conduct a research project about artistic traditions (dance, music, theater, visual art, language, tattoo, etc.) in a culture. Ask students to study how the culture practices oral tradition. You can assign groups different cultures to focus on based on the societies being studied in class, or you can assign each group a different area of the world to research.

Below are some examples.

New Zealand, Maori culture’s Haka dance Hawaii, native Hawaiians method of kakau for tattooing or hula West Africa, Mali’s djembe drum Veracruz, Mexico, fandango tradition or building tarimas Philippines, Tinikling dance Have students answer these questions in their research.

How does the culture preserve its traditions?

Has the tradition been altered due to societal or external factors?

Is the tradition still practiced today? How are people teaching the next generation?

Ask groups to share their research with the class in a short presentation style. As an option, you can also expand this activity and give students more time to research and present.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA:

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Students recognize oral tradition in other cultures Students present their findings using clear speech and eye contact Students make connections between cultures

PURPOSE: To better understand the pattern of oral tradition in different cultures.

Reflection Questions Why are origin stories important to the development of a tradition?

Why do Kathak and tap make a worthwhile collaboration?

What other possibilities for connection do you see in your world?

Is there a tradition in your family that has been passed down through generations?

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SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Handout 1: Elements of Dance

The Elements of Dance Ask:

WHO?

DOES WHAT?

WHERE?

WHEN?

HOW?

A dancer

moves

through space

and time

with energy

B.A.S.T.E.

BODY

ACTION

SPACE

TIME

ENERGY

Concepts

Parts of the Body

Axial

Place

Duration

Attack

(in bold font) with some suggestions for word lists and descriptors under each concept.

Head, eyes, torso, shoulders, fingers, legs, feet, etc.

(in place) Open - - - - - - - - - - - - Close

In Place - - - - - - - Traveling

Brief - - - - - - - - - - - - Long

Sharp - - - - - - - - - - Smooth

Rise - - - - - - - - - Sink or Fall

Size

Speed

Stretch - - - - - - - - - - - Bend

Small - - - - - - - - - - - -Large

Fast - - - - - - - - - - - - - Slow

Answer:

Whole Body Design and use of the entire body

Twist - - - - - - - - - - - - -Turn

Laban Effort Actions

Initiation

Press

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Body Shapes Symmetrical/Asymmetrical Rounded Twisted Angular Arabesque

Body Systems Muscles Bones Organs Breath Balance Reflexes

Level

Beat

High- - - - - - - - - - - - - - Low

Steady - - - - - - - - - Uneven

Flick Dab

Direction

Tempo

Slash

Glide

Forward - - - - - - Backward

Quick - - - - - - - - - - - - Slow

Punch

Float

Upward - - - - - - Downward Sideward - - - - - Diagonally

Accent

Traveling

Liner - - - - - - - - - Rotating

Single - - - - - - - - - Multiple

(locomotor) Crawl, creep, roll. scoot, walk. run, leap, jump, gallop. slide. hop, skip, do-si-do, chainé turns .... and many more!

Pathway

This is just a starting list of movements. Many techniques have specific names for similar actions. “Sauté” is a ballet term for “jump.”

Force Strong - - - - - - - - - - Gentle

Wring

Patterns Upper/lower body, homologous, contralateral, midline, etc.

Tension Tight - - - - - - - - - - - Loose

On Beat - - - - - Syncopated Traveling, traced in air curved, straight,angular, zig-zag, etc.

Plane Sagittal (Wheel) Vertical (Door) Horizontal (Table)

Focus Inward - - - - - - - - Outward Direct - - - - - - - - - Indirect

Inner Self

Relationships

Senses Perceptions Emotions Thoughts Intention Imagination

In Front - - - Behind/Beside

Predictable- -Unpredictable

Rhythmic Pattern Patterned - - - - - - - - - -Free Metric 2/4, 6/8, etc Polyrhythms Cross-rhythm Tala

Breath, waves, word cues, event cues, felt time

Timing Relationships Before After Unison Sooner Than Faster Than

Over - - - - - - - - - - - Under Alone - - - - - - - - Connected Near - - - - - - - - - - - - - Far Individual & group proximity to object

© 2011 Perpich Center for Arts Education May be reproduced for professional development and classroom use by teachers

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Weight Heavy - - - - - - - - - - - Light Strength: push, horizontal, impacted Lightness: resist the down, initiate up Resiliency: rebound, even up and down

Flow Bound (Controlled) - - -Free

Energy Qualities Vigorous, languid, furious, melting, droopy, wild, lightly, jerkily, sneakily, timidly, proudly, sharp, smooth, sudden, sustained etc.

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Core Distal Mid-limb Body Parts

Sudden - - - - - - -Sustained

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Handout 2: Kathak History http://www.culturalindia.net/indian-dance/classical/kathak.html Kathak is one of the main genres of ancient Indian classical dance and is traditionally regarded to have originated from the travelling bards of North India referred as Kathakars or storytellers. These Kathakars wandered around and communicated legendary stories via music, dance and songs quite like the early Greek theatre. The genre developed during the Bhakti movement, the trend of theistic devotion which evolved in medieval Hinduism. The Kathakars communicate stories through rhythmic foot movements, hand gestures, facial expressions and eye work. This performing art that incorporates legends from ancient mythology and great Indian epics, especially from the life of Lord Krishna became quite popular in the courts of North Indian kingdoms. Three specific forms of this genre that is three gharanas (schools), which mostly differ in emphasis given to footwork versus acting, are more famous namely, the Jaipur gharana, the Benaras gharana and the Lucknow gharana.

The roots of this dance form trace back to Sanskrit Hindu text on performing arts called ‘Natya Shastra’ written by ancient Indian theatrologist and musicologist Bharata Muni. It is presumed that the first complete version of the text was completed between 200 BCE to 200 CE, but some sources mention the timeframe to be around 500 BCE and 500 CE. Thousands of verses structured in different chapters are found in the text that divides dance in two particular forms, namely ‘nrita’ that is pure dance which comprise of finesse of hand movements and gestures, and ‘nritya’ that is solo expressive dance that focuses on expressions.

Russian scholar Natalia Lidova states that ‘Natya Shastra’ describes various theories of Indian classical dances including Tandava dance of Lord Shiva, methods of acting, standing postures, gestures, basic steps, bhava and rasa. Mary Snodgrass states that the tradition of this dance form is traced back to the 400 BCE. Bharhut, a village in the Satna district of Madhya Pradesh, India stands as a representative of early Indian art. The 2nd century BC panels found there illustrates sculptures of dancers in different vertical poses with arm positions that resemble Kathak steps, many of which reflect the ‘pataka hasta’ Mudra. The word Kathak is deduced from the Vedic Sanskrit term ‘Katha’ which means ‘story’ while the term kathaka that finds place in several Hindu epics and texts means the person who tells a story. Text-based analysis indicates Kathak as an ancient Indian classical dance form that presumably originated in Banaras or Varanasi and then spread its wings in Jaipur, Lucknow and many other regions of north and northwest India.

Association with Bhakti Movement The Lucknow Gharana of Kathak was founded by Ishwari Prasad, a devotee of the Bhakti movement. Ishwari lived in the village of Handiya situated in southeast Uttar Pradesh. It is believed that Lord Krishna came to his dreams and instructed him to develop “dance as a form of worship”. He taught the dance form to his sons Adguji, Khadguji and Tularamji who again taught their descendants and the tradition continued for more than six generations thus carrying forward this rich legacy that is well acknowledged as the Lucknow grarana of Kathak

by Indian literature on music of both Hindus and Muslims. The development of Kathak during the era of Bhakti movement predominantly focussed on the legends of Lord Krishna and his eternal love Radhika or Radha found in texts like the ‘Bhagavata Purana’ which were spectacularly performed by the Kathak artists.

