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This page was updated
December 3, 2007

Workshops

Workshop Notes

NYSSMA Conference, Rochester, NY
Saturday, December 1, 8:30 - 9:45 am
Teaching Traditional Dance and Singing Games to Children

Dear NYSSMA Conferees,

Thanks for getting up EARLY and participating so
enthusiastically in this session. 

Your homework is to go dancing.  Here are some online
resources for finding dances in your area.

Rochester, NY
http://rochestercontra.com/
contra dance every Thursday night: (Just go for an hour if you want!) Unless otherwise noted all conras are held at   Covenant United  Methodist Church,  1124 Culver Road (corner of Parsells)  from 8 to 11 PM.

English country dances (1st and 3rd Sundays,  7:30 - 10 pm are at the Friends Meeting  House,
84 Scio St.

For other New York State areas I suggest you start out by Googling, for example,
   Albany contra dance

You can also get all information you need for your local dances from the following two sites:

http://www.thedancegypsy.com/
This is my favorite site.  It includes contra dances, English country dances and more, all across the United States.

http://www.contradancelinks.com/
This is a resource of contra dance websites

Here are some notes on the dances we did in this workshop:

Going to Alberta in the handout.
In NEDM’s Sashay the Donut collection
This is a GREAT way to teach the ballroom position (used for the waltz, the polka, and for a contra dance swing) at the same time as a simple polka step.  We have found this to be a great dance for little kids, big kids mixed ages, community dance, in short, for anyone.  You can do it as an a cappella singing game, or accompany it with piano, guitar, accordion, or Orff instruments, or do it to the music of the Sashay the Donut CD.

 

Tree Song in the handout.
in NEDM’s Down in the Valley collection
Lorraine Hammond, who composed this wonderful singing game, is a songwriter and musician, and the best known  Appalachian dulcimer player in the country.  She is in the  greater Boston area.  The piano arrangement on the CD is Peter’s.  We find this to be a calming, centering dance,  both for the children and for ourselves.

 

La Bastringue in the handout.
In NEDM’s Chimes of Dunkirk collection.
We used this as a vehicle for a lot of teaching tips: Mittens; front of your mitten on the front of your neighbor’s mitten, thumb lightly on back; take hands drop hands take hands drop hands; posture; teach the forward separately  from the back in the forward and back; shake partner’s
hand, hang on, take partner’s left hand for teaching promenade; while promenading: inside person is the moon/gent, outside is the star/lady; four steps of making a circle from a promenade: “Hang on to partner stop walking, hang on to partner face the center, drop hands, take hands.”; 9 ways of keeping the circle big and round on circle left and right; dosido (gents start on inside, ladies start going outside) flowing into two hand turn flowing into promenade; when music starts clapping the first of each 8 beats; doing the dance with your hands; “thick” calling, then “thin” calling then no calling; saying the call right before the ‘clap’ or before the first beat of  the phrase and figure.

Sasha in the handout.
In NEDM’s Sashay the Donut collection.
A great dance for all ages! We are not sure of the origins of this dance: one source suggested it was a novelty dance based on a Russian pop song from the 60’s.  ‘Ras, dva, tri’ is Russian for ‘ready, set, go!’

Choosing Partners

We think it is a real gift to children to teach them  how to choose their own partners.  I like to frame this in ‘Kings’ and ‘Queens’ language to help the children get over their self consciousness over  choosing partners.

I have them all practice the words: ‘May I please  have this dance?’ ‘Yes thank you.’ and then
practice answering me, and then practice  asking me.  Then I demonstrate what it looks like to ask a partner to dance, by asking one of the ‘Queens’.  Then, I have that Queen sit down, and I ask her again, showing the 10 steps:

  1. The approach.
  2. Eye contact.
  3. The question.
  4. The answer.
  5. King puts out his hand.
  6. Queen stands and takes King’s hand.
  7. They hang on to each other’s hand and walk to the top of the hall.
  8. The King stands on the King’s side, the Queen on the Queen’s side and they face each other, nose, toes and bellybutton, taking two hands.
  9. Then they drop their hands, and, voila, there they are. 
  10. Then I have a volunteer Queen ask a King, then a volunteer King ask a Queen, and then all ask.  

This can be quite wonderful, and the  children who succeed in doing this should be quite proud of themselves

Kings and Queens in the handout.
In NEDM’s Sashay the Donut collection
We used ‘On the Danforth’ from NEDM’s ‘Other Side of the Tracks’ CD for this dance.  You might also use our other version of ‘On the Danforth’ which is on our ‘Sashay the Donut’ CD.
Before we teach this dance we will dub each child a King or a Queen, and talk to them (sometimes while the music is playing to help sustain the mood) about what it means to be a King and Queen: They have royal posture, they never rush, they make good decisions, they are very attractive; basically describing the ideal King/Queen or, which, in my mind is being the very best person they can be.  This is in the style of an historic English country dance. 

 I made this dance up on the spot with a 2nd grade class. Since then we have discovered that it is a great dance for older elementary school children.