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This page was updated
March 16, 2009

Workshops

Workshop Notes

Peter and Mary Alice Amidon
Mini Conference
OAKE Nat'l Conference
Thursday, March 12, 2009

Dear OAKE 2009 Mini-conference participants,

We really loved your enthusiastic participation and
the level of sharing that you did in our mini-conference
last Thursday. Here below are notes on the various
elements: songs, stories, dances, picture books,
and conversations that we led.

But first, your homework. GO DANCING!
Here is a website for finding a dance near
your community.

http://www.thedancegypsy.com

Here below are some announcements about
future Amidon workshops and camps.

Below that are the notes. You can just
click on the "Post-Workshop Notes" link
below to go directly to the notes.

Announcements

* * *

You can get more detailed information on the below
upcoming Amidon workshops (and all our upcoming
workshops) at:

http://www.amidonmusic.com/workshops/index.html

or you could subscribe to the Amidon e-mail list. I send
postings maybe once a month - the classic format is
Dance Workshop - Announcements - Musings. Here is
the most recent one:

http://www.amidonmusic.com/newsletter/12_2008.html

Mary Alice and I were pleased to see some of
the folks who have taken our summer week-long,
3-credit course at Hartt School of Music.
We are offering it again this summer:

Rich Traditions and New Creations:
Dance, Song, Storytelling and Literature in the Music Classroom

Mon - Fri, July 6-10, 2009:

http://harttweb.hartford.edu/summer-detail.php?c=13

or e-mail dehansen@hartford.edu for more information.

* * *

Adult Village Harmony singing camp

Peter and Mary Alice Amidon are joined by two young
gifted singer/ percussionists: Luke Hoffman, and
the Amidons' son Stefan Amidon in leading a 9-day
camp of SATB singing from ethnic choral traditions
including American shape note music, African American
gospel, and the leaders' own transcriptions and
arrangements of songs steeped in the oral tradition.

http://www.villageharmony.org/summercamp/2009/VHA_greenmountain.html

2009 NATIONAL OAKE MINI CONFERENCE
AMIDON POST-SESSION NOTES

My Heart is Ready

We learned this from Cindy Kallet. I have a different
harmonization than she did. Cindy has given me permission
to pass this around. It is a great instant learn for community
singing.

Pepperell Stomp

Included in the session notes.

We did this to the "Irish Reel Medley" in NEDM's
"Sashay the Donut" collection. It is a wonderful
early circle/partner dance for young children.

Tree Song

In NEDM's Down in the Valley collection

I introduced this with a story that I made up. Elements
of the story came from this singing game, the singing
game "Roger is Dead" (NEDM's Down in the Valley)
and the traditional song "Chiney Doll" (the traditional
Missouri song that our (then) 2 1/2 year old Sam sang
at the end of the workshop).

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.

Comment ca va?

In NEDM'sSashay the Donut collection

Formation: circle of couples (not a mixer)
Music: Any reel. We used the "Brotherly Love"
cut from "Sashay the Donut".

A1: Forward and back, forward and back
A2: Circle left, circle right.
B1: Allemande left corner, dosido partner,
Allemande left corner again.
B2: Promenade partner.

2 Comment ca va?

In NEDM's Sashay the Donut collection

Music: Any reel (French Canadian is nice for this;
for example, "Quebeqois Reels" on NEDM's
"Sashay the Donut" CD

This is a great dance for 4th - 6th graders;
it is not too difficult, but it keeps them engaged
and the flowing B1 figures makes them feel like
sophisticated dancers.

Two teaching tips specific to this dance:

  1. "Bow to your partner, say "You are my partner."
    Turn your back on your partner and bow to this person,
    saying "You are my neighbor." (Drill this a bit by
    having dancers bow to partner, then neighbor,
    then neighbor, then ceiling, then partner, etc.)
  2. Facing neighbor all put left hand in the air.
    Everybody say and do this:
    "Elbow down, hand up, thumb around
    thumb, fingers over wrist, 7% arm wrestle
    (give weight to neighbor), then allemand
    left neighbor WHILE LOOKING FOR PARTNER,
    and then dosido partner (Gents/Moons
    going towards the middle first in order
    to dosido passing right shoulders) WHILE
    LOOKING FOR NEIGHBOR, then allemand
    left neighbor again WHILE LOOKING FOR PARTNER,
    then, "Hey", take partners right hand in right
    (like a brief handshake) and go into a promenade
    with partner.

A few Dance 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/peanut butter/gent,
outside is the star/jelly/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.";
various ways of keeping the circle big and round on circle
left and right; 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.