Improvisation in the Mughal Era This ancient classical dance form that was majorly associated with Hindu epics was well acknowledged by the courts and nobles of the Mughal period. The dance performed in Mughal courts however adapted a more erotic form without having much reference to particular themes applied earlier that communicated religious or spiritual concepts. Improvisations were made by the dancers predominantly to entertain the Muslim audience with sensuous and sexual performances which although were different from the age-old dancing concept but contained a subtle message in it like the love of Radha-Krishna. Eventually Central Asian and Persian themes THE BROAD STAGE AT THE SANTA MONICA COLLEGE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER 1310 11TH ST., SANTA MONICA, CA 90401 / 310.434.3560

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History & Evolution

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

became a part of its repertoire. These included replacements of sari with a costume that bared midriff, adding a transparent veil in the costume that typified the ones wore by medieval Harem dancers and whirling while performing as done in Sufi dance. By the time the colonial European officials arrived in India, Kathak already became famed as a court entertainment and was more of a fusion of ancient Indian classical dance form and Persian-Central Asian dance forms with the dancers being referred as ‘nautch girls’.

Decline during Colonial Rule Emergence of colonial rule in the 18th century followed by the establishment of of the colonial rule in the 19th century saw decline of various classical dance forms which were subjected to contemptuous fun and discouragement including Kathak. Eventually the social stigma associated with nautch girls added with highly critical and despicable attitude from the Christian missionaries and British officials, who held them and the Devadasis of South India as harlots, disgraced such systems. The Anglican missionaries were critical about Hinduism manifested from the proposition of Reverend James Long who suggested that Kathak artists should embrace European legends and tales associated with Christianity and do away with the Indian and Hindu legends.

The Christian missionaries launched anti-dance movement in 1892 to stop such practice.

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Revival In the midst of such upheaval, the families made effort in keeping this ancient dance form from dying out and continued teaching the form including training boys. The progress of the Indian freedom movement in the early 20th century saw an effort among Indians to revive national culture and tradition and rediscover the rich history of India in order to resurrect the very essence of the nation. The revival movement of Kathak developed both in the Hindu and Muslim gharanas simultaneously, especially in the Kathak-Mishra community. Kalkaprasad Maharaj played an instrumental role in drawing international viewership of Kathak in the early 20th century.

Repertoire The three main sections of a Kathak dance are invocation and ‘Nritta’ and ‘Nritya’ mentioned in ‘Natya Shastra’ and followed by all major Indian classical dance forms. In the invocation part the dancer offers respect to her guru and musicians onstage and invocation to Hindu gods and goddesses through mudras or hand gestures and facial expressions if the group follows Hindu tradition. In case of Muslim groups, the dancer gives a salami or salutation. ‘Nritta represents pure dance where the dancer initially performs a thath sequence exhibiting elegant and slow movements of eyebrows, neck and wrists following which she slowly ups her speed and energy in multiples as she completes a sequence of bol. Each bol comprising of short sections includes spectacular footwork, turns and gestures encompassing tora, tukra, parhant and paran among others. She performs to the musical beats and tempos, perfectly synchronizing her footwork sequences called tatkars, thus creating a rhythmic sound with the ghunghru, and usually mark completion of each sequence with a sharp turn of head. In ‘Nritya’ the dancer communicates a story, spiritual themes, message or feelings through expressive gestures and slower body movements harmonized with musical notes and vocals.

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The book ‘The Wrongs of Indian Womanhood’ by Marcus B. Fuller published in 1900 caricatured the facial expressions and sensuous gestures emoted during Kathak performances in Hindu temples and family functions.

The nautch girls were not only disgraced by the newspapers and officials of colonial rule but were also suppressed economically by pressurising their patrons to cease financial support. The Madras Presidency under the British colonial rule banned the custom of dancing in Hindu temples in 1910. The Indian community disapproved such ban apprehending persecution of such rich and ancient Hindu custom on the pretext of social reform. Many classical art revivalists questioned against such discrimination.

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Costumes As Kathak is popular both in Hindu and Muslim communities the costumes of this dance form are made in line with traditions of the respective communities. There are two types of Hindu costumes for female dancers. While the first one includes a sari worn in a unique fashion complimented with a choli or blouse that covers the upper body and a scarf or urhni worn in some places, the other costume includes a long embroidered skirt with a contrasting choli and a transparent urhni. Costume is well complimented with traditional jewelery, usually gold, that includes the ones adorning her hair, nose, ear, neck and hand. Musical anklets called ghunghru made of leather straps with small metallic bells attached to it are wrapped in her ankles that produce rhythmic sound while she performs excellent and spectacular footwork. Head jewellery adorns her in the second case. Vivid face make-up put on helps highlight her facial expressions. Hindu male Kathak dancers usually wear a silk dhoti with a silk scarf tied on the upper part of the body which usually remain bare or may be covered by a loose jacket.

Jewellery of male dancers is quite simple compared to their female counterparts and are usually made of stone.

The costume for Muslim female dancers includes a skirt along with a tight fitting trouser called churidar or pyjama and a long coat to cover the upper body and hands. A scarf covering the head compliments the whole attire which is completed with light jewellery. Â Instruments & Music

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A Kathak performance may include a dozen classical instruments depending more on the effect and depth required for a particular performance. However some instruments are typically used in a Kathak performance like the tabla that harmonise well with the rhythmic foot movements of the dancer and often imitates sound of such footwork movements or vice-versa to create a brilliant jugalbandi. A manjira that is hand cymbals and sarangi or harmonium are also used most often.

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Handout 3: Tap Dance in America: A Short History Hill, Constance Valis. Tap Dance in America: A Short History. Online Text. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200217630/>.

Glover and Dunn: A Contest of Beat and Feet

Dunn went on first. Standing tall and straight, his back to the audience and hands placed neatly at the waist of his slim black pants, he spun around quickly on his introduction, and with the stamp of his high-heeled shoe drew himself up onto the balls of the feet and clicked out neat sets of triplets and cross-backs in place. The camera zoomed in on the dazzling speed and precision of Dunn’s footwork, zoomed out on the handsome symmetry of his form, and quickly panned right to reveal the hulking presence of Glover—who stood crouched over, peering at Dunn’s feet. Without an introduction, Glover slapped out a succession of flat-footed stomps that turned his black baggy pants, big baggy shirt, and mop of deadlocks into a stuttering spitfire of beats. Hunkering down into a deep knee bend, he repeated the slamming rhythms with the heels, toes, and insteps of his hard-soled tap shoes. Dunn heard the challenge. Taking his hands off his hips and turning around to face Glover, he delivered a pair of swooping scissor-kicks that sliced the air within inches of Glover face; and continued to shuffle with an air of calm, the fluid monotone of his cross-back steps bringing the volume of noise down to a whisper. Glover interrupted Dunn’s meditation on the “ssssh” with short and jagged hee-haw steps that mocked Dunn’s beautiful line and forced the conversation back to the sound, not look.

They traded steps, spitting out shards of rhythmic phrases and daring each other to pick up and one-up. Dunn’s crisp heel-clicks were taken up by Glover with heel-and-toe clicks, which were turned by Dunn into airy flutters, which Glover then repeated from a crouched position. When they tired of trading politely, they proceeded to tap over each other’s lines, interrupting each other wittily with biting sounds that made the audience scream, applaud, and stamp its feet. When Dunn broke his focus just for a moment to politely acknowledge the applause with a smile, Glover seized the moment and found his edge by perching on the tip of one toe and delivering a flick-kick with the dangling other that brushed within inches of Dunn’s face. All movement came to a halt. And for one long moment, the dancers just stood there, flat-footed, glaring at each other. Though the clapping melted their stares, they slapped hands and turned away from each other and walked off the stage without smiling and never looking back.

An American Genre This performance is a sublime example of the tap dance challenge, the general term for any competition, contest, breakdown, or showdown in which dancers compete before an audience of spectators or judges.

Motivated by a dare, focused by strict attention to one’s opponent, and developed through the stealing and trading of steps, the tap challenge is the dynamic and rhythmically expressive “engine” that drives tap dancing— our oldest of American vernacular dance forms. What is fascinating about the tap challenge that took place

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On the evening of the thirty-ninth annual Grammy Awards that was broadcast on national television on February 27, 1997, Colin Dunn and Savion Glover faced off in the fiercest tap dance challenge of their lives. Colin Dunn, the star of Riverdance—The Musical, was challenging Savion Glover, the choreographer and star of Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk, to a battle of the feet that was staged to showcase and celebrate the two hottest musicals on Broadway. But there was nothing festive about the challenge dance for these two stars. Not only was their reputation as dancers at stake but also the supremacy of the percussive dance forms that each show represented—Irish step dancing and African American jazz tap dancing.

