Dancing Rocks! 1.1

Now, we'll begin creating our rock dance

and this first lesson focuses
on sedimentary rocks and fossils.

Do you know anything about
sedimentary rock?

Yes. Discourse with the students
the different characteristics

and qualities they might see in sediment
and in sedimentary rock.

That's the kind of rock where we find
that dinosaur bones has been preserved,

plants, and all sorts of bugs and animals

are preserved in sedimentary rocks.

The dance begins with students
creating a fossil pose,

discuss with them the different things

that they might see
as fossils, plants or animals

and how their body might create the shapes

of those plants and animals
of in the rock.

Plant your feet on the floor and I want
you to make some kind of fossil shape,

so you could be a dinosaur bone.

You could be a grasshopper.

Your fossil pose can be any kind
of shape you want.

Give it a try.

Now we are going to take our fossil poses
and crumble down to the floor

and we are going to use that choosing
four body parts to isolate.

One person is going to crumble,
sedimentary rock.

All right Julio you try, sedimentary rock.
(laughter)

Oh his nose feel off, good.

Encourage the students
to be adventurous in their choices

Ask them to try using different body parts

crumbling them in a variety of directions.

And the two things I wanted to see in
that activity where that the students

could isolate a body part but also
that they could move it rhythmically.

This is what is going to happen.

We have to to four sets of crumbling.

You have to pick four different
body parts to crumble

and I want to be able to tell each time
which body part crumbles.

Here we go, ready, fossil pose.

Five, six, five, six ready, go.

Sedimentary rock.

Sedimentary rock.

Sedimentary rock,
last one get all the way down.

Sedimentary rock.

Awesome, that was so great.
Stand up.

Now practice this section
of the dance with the music

either in small groups
or as a whole class.

We are going to watch these guys
do their sedimentary rock

and I want you to see
if they are very clear

what body part is crumbling
and also that is crumbling, right

that it's crumbling
and stumbling its way down.

Students should be able to both isolate
their crumbling body part

from the rest of their still pose

and accurately represent their sedimentary
rock rhythm in their body.

All right, hold still here we go.

(music)

Sedimentary rock.

Sedimentary rock.

Sedimentary rock.

Sedimentary rock.

Excellent.

Now that we have practiced this section
of the routine with the music

take a moment with the students
to reflect on how they might make

their movements more dynamic
or more clear.

So what about the quality
of their movement

did it look...

could you tell what body part
they were trying to use?

I think [inaudible] use Michael's back.

Back is a good one.

That's a tricky one to crumble.

Julio, could you try that for me?

Stand up and make a pose.

And can you try crumble your back?

What's interesting is that when
we start to build the dance

we all find that almost every movement

involves some elements of dance
if not many elements of dance.

We talked about moving from high to low.

We talked about the specific
energy of crumbling,

and we talked about our physical self
and our place in space.