Picture Books

See Mary Alice's bibliography of picture books/music
in your conference notes:

I Live In Music

to Dave Brubeck's "Take Five"

 

The First Strawberries

to Native American flute

 

Marian Anderson "Keep on Singing"

Mary Alice's own tune:

MarionAnderson.pdf

 

Summertime

 

Introducing Songs with Stories

Owl and Pussycat

OwlAndPussycat.pdf

Busy Monday Morning

included in your conference notes

traditional Polish

On the Amidons' All I Really Need CD
We had you make up your own storytelling introductions
to this song. Thanks to those who shared. I try to
get as many details as possible from the song into the
story introduction.

Sicilian Vowel Dance

in your conference notes.

In NEDM's Sashay the Donut collection

Mary Alice played for this. We like to use
'Golden Keyboard' (actually, the piano only comes in
at the end of the cut) from NEDM's 'Any Jig or Reel' for this.
Do this with 5th or 6th graders who have a fair amount of dance
experience, and who have already learned the grand right and
left ('Lucky Seven' from our Chimes of Dunkirk collection
is a good teaching dance for the Grand Right and Left figure).
It can work at a community dance if you have all the younger
children dance with an adult or older experienced child partner.
The main teaching point is, once folks are in the formation
of couple facing couple (Sicilian circle formation), having
everyone point to the left. Those pointing to the inside of
the circle say "I start on the inside." Those pointing to the outside
say, "I start on the outside" for the big, no hands, stay-with-partner
grand right and left. Note that this dance works best with large
groups of dances; I would recommend doing it with no fewer
than 24 dancers - 6 groups of four.

Brotherhood and Sisterhood

This is on the supplemental handout, and you can also hear it
and print it out at:

http://www.amidonmusic.com/Brotherhood.html

Community Sing discussion

Our discussion included suggesting that it
can be helpful to spread the leadership of this
out amongst teachers, students and even parents
to help keep it dynamic and to have more folks
feeling ownership of the community sing.

Faerie's Gift

Mary Alice told this.
It is on the Amidons' Faerie's Gift CD

faerie'sgift.pdf

Acting out folktales

See "We are all storytellers" in your conference notes.

Joyful, Mindful moments

Thank you for your sharing. One person
talked about how wonderful it can be
when we follow the lead of our students
which sometimes means we need to
let go of our lesson plan. Another talked
about teaching the joy of music.

CREATING AN ORIGINAL DANCE WITH YOUR STUDENTS

I start with the question: "What is a dance?"
A dance starts with a formation (or a shape):
longways (line of partners facing each other),
circle (partners in circle) or
square (four couples facing in).

There is also the Sicilian Circle formation
(couple facing couple around a circle)

And also the concentric circle formation where couples are
in a circle with, say, the gents facing out and
the ladies facing in.

Then there are the figures, which is, simply
what the dancers do in the dance. Some obvious
figures include some you do with the whole group
(let's say we're doing a circle mixer)

and figures you do just with your partner (or neighbor)

and some that are a bit of both like
Promenade.

It is OK to have an original figure or
two in our original dance, but not too
many. Mostly you should have familiar,
common figures that dances can learn
quickly.

Once we (or I) decide on a formation, I simply say,
"What first." and do whatever the first person
suggests, in our case, "Forward and back".

As the suggestions come in I might invite discussion
about which suggestion to choose (if there are more
than one). I try to use as many of the children's
ideas as possible, and I almost always have the children
try out dancing a suggested figure before discussing it.

Your job is also to facilitate the children creating a dance
that is fun to do. You might make a small suggestion
here and there, especially one that might help make
a student's suggestion more successful and flowing.

The children can help figure out how to make the dance
fit the AABB of the music. It is also an option to ignore
the AABB and make up a dance that goes across the
AABB pattern of the music.

Once you and your students have made up a dance, it is
important to name the dance. This is the same process
as making up the dance. I take in suggestions and facilitate
the decision making. Sometimes we combine the words in
two or three different suggestion. Sometimes we vote on
two or three different name candidates. Sometimes, as
happened with us, someone comes up with a suggestion
so inspired that I declare it the official name by acclamation.

When students create their own dance, they really take
ownership of it.

Gypsy Rover

Circle Waltz Mixer in the supplemental handout

In NEDM's 'Sashay the Donut' collection.

We used 'In Continental' Waltz from the 'Sashay' CD for the music.
This is a wonderful dance for a wedding where you can do it
the original way we learned it, doing a short waltz instead
of the two hand turn. In the original dance gents are the
"posts" and women are the "twirlers", but it works
perfectly fine in a non-gender community dance
with a two hand turn. In order to make sure
that this works in a community dance you:

We really enjoyed our session with you - what lucky
students to have such joyful teachers!

Best,

Peter and Mary Alice Amidon