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between Colin Dunn and Savion Glover at the 1997 Grammy Awards is that Glover’s style of tap dance, which he calls “hitting”—an unusually percussive combination of jazz and hip-hop dance rhythms that utilizes all parts of the foot to drum the floor—is radically different from Dunn’s style of stepping, a highly musical and sleekly modern translation of traditional Irish step dancing. Yet both of these dance forms trace their origins and evolution to a percussive dance tradition that developed in America several hundred years ago.

Unlike ballet with its codification of formal technique, tap dance developed from people listening to and watching each other dance in the street, dance hall, or social club where steps were shared, stolen and reinvented. “Technique” is transmitted visually, aurally, and corporeally, in a rhythmic exchange between dancers and musicians. Mimicry is necessary for the mastery of form. The dynamic and synergistic process of copying the other to invent something new is most important to tap’s development and has perpetuated its key features, such as the tap challenge. Fiercely competitive, the tap challenge sets the stage for a “performed” battle that engages dancers in a dialog of rhythm, motion, and witty repartee, while inviting the audience to respond with a whisper of kudos or roar of stomps. The oral and written histories of tap dance are replete with challenge dances, from jigging competitions on the plantation that were staged by white masters for their slaves, and challenge dances in the walk-around finale of the minstrel show, to showdowns in the street, displays of one-upsmanship in the social club, and juried buck-and wing-contests on the vaudeville stage. There are contemporary examples of the tap challenge as well, such as black fraternity step-dance competitions which are fierce as gang wars, and Irish step dance competitions, in which dancers focus more civilly on displaying technical virtuosity. But no matter the contest, all challenge dances necessitate the ability to look, listen, copy, creatively modify, and further perfect whatever has come before. As they said at the Hoofer’s Club in Harlem in the 1930s, where tap dancers gathered to practice their steps and compete: “Thou Shalt Not Copy Anyone’s Steps— Exactly!”

1600s and 1700s: Jig and Gioube Opportunities for whites and blacks to watch each other dance may have begun as early as the 1500’s when enslaved Africans shipped to the West Indies, during the infamous “middle passage” across the Atlantic Ocean, were brought up on deck after meals and forced to “exercise”—to dance for an hour or two to the accompaniment of bag-pipes, harps, and fiddles (Emery 1988: 6-9). In the absence of traditional drums, slaves danced to the music of upturned buckets and tubs. The rattle and restriction of chains may have been the first subtle changes in African dance as it evolved toward becoming an African-American style of dance. Sailors who witnessed these events were among the first of white observers who later would serve as social arbiters, onlookers, and participants at plantation slave dances urban slave balls. Upon arriving in North America and the West Indies, Africans too were exposed to such European court dances like the quadrille and cotillion, which they adopted by keeping the figures and patterns, but retaining their African rhythms (Szwed 1988).

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Tap dance is an indigenous American dance genre that evolved over a period of some three hundred years.

Initially a fusion of British and West African musical and step-dance traditions in America, tap emerged in the southern United States in the 1700s. The Irish jig (a musical and dance form) and West African gioube (sacred and secular stepping dances) mutated into the American jig and juba. These in turn became juxtaposed and fused into a form of dancing called “jigging” which, in the 1800s, was taken up by white and black minstrelshow dancers who developed tap into a popular nineteenth-century stage entertainment. Early styles of tapping utilized hard-soled shoes, clogs, or hobnailed boots. It was not until the early decades of the twentieth century that metal plates (or taps) appeared on shoes of dancers on the Broadway musical stage. It was around that time that jazz tap dance developed as a musical form parallel to jazz music, sharing rhythmic motifs, polyrhythm, multiple meters, elements of swing, and structured improvisation. In the late twentieth century, tap dance evolved into a concertized performance on the musical and concert hall stage. Its absorption of Latin American and Afro- Caribbean rhythms in the forties has furthered its rhythmic complexity. In the eighties and nineties, tap’s absorption of hip-hop rhythms has attracted a fierce and multi-ethnic new breed of male and female dancers who continue to challenge and evolve the dance form, making tap the most cutting-edge dance expression in America today.

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In the 1650s, during the Thirteen War between England and Spain (1641-54) and under the command of Oliver Cromwell, an estimated 40,000 Celtic Irish solders were shipped to Spain, France, Poland, and Italy. After deporting the men, Cromwell succeeded in deporting the widows, deserted wives, and destitute families of soldiers left behind. Thereafter, thousands of Irish men, women and children were hijacked, deported, exiled, low-interest loaned or sold into the new English tobacco islands of the Caribbean. Within a few years, substantial proportions of mostly Atlantic Coast Africans were thrown on the so-called coffin ships and transported to the Caribbean. In an environment that was dominated by the English sugar plantation owner, Irish indentured servants and West African slaves worked and slaved together. “For an entire century, these two people are left out in the fields to hybridize and miscegenize and grow something entirely new,” writes Irish historian Leni Sloan. “Ibo men playing bodhrans and fiddles and Kerrymen learning to play jubi drums, set dances becoming syncopated to African rhythms, Saturday night ceili dances turning into full-blown voodoo rituals” (Sloan 1982:52).

The cultural exchange between first-generation enslaved Africans and indentured Irishmen would continue through the late 1600s on plantations, and in urban centers during the transition from white indentured servitude to African slave labor.

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Jigging and Juba As Africans were transplanted to America, African religious circle dance rituals, which had been of central importance to their life and culture, were adapted and transformed (Stuckey 1987). The African American Juba, for example, derived from the African djouba or gioube, moved in a counterclockwise circle and was distinguished by the rhythmic shuffling of feet, clapping hands, and “patting” the body, as if it were a large drum.

With the passage of he Slave Laws in the 1740s prohibiting the beating of drums for the fear of slave uprisings, there developed creative substitutes for drumming, such as bone- clapping, jawboning, hand-clapping, and percussive footwork. There were also retentions by the indentured Irish, as well as parallel retentions between the Irish and enslaved Africans, of certain music, dance and storytelling traditions. Both peoples took pride in skills like dancing while balancing a glass of beer or water on their heads, and stepping to intricate rhythmic patterns while singing or lilting these same rhythms. Some contend that the cakewalk, a strutting and prancing dance originated by plantation slaves to imitate and satirize the manners of their white masters, borrows from the Irish tradition of dancing competitively for a cake. And that Africans may have transformed the Irish custom of jumping the broomstick into their own unofficial wedding ceremony at a time when slaves were denied Christian rites.

The oral traditions and expressive cultures of the West Africans and Irish that converged and collided in America can best be heard. The flowing 6/8 meter of the Irish Jig that was played on the fiddle or fife (a small flute), can be distinguished from the polyrhythm of West African drumming, with its propulsive or swinging quality. The fusion of these in America produced black and fiddlers who “ragged” or syncopated jig tunes. Similarly, the African-American style of dance that angled and relaxed the torso, centered movement in the hips, and favored flat-footed gliding, dragging, and shuffling steps, melded with the Irish-American style of dance that stiffened the torso, minimalized hip motion, and emphasized dexterous footwork that favored bounding, hopping, and shuffling (Kealiinohomoku 1976).

By 1800, “jigging” became the general term for this new American percussive hybrid that was recognized as a “black” style of dancing in which the body was bent at the waist and movement was restricted from the waist down; jumping, springing, and winging air steps made it possible for the air-born dancer, upon taking off or landing, to produce a rapid and rhythmic shuffling in the feet. Jigging competitions featuring buck-and-

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It is believed that on the island of Montserrat in the Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean, the Africans’ first European language was Gaelic Irish, and that retentions and reinterpretations of Irish forms were most pronounced in music, song, and dance (Messenger 1975: 298). And in Joseph Williams’s book, Whence the Black Irish of Jamaica, the sheer number of Irish surnames belonging to former African slaves—Collins, Kennedy, McCormick, O’Hare— supports the contention that enslaved and indentured blacks and whites lived and danced together. They also rebelled together. The 1741 St. Patrick’s Day Rebellion in New York was led by John Cory, an Irish dancing master, and Caesar, a Free African, who together burned down the symbols of the British rule, the Governor’s mansion and main armory. Corey and Caesar died together in the brutal suppression that followed.

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wing dances, shuffling ring dances, and breakdowns abounded on the slave plantations where dancing was encouraged and often enforced. As James W. Smith, an ex-slave born in Texas around 1850, remembers: “Master . . . had a little platform built for the jigging contests. Colored folk comes from all around to see who could jig the best. . .on our place was the jigginist fellow ever was. Everyone round tries to git somebody to best him.

He could. . . make his feet go like triphammers and sound like the snaredrum. He could whirl round and such, all the movement from his hips down” (Stearns 1968, 37). Any dance in the so-called Negro style was called a breakdown, and it was always a favorite with the white riverboat men. Ohio flatboatmen indulged in the Virginia breakdown. And in Life on the Mississippi (1883) Mark Twain wrote that “keelboatmen got out an old fiddle and one played and another patted juba and the rest turned themselves loose on a regular old-fashioned keelboat breakdown.”

Clog and Hornpipe

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The Minstrel Show Though African-Americans and European-Americans borrowed and copied from each other in developing a solo vernacular style of dancing, there was a stronger draw of African-American folk material by white performers.

By the 1750’s, “Ethiopian delineators,” many of them English and Irish actors, arrived in America. John Durang’s 1789 “Hornpipe,” a clog dance that mixed ballet steps with African-American shuffle-and-wings, was performed in blackface make-up (Moore 1976). By 1810, the singing-dancing “Negro Boy” was established as a dancehall character by blackface impersonators who performed jigs and clogs to popular songs. In 1829, the Irishman Thomas Dartmouth Rice created “Jump Jim Crow,” a black version of the Irish jig that appropriated a Negro work song and dance, and became a phenomenal success. After Rice, Irishmen George Churty and Dan Emmett organized the Virginia Minstrels, a troupe of blackface performers, thus consolidating Irish American and AfroAmerican song and dance styles on the minstrel stage (Winter 1978). By 1840, the minstrel show, a blackface act of songs, fast-talking repartee in Negro dialects and shuffle-and-wing tap dancing became the most popular form of entertainment in America. From the minstrel show, the tap act inherited the walk-around finale, with dances that included competitive sections in a performance that combined songs, jokes, and specialty dances.

It is largely because of William Henry Lane (c.1825-52) that tap dancing in the minstrel period was able to retain its African-American integrity. Born a free man, Lane grew up in the Five Points district of lower Manhattan, whose thoroughfares were lined with brothels and saloons that were largely occupied by free blacks and indigent Irish immigrants. Learning to dance from an “Uncle” Jim Lowe, an African-American jig and reel dancer of exceptional skill, Lane was unsurpassed in grace and technique and was popular for imitating the steps of famous minstrel dancers of the day, and then execute his own specialty steps which no one could copy. In 1844, after beating the reining Irish-American minstrel John Diamond (1823-1857) in a series of challenge dances, Lane was hailed “King of All Dancers” and proclaimed “Master Juba.” He was the first African American dancer to tour with the all-white minstrel troupe, Pell’s Ethiopian Serenaders, and to perform without blackface makeup for the Queen of England (Winter 1948). Lane is considered the single most influential performer in nineteenth century dance. His grafting of African rhythms and a loose body styling onto the exacting techniques of jig and clog forged a new rhythmic blend of percussive dance that was considered the earliest form of American tap dance.

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The Lancashire Clog was another percussive form that contributed to the mix during this period. Danced in wooden-sole shoes, the Clog came to America from the Lancashire region of England in the 1840s and in the next forty years had rapidly evolved into such new styles as the Hornpipe, Pedestal, Trick, Statue, and Waltz Clog. The Clog also melded with forms of jigging to produce a variety of percussive styles ranging from ballroom dances with articulate footwork and formal figures to fast-stomping competitive solos that were performed by men on the frontier. None of these percussive forms, however, had syncopated rhythm; in other words, they all lacked swinging rhythms that would later come in such percussive forms as the Buck and Wing and Essence dances that would lead to the Soft Shoe.

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forms. Tap dances like “The Essence of Old Virginia,” originally a rapid and pigeon-toed dance performed on the minstrel stage, was slowed down and popularized in the 1870s by the African-American minstrel Billy Kersands.

The Essence would later be refined by the Irish-American minstrel George Primrose into a graceful Soft Shoe, or Song-and-Dance, to become the most elegant style of tap dancing on the musical stage.

The Reconstruction The Reconstruction era was also the time when technical perfection in tap dance was valued and awarded, and when the obsession with precision, lightness and speed—which had long been valued in traditional Irish Jig dancing—became the ruling standard of judgment in publicly contested challenge dances. The New York Clipper (April 11, 1868) reported that in one such challenge, “Charles M. Clarke, a professional jig dancer . . . had a contest on the evening of the 3rd in Metropolitan Hall . . . for a silver cup valued as $12. Clarke did a straight jig with eighty-two steps and won the cup. Edwards broke down after doing sixty-five steps.” In the 1880s, big touring shows such as Sam T. Jack’s Creole Company and South Before the War brought new styles of black vernacular stepping to audiences across America. While black vaudeville troupes like Black Patti’s Troubadours featured cakewalk and buck-and-wing specialists in lavish stage productions, traveling medicine shows, carnivals and Jig Top circuses featured chorus lines and comics dancing an early style of jazz-infused tap that combined shuffles, wings, drags and slides with flat-footed buck and eccentric dancing.

At the turn of the twentieth century, when the syncopated and duple-metered rhythms of ragtime were introduced on the musical stage, tap dance underwent its most significant transformation. The music of Ragtime that was created from a new and unprecedented borrowing and blending of European melodic and harmonic complexities and African-derived syncopation evolved the earliest form of jazz. So too, tap dance, in its absorption of early ragtime and jazz rhythms, evolved into jazz tap dance. The all-black Broadway musical, Clorindy, or the Origins of the Cakewalk (1898) presents a sterling example of this turn-of the-century jazz and tap fusion. Will Marion Cook’s music for Clorindy was marked by the distinctly syncopated rhythm of ragtime, while Paul Laurence Dunbar’s lyrics were performed in a syncopated Negro dialect (“Dam de lan’, let the white folks rule it!/ I’se a-looking fo’ mah pullet”) and Ernest Hogan’s choreography featured offbeat cocks of the head, shuffling pigeon-wings, and sliding buzzard lopes. In Dahomey (1902), another turn-of-the-century black musical, saw Bert Williams playing the role of the low-shuffling Fool, and his partner George Walker in the role of the high-strutting Dandy. Wearing blackface makeup and shoes that extended his already-large feet, Williams shuffled along in a hopeless way, interspersing grotesque and offbeat slides between choruses, while Walker as the “spic-and-span Negro” turned his cocky strut into a high-stepping cakewalk that he varied dozens of times.

In “Cakewalk Jig,” Williams and Walker danced buck-and-wings, bantam twists, and rubber-legging cakewalks to a “ragged” up jig, thus introducing a black vernacular dance style to Broadway that was an eccentric blend of the shuffle, strut-turned cakewalk, and grind, or mooche.

At the turn of the century, it was imperative for tap dancers to compete in buck-and-wing and cakewalk contests in order to earn the status of professional and gain entry onto the Broadway musical stage. Arriving in New York in 1900, Bill Robinson challenged Harry Swinton, the Irish- American dancing star of In Old Kentucky, to a buck-and-wing contest, and won. With a gold medal and the valuable publicity that was bestowed upon winning, Robinson was targeted as the new man to challenge. While Robinson fused ragtime syncopation with a light-footed and vertical style of jigging that favored the elegant soft-shoe of the famed Irish-American dancer George Primrose, “King” Rastus Brown was known for a flat-footed style called Buck dancing. Among the oldest styles of percussive stepping dating back to the plantation days, Buck dancing worked the whole foot close to the ground with shuffling, slipping, and sliding step, with movement mostly from the hips down. Brown developed the Buck style into a paddle-and-roll style which was perfected in his famous “Buck Dancer’s Lament,” which consisted of six bars of the time step plus a two-bar, improvised stop-time break.

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Turn of the Century

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Lesson 2: Nonverbal Conversations Lesson at a Glance

Objective: Explore how movement and gesture can communicate human emotions and stories without words.

Duration: 50 minutes

Standards: VAPA Dance, Grade Six: 2.2 Compare and demonstrate the difference between imitating movement and creating original material.

VAPA Dance, Grade Six: 5.1 Describe how other arts disciplines are integrated into dance performances (e.g., music, lighting, set design).

Speaking and Listening, Grade Six: 2.0 Interpret information presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and explain how it contributes to a topic, text, or issue under study.

VAPA Dance, Grade Seven: 2.5 Demonstrate performance skill in the ability to interpret and communicate through dance.

VAPA Dance, Grade Eight: 1.4 Analyze gestures and movements viewed in live or recorded professional dance performances and apply that knowledge to dance activities.

Concepts/Vocabulary: Kathak - classical dance form from Northern India that originates from storytellers or kathaks. The style involves complex foot work and rhythm to match the music, and dancers wear ankle bells to highlight the percussive element.

Sanskrit- An ancient sacred language from medieval South Asia (India).

Non Verbal Communication - Communication through visual and wordless clues such as body language, gestures, facial expressions, eye movements and touch.

Gesture - A movement of part of the body, especially a hand or the head, to express an idea or meaning.

Sequence – In dance: a set of movements placed in a particular order.

Improvisation – In dance: the process of creating original movement freely and without preparation Guiding Questions What does our body communicate to others when we move?

What do we need to know about movement to interpret what we see?

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Materials: Chairs for each participant, paper and pencils

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Lesson Plan Musical Conversations Listen to one example of jazz music and one example of Indian music. Though very different, each clip demonstrates a musical “conversation” between instruments and dancers’ rhythmic footwork.

Link #1: Jazz and Tap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHg96T2e32M Link #2: Indian Music and Kathak: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhdKXdQ6kE4 Ask students to reflect on the following questions: Can dance be a form of music? Of communication? Can a dancer’s feet be considered a percussion instrument? In what way?

What words would you use to describe the “conversation” between the dancer and musicians?

Mini Lesson: Warming up the Body (Hips up)

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A. Head I. Move head up and down as if you were looking up to the ceiling and down to the floor. Repeat eight times.

II. Move head from shoulder to shoulder, touching each shoulder to your ear. Repeat eight times III. Circle head in each direction. Repeat four times.

B. Shoulders I. Bring your shoulders up and drop your shoulders. Repeat eight times.

II. Roll shoulders backward. Repeat 8 times.

III. Roll shoulders forward. Repeat 8 times.

C. Wrist I. Put arms straight out and roll wrists toward the body. Repeat four times.

II. Keep arms out straight and roll wrists in the opposite direction.

D. Fingers I. Keep arms out straight and wiggle fingers. Repeat four times.

II. Keep arms out straight and make ocean waves with fingers. Repeat four times.

E. Arms I. Move arms up and down. Repeat four times.

II. Straighten arms to the side and reach towards the right and left. Repeat four times.

III. Move arms up, to the side, and down making a circle. Repeat four times.

IV. Move arms down, to the side, and up making a circle in the opposite direction. Repeat four times.

F. Ribcage I. Keep arms straight out and move the ribcage from right to left. Repeat eight times.

II. Put arms on the hips and move the ribcage front and back. Repeat eight times.

III. Now make a square with the ribcage by moving front, left, back, and right. Repeat by alternating direction four times.

IV. Move on to connecting the four connections in a fluid circle repeat 4 times in each direction.

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Guide students through a small warm-up exercise at their seat. The intention is to isolate the body parts that they will use in the movement exercise that follows. Have students sit at the edge of their seats with their feet planted hip distance apart.

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Explore Nonverbal Conversations Kathak dancers often communicate a story or spiritual theme in their repertoire through nonverbal storytelling. Dancers use expressive gestures, facial expressions and body movement to communicate.

In this lesson, students will explore how to communicate with a partner by playing with different movement qualities and gestures.

First, have students choose a partner and sit in two chairs facing each other, with room to fully move their arms and upper body.

Assign Student A and Student B. Student A is the “speaker” or mover and Student B is the “viewer” or audience.

Student A moves their upper body, limbs, head and/or face in a variety of movement gestures (short bursts or sequences of movement) directed toward the person sitting across from them. Encourage students to experiment with how they express themselves silently.

Student B watches their partner move but does not talk. They absorb the movement vocabulary of their fellow student. Student B then responds with their own movement gesture sequence.

Switch roles and share back and forth up to ten times.

Option: Add a music element. Play various styles of music to see how the “conversation” shifts.

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TASK: Create and respond to improvised movements based on the emotions, story or feeling of the movements.

Student A moves for 30-60 seconds to share a sequence of movement gestures while Student B observes their movements.

Student B writes down three words that describe the feeling of what they observe in their partner’s movements (examples: cautious, reaching, heavy, vibrant). Student B then improvises a sequence of movement gestures that are inspired by those words. Ask Student A to guess the words that Student B used for inspiration. Have them discuss their movement choices.

Switch roles.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA:

• • • •

Create original movements.

Use the full range of your body above the waist when improvising movements.

Connect descriptive words with the physical movement you see.

Be an active “listener with your eyes” and respond to your partner’s movement.

PURPOSE: To explore nonverbal storytelling and understand how we can communicate emotions and stories through movement.

Reflection Questions How did it make you feel to communicate physically?

What did you discover about your ability to communicate without words?

How were you able to interpret what your partner was communicating?

Why do you think dancers choose to communicate with their bodies?

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Movement Conversation

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Lesson 3: Rhythm Lesson at a Glance

Objective: Identify, learn, and create rhythmic patterns in music and language.

Duration: P arts 1-3: 40 minutes Part 4: 30 minutes Materials: Handout #4: Examples of Rhythm in Poetry and Rap, video, music player

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Concepts/Vocabulary: Syllables - a unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants, forming the whole or a part of a word; e.g., there are two syllables in water and three in inferno.

Rhythm - a strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound.

Tap Dance - a dance in which the rhythm or rhythmical variation is audibly tapped out with the toe or heel by a dancer wearing shoes with special hard soles or with taps.

Jazz Music - A style of music, native to America, characterized by a strong but flexible rhythmic understructure with solo and ensemble improvisations.

Juxtapose - to place or deal with close together for contrasting effect.

Tabla - a pair of small hand drums attached together, used in north Indian music; one is slightly larger than the other and is played using pressure from the heel of the hand to vary the pitch.

Bols – Names of Tabla sounds.

Guiding Questions: Where can we find rhythm?

How does rhythm apply to language, sound or music?

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Standards: ELA Content Standards, Grade Six: 3.4 Define how tone or meaning is conveyed in poetry through word choice, figurative language, sentence structure, line length, punctuation, rhythm, repetition, and rhyme.

ELA Content Standards, Speaking Applications (Genres and their Characteristics) Grade Eight: 2.5 Recite poems (of four to six stanzas), sections of speeches, or dramatic soliloquies, using voice modulation, tone, and gestures expressively to enhance the meaning.

VAPA Music, Grade Six: 1.5 Analyze and compare the use of musical elements representing various genres and cultures, emphasizing meter and rhythm.

VAPA Music, Grade Six: 3.1 Compare music from two or more cultures of the world as to the functions the music serves and the roles of musicians.

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Lesson Plan Explore Rhythm: Make, Say, Hear and Read Part 1: Name Orchestra TASK: Each student explores the rhythm and syllables of their name through clapping. The rhythms will vary based on how a name is pronounced and how many symbols they contain.

First, have the class clap out a 4 count rhythm. Repeat four times.

Next, clap out the example names as a group. (Joan = one clap, Harry = two claps, Alexis = three claps, Alejandra = four claps).

Divide the room in half and have one side continuously clap the 4 count rhythm while the other half goes through the example names. Fit the rhythm of the name to the 4 count rhythm. 1, 2, 3, 4. Repeat.

JOAN , beat, beat, beat HARR, Y, beat, beat, beat A, LEX, IS, beat, beat, beat AL, E, JAN, DRA, beat, beat

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JOAN, rest, rest, rest (1, 2, 3, 4) or rest, rest, JOAN, rest (1, 2, 3, 4).

HARR, Y, rest, rest rest (1 and, 2, 3, 4) or rest, HARR, Y, rest, rest (1, 2 and, 3, 4) A, LEX, IS, rest, rest, rest (and 1 and, 2, 3, 4) or (1, 2, and 3 and, 4) AL, E, JAN, DRA, rest (1 and 2, 3, 4) or (1, 2, 3, 4 even counts) Then, have each student clap out the rhythm of their own name, distinguishing whether it contains 1-4 beats. In pairs, have students juxtapose their name rhythm to one another.

As a class, play music with an obvious 4 count rhythm or have one person/group act as the human metronome and clap out or say the beat.

Have each student decide what beat they will begin on. Start the music or clapping of your steady beat and cue students to add their rhythm (first adding in the one syllable names, then 2 count syllable, then 3 count syllable etc).

You can play with starting and stopping the name rhythms. You can also have a student act as “conductor” to call out who is stopping and starting.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA: • Students can easily identify the steady 4-count beat.

• Students can layer their name with the 4-count beat.

Have a class discussion about the name orchestra activity. Ask students to answer the following questions: What was challenging about keeping rhythm?

What were you listening to or for to help keep you on beat?

Do syllables always produce rhythm?

PURPOSE: To better identify rhythm and different rhythmic patterns in relation to syllables.

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Next, add silence on the beats after the name is clapped out rhythmically. You can also try to start the name on count 2, 3 or 4 and speed up accordingly. Every name must be done within the four count time.

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Part 2: Tap rhythms and relationship to music Tap dance was historically developed as a musical form parallel to Jazz music. The rhythms and composition of the music give tap dancers something to play with or add layers to with their feet. Some tap dancers consider themselves musicians playing with their feet. Sarah Reich, a Los Angeles native and leader in tap dance, is known for collaborating with musicians to create music and emphasize rhythm.

Watch this video of Sarah Reich collaborating with the band Postmodern Jukebox. Using music from the 1920’s to modern day jazz, listen for how these artists work together to make a cohesive rhythmic sound.

Evolution Of Tap Dance - Postmodern Jukebox featuring Sarah Reich: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=d03mJD2Pk0Y Discuss the video with your students.

What do you think the dancer was listening for?

How did the tap dance add to or juxtapose the rhythm?

Why might jazz music be inspirational for tap dancers?

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1. Shift the weight onto the heels of your feet. Lift the ball of your foot up on the right, but keep the heel anchored down. Bring the ball of the foot down and repeat on the left. Continue to tap on the right and left for 8 counts.

2. Shift the weight onto the balls of your feet. Lift the heel of right foot up, but keep the toe anchored down. Bring the heel down and repeat on the left. Continue for 8 counts alternating each foot.

3. Step down on the ball of your foot and then drop your heel. Repeat on the opposite foot. This step is called “toe-heel” and each movement is done in one beat. Continue to toe-heel on the right and left foot for 8 counts.

4. Step down on the heel of your foot and drop the ball of your foot. Repeat on the opposite foot.

This is called “heel-toe” and each movement is done in one beat. Continue to heel-toe for 8 counts.

5. Stomp on the right foot, hit the tip of your left toe and immediately lift it without landing on that foot and stomp the heel of the right foot. Repeat on the left. This is called “stomp-toe-heel” and can be done alternating on the right and left. Continue to stomp-toe-heel for 8 counts.

After playing with different toe and heel movements, ask students if they can find another way to make sound with their feet. Ask for some volunteers. Discuss the sound and rhythm of the movements together.

Describe the sound of the toe. Describe the sound of the heel. Describe the sound of the stomp.

How does the toe and heel sound differently from each other?

How can you use these basic movements and sound to create rhythm?

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Practice making sounds with your feet by doing some basic tap steps and movement with your students. You can do this movement activity standing in a circle, or seated behind desks.

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Part 3: Tabla Rhythms in Indian Classical Music Indian classical music uses the Tabla drum to create rhythm structures accompanied by words that describe the sound of the beat.

Watch this interactive video with musician Robin Sukhadia to learn more about Tabla Bols. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRLCH1ZEjSA

Part 4: Rhythm in Writing In the same way that rhythm in music is made up of stressed and unstressed beats, rhythm in writing is expressed in poetry.

For example: Poetry = PO-e-try, where the first syllable is stressed, followed by two unstressed.

Poets use stressed and unstressed syllables to emphasize particular words or ideas. The same practice applies to spoken word and rap.

TASK: Students will scan poetry and rap to understand how unstressed and stressed syllables in writing create a rhythm.

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The Road Not Taken (Robert Frost): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hwUrBgZeUA Satisfied (Hamilton, Lin Manuel Miranda): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InupuylYdcY Can’t Hold Us (Macklemore): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgjwAZ9TR3U

Start with “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. Play the clip so that students may hear the words of the poem spoken aloud in rhythm.

Next, play the clip again and ask students to follow along with the words on Handout # 4, scanning each line and placing a mark over each syllable that the reader stresses. This is called scansion.

For the most part, the pattern that emerges should appear unstressed, stressed (iambic) or in some places unstressed, unstressed, stressed (anapestic).

Pick a few stanzas of the poem and agree on each unstress/stress as a class. Using this as a model, have students check their work throughout the rest of the poem.

When complete, tap the rhythmic pattern of the stanzas as a class. Point out the lines where the standard pattern changes (i.e. “And sorry I could not travel both” and “I doubted if I should ever come back”). Discuss what those changes may signify (i.e. the speaker’s doubt or uncertainty).

Finally, ask for a volunteer to read the poem aloud to the class, emphasizing the rhythmic pattern of the words.

Have students repeat the process of listening, scansion and tapping for their choice of either “Satisfied” from Hamilton or “Can’t Hold Us” by Macklemore. At the end of their independent exploration, a few students may perform a stanza from each piece, emphasizing the rhythmic pattern of the words.

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Distribute Handout #4: Examples of Rhythm in Poetry and Rap. Cue up the three corresponding links online.

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Lead a student reflection with the following questions: Were the rhythmic patterns in the same in each of the texts you scanned?

Did the author use different patterns in the same piece? What do you think that accomplished?

How does an author vary the rhythm of a piece to emphasize a particular word or phrase? Could that help the listener hear what the speaker thinks is important?

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA:

• •

Students can hear, track and demonstrate the difference between a stressed and unstressed syllable.

Students understand how rhythmic patterns in writing can reveal an author’s intention.

PURPOSE: To understand that rhythm is significant across many art forms, including the written word.

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SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Handout 4: Examples of Rhythm in Poetry and Rap Can’t Hold Us (Macklemore)

The Road Not Taken (Robert Frost)

Now can I kick it, thank you

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

Yeah I’m so damn gratefu

And sorry I could not travel both

I grew up, really wanted gold fronts

And be one traveler, long I stood

But that’s what you get when Wu-Tang raised you

And looked down one as far as I could

Y’all can’t stop me

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Go hard like I got an 808 in my heart beat Then took the other, as just as fair,

speed to a great white shark on shark week

And having perhaps the better claim,

Raw, time to go off, I’m gone!

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Deuces goodbye, I got a world to see, and my girl she wanna see Rome

Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,

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Caesar make you a believer Nah I never ever did it for a throne

And both that morning equally lay

That validation comes from giving it back to the people

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Nah sing a song and it goes like

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Raise those hands, this is our party

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

We came here to live life like nobody was watching

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I got my city right behind me, if I fall, they got me Learn from that failure gain humility and then we keep marching I said

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

Satisfied (Hamilton – Lin Manuel Miranda)

I took the one less traveled by,

So so so—

And that has made all the difference.

So this is what it feels like to match wits With someone at your level! What the hell is the catch? It’s The feeling of freedom, of seein’ the light It’s Ben Franklin with a key and a kite! You see it, right?

The conversation lasted two minutes, maybe three minutes Ev’rything we said in total agreement, it’s A dream and it’s a bit of a dance A bit of a posture, it’s a bit of a stance. He’s a Bit of a flirt, but I’m ‘a give it a chance I asked about his fam’ly, did you see his answer?

His hands started fidgeting, he looked askance.

He’s penniless, he’s flying by the seat of his pants

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And I’m eating at the beat like you gave a little

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Lesson 4: Theme and Variation in Choreography Lesson at a Glance

Objective: Notice the application of theme and variation in writing, dance, music and most creative practices. Learn to recognize thematic movement or patterns in a dance performance and how variations are built to create choreography.

Duration: 50 minutes

Standards: CCSS Reading Standards for Literature Grade 8: 2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.

VAPA Dance, Grade Seven: 2.2 Demonstrate the ability to use personal discovery and invention through improvisation and choreography.

VAPA Dance, Grade Eight: 1.4 Analyze gestures and movements viewed in live or recorded professional dance performances and apply that knowledge to dance activities.

VAPA Dance, Grade Eight: 1.5 Identify and analyze the variety of ways in which a dancer can move, using space, time, and force/energy vocabulary.

Concepts/Vocabulary: Choreography - the sequence of steps and movements in dance or figure skating, especially in a ballet or other staged dance.

Theme – a topic; the subject of a talk, a piece of writing, a person’s thoughts, dance or an exhibition.

Variation - change or slight difference in a level, amount, or quantity.

Sequence - In dance: a set of movements placed in a particular order.

Repetition - a choreographic device in which movements or motifs are repeated.

Improvisation (in dance) - process of spontaneously creating movement.

Guiding Questions: How is theme and variation part of every creative process?

What is accomplished by referring back to a theme?

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Materials: Internet for video links

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Lesson Plan SPEAK: Tap & Kathak Unite is focused on the ways in which two different dance traditions utilize rhythm and percussive dance. This lesson is designed to help new audience members practice viewing and understanding non-narrative dance.

Mini Lesson: The Ingredients of Theme and Variation Divide the class in two equal groups and have students face each other, either standing or remaining seated at their desks. Ask students to make eye contact with someone in the opposite group; this person will be their counterpart.

Review the definitions of theme and variation with your class, emphasizing how the two are related, and explain that students will be using their bodies to explore theme and variation the way dancers do.

Use the following verbal prompts to guide students through the movement.

Look to the right…. then the left, trying to move in the exact same way as your counterpart.

Tilt your head to the right…. then the left.

Look down to the floor…. then up to the ceiling.

Reach your right arm to the right…. then your left arm to the left.

Reach your arms up to the ceiling…. then touch the floor.

Be still.

These six movements, performed in this way, are are our theme.

Next, prompt each group separately so that students can observe their counterparts’ movement. Ask students to notice the ways their counterparts’ movements vary from the theme.

Group A: As if you are crossing the street, look to the right…. then the left.

Group B: True to the theme, look to the right…. then the left.

Group A: True to the theme, tilt your head to the right…. then the left.

Group B: As if you are getting water out of your ears, tilt your head to the right…. then the left.

Group A: As if gravity is 10 times stronger, look down to the floor…. then up to the ceiling.

Group B: True to the theme, look down to the floor…. then up to the ceiling.

Group A: True to the theme, reach your right arm to the right…. then your left arm to the left.

Group B: As if you are trying to catch something out of your reach, reach your right arm to the right…. then your left arm to the left.

Group A: As if you are waking up, reach your arms up to the ceiling…. then touch the floor.

Group B: True to the theme, reach your arms up to the ceiling…. then touch the floor.

This is theme and variation. Ask students to use words describing the differences in effort, shape, speed, etc. of what they performed and saw performed.

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Note: Have students do each upper body movement sequence until the movement vocabulary is familiar.

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Part 1: Watch Theme and Variation in Movement Watch these clips of dance illustrating the development of choreography through establishing a theme, then using repetition and variation to build the vocabulary of movement.

Link #1: Mark Morris Dance Group: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v89BcXz8pBE Link #2: Contra Tiempo Dance Company: https://vimeo.com/106057824 Discuss the theme and variations that students observed while watching the two clips. Address the following questions with your students: Can you identify one movement that is repeated, altered or transformed in the movement?

How do you see the choreographer change the movement over time?

What is achieved by this augmentation and how does it capture your attention?

What words would you use to describe the “variation” in terms of effort, shape, speed, direction etc.

Part 2: Create Theme and Variation in Movement Ask students to return to their counterparts, and join two other pairs to make a group of six people.

In groups, students will revisit the six warm-up exercises. Sitting or standing, have students do the THEME in order (1-5). Repeat a few times until everyone is comfortable with the vocabulary.

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Each group will share and improvise using only their group’s THEME and VARIATION. The teacher can call out the transitions below to keep students on track. Adding music is also an option.

16-64 counts - THEME 16-64 counts - VARIATION 16-96 counts - IMPROVISATION (varying timing, speed, level, effort, etc.)

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA: • Identify movements that are repeated or altered in a dance work.

• Articulate the effort, shape, speed, size and direction of movement.

• Collaborate with peers to observe and perform theme and variation in movement.

• Increase comfort with viewing and understanding non-narrative dance.

PURPOSE: Explore and experience creating movement themes and variations.

Reflection Questions: How did the variation differ with each group?

What were you thinking as you developed your improvised variation?

Were variations clear once you understood the theme?

Where else do we see theme and variation besides dance?

Take it Further: Theme and Variation in Writing Discuss the theme of a novel or short story the students are currently reading. How do students see that theme reflected in different characters, situations or symbolism throughout the work? How do these variations work together to inform the author’s point of view or theme?

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Next, give groups 5 minutes to experiment with theme movements and develop 3-5 VARIATIONS using just the head, upper torso or arms. (examples: crossing arms in front of head, head roll, shoulder shrug, rotate torso to the right etc.) The THEME (warm-up movement) and VARIATION (student created movement) are now the vocabulary of their dance.

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Lesson 5: Artist Statements Lesson at a Glance

Objective: After seeing SPEAK: Tap and Kathak Unite, students will reflect on the purpose of the collaboration between tap dance and Kathak, explore their own creative statement and work with a peer to create a collaborative project that speaks to what they believe.

Duration: 50 mins Materials: Handout #5 Dorrance Dance and Leela Dance Collective’s Artistic Statement, Handout #6 Anna Deavere Smith Artist Statement, Handout #7 Personal Statement, Handout #8 Impact Statement Standards:

Concepts/Vocabulary: Artist Statement – written description of an artist’s work that communicates their intent, beliefs and framework to the world.

Theme – a topic; the subject of a talk, a piece of writing, a person’s thoughts, dance or an exhibition.

Guiding Questions: What can you learn about a dance piece or artist by reading their artist statement?

What can you learn from collaboration?

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VAPA Dance, Grade Seven: 2.2 Demonstrate the ability to use personal discovery and invention through improvisation and choreography.

VAPA Dance, Grade Eight: 1.4 Analyze gestures and movements viewed in live or recorded professional dance performances and apply that knowledge to dance activities.

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Lesson Plan Part 1: Performance Reflection After viewing SPEAK: Tap and Kathak Unite with Michelle Dorrance and Rina Mehta, lead a discussion with your students about their interpretation and experience at the performance.

What did you observe about the collaboration between Kathak and tap dance?

How did the Kathak and tap dancers use rhythm?

What were some similarities and differences between the two art forms?

Read an excerpt from Leela Dance Collective and Dorrance Dance artist statements on Handout #5. An artist statement is a written description of an artist’s work that communicates their intent, beliefs and framework to the world. Ask students to highlight key words and phrases as they read.

Ask students to share their thoughts about the two artist statements.

What message do each dance companies strive to communicate in their work?

What was similar about the two statements?

Why do you think Dorrance Dance and Leela Dance Collective decided to collaborate to create SPEAK? What do you think they wanted the outcome to be for the audiences who witness their piece?

17\18 SEASON

Have students read one more artist statement in preparation for writing their own personal statement.

Read Anna Deavere Smith’s artist statement on Handout #6. Ask students to highlight key words and phrases as they read. Come back together as a class and ask students to share their thoughts.

What is Anna’s purpose as an actress and writer?

What problems is she trying to address through her work?

Tell students that they will write and reflect upon a personal statement that is important to them. Ask students to complete Handout #7 for their personal statement.

After giving students time to write, ask them to walk around the room and read their statement to another person. Have students exchange their statements with at least three people, before finding a partner to collaborate with. Ask students to pair with another student that has a similar goal in their statement. For example, bullying, having access to healthier food at school, etc.

Once students found a partner (could be a larger group of people with the same subject) ask them to complete Handout #8 to collaborate on an impact statement together.

Ask some groups to share their impact statements to the class.

Take it Further!

As an option, student groups can develop their impact statements into a community building project. You can expand this lesson to encourage students to start a project at school or in their community that addresses how they feel.

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Part 2: Explore Artist Statements

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Handout 5: Leela Dance Collective and Dorrance Dance Artist Statements “The East spoke to the West without using words. It made you feel nothing else matters as long as we can experience beauty like this. Humanity will triumph in-spite of all the adverse events happening around us.” - SPEAK Leela Dance Collective The Leela Dance Collective brings together today’s leading Kathak artists to engage in the practice and creation of art that is at once grounded in tradition and boldly innovative. Artists at Leela embody their deep study under legendary master Pandit Chitresh Das — they strive to achieve technique at its pinnacle, to merge the lines between dance and musicianship, to traverse the depth and breadth of human emotion. Leela welcomes the collision of individual and at times divergent voices, believing vehemently in collective creativity — the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

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Dorrance Dance Dorrance Dance is an award-winning tap dance company based out of New York City. The company’s work aims to honor tap dance’s uniquely beautiful history in a new, dynamic, and compelling context; not by stripping the form of its tradition, but by pushing it – rhythmically, technically, and conceptually. The company’s inaugural performance garnered a Bessie Award for “blasting open our notions of tap” and the company continues its passionate commitment to expanding the audience of tap dance, America’s original art form.

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From evocative stories of ancient India, to unadulterated rhythms that electrify, to dynamic collaborations that transcend boundaries, The Leela Dance Collective’s repertoire represents an expansive vision for Kathak dance.

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Handout 6: Anna Deavere Smith Artist Statement At the center of my work as an artist is the search for American character. By that I mean: American identity.

I have made several plays/performances under the umbrella On the Road: A Search for American Character.

Educated as an artist in the mid 1970’s, starting this search was an antidote to what appeared to be a country in cultural fragments in the wake of the Civil Rights, the anti-war, and the women’s movements. I arrived in San Francisco in the early seventies just as the hippies were leaving, and Angela Davis’s trial down the road was coming to an end.

The desire to find American identity through theater came from an unexpected place: the pages of Shakespeare.

I was trained classically in a conservatory. In the exciting journey to merge myself with Shakespeare’s language, as a young actress having her very first experience with the world of theater, I became fascinated with the relationship of rhythm and imagery to identity—at least in dramatic literature. I took this interest into “reality” by interviewing people and studying their speech patterns.

I write plays by interviewing people and weaving segments of those interviews into texts. I then portray all the parts in one-woman performances. In a variety of works, the number of characters has ranged from four people (early work) to 52 people in a single performance. Usually, the plays represent people who have conflicting points of view about controversial and contemporary events. If not that, it is clear that each person holds only part of the story. As the late Johnnie Cochran, American defense attorney, once told me, “There are three sides to every story: yours, mine, and the truth.”

In embodying many people, I hope to suggest that if one person could hold so many different points of view in the course of an evening in the theater, perhaps, when confronted with divisive issues, we could hold at least more than one point of view in mind.

I have been chasing “that which is not me” for many years while creating this form of theater. The decision to take this path as an artist came at the very moment that artists from marginalized communities were advised to write about themselves. The artists who followed that directive made a crucial contribution to American culture.

They, along with many academics, helped change the canon. My decision to go the other way came out of my desire to solve a personal problem—the discomfort of settling for the notion that I did not “belong” with those different from myself and that they did not “belong” with me.

My journey has been to make the “broad jump towards the other,” seeking to close the gap between the strange and the familiar. The late Mary Ellen Mark, American photographer, once wrote that the camera gave her “the necessary distance” to get close to people. The tape recorder and my acting process—geared towards embodying the physical gestures and vocal patterns of my interviewees—give me the necessary distance to get close to strangers.

The journey I have constructed through my artistic practice has broadened my view of mankind and served as a powerful psychological antidote to the crisis of growing up in a segregated city. I do not believe that we are all the same. My search has shown me that the solution is not to search for sameness or even that which we have in common. I do not look for sameness. I embrace difference as part of our condition. The exciting work is to walk the distance between self and other. Acting as an art form is the best place to do that exploration.

I have sought to create plays in this way for one other reason. I would like others to have the experience of portraying people who are of different, race, gender, and background. The form calls for that and allows the possibility of juxtaposing difference, rather than merging difference. I see this as a powerful learning tool in communities, schools, and organizations.

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17\18 SEASON

My grandfather once said, “If you say a word often enough it becomes you.” This has been my simple acting technique. I have tried for well over four decades to become America “word for word.” My goal has been to put myself in other people’s words, the way one would think of putting oneself in other people’s shoes.

SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Handout 7: Personal Statement In my community I noticed that

It makes me feel

I would like a community that

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So, I will

That will make my community

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SPEAK: TAP AND KATHAK UNITE

Handout 8: Impact Statement In our community we noticed that

It makes us feel

We would like a community that

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So, we will

That will make our community

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Glossary Artist Statement – written description of an artist’s work that communicates their intent, beliefs and framework to the world.

Bols – Names of Tabla sounds.

Choreography - the sequence of steps and movements in dance or figure skating, especially in a ballet or other staged dance.

Elements of dance - Foundational concepts and vocabulary that help develop movement skills and discuss movement: body, action, space, time and energy etc.

Gesture - A movement of part of the body, especially a hand or the head, to express an idea or meaning.

Hinduism – religious practice that originated from India that includes the worship of many gods and a variety of beliefs and practices.

Improvisation – In dance: the process of creating original movement freely and without preparation.

Jazz Music - A style of music, native to America, characterized by a strong but flexible rhythmic understructure with solo and ensemble improvisations.

17\18 SEASON

Katha – means story in Sanskrit.

Kathak – classical dance form from Northern India that originates from storytellers or kathaks. The style involves complex foot work and rhythm to match the music, and dancers wear ankle bells to highlight the percussive element.

Non Verbal Communication - Communication through visual and wordless clues such as body language, gestures, facial expressions, eye movements and touch.

Oral Tradition - form of communication where in knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved and transmitted orally from one generation to another.

Repetition - a choreographic device in which movements or motifs are repeated.

Rhythm - a strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound.

Sanskrit- An ancient sacred language from medieval South Asia (India).

Sequence – In dance: a set of movements placed in a particular order.

Syllables - a unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants, forming the whole or a part of a word; e.g., there are two syllables in water and three in inferno.

Tabla - a pair of small hand drums attached together, used in north Indian music; one is slightly larger than the other and is played using pressure from the heel of the hand to vary the pitch.

Tap Dance – a dance in which the rhythm or rhythmical variation is audibly tapped out with the toe or heel by a dancer wearing shoes with special hard soles or with taps.

Theme – a topic; the subject of a talk, a piece of writing, a person’s thoughts, dance or an exhibition.

Variation - change or slight difference in a level, amount, or quantity.

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Juxtapose - to place or deal with close together for contrasting effect.