Dance & Literacy

Articles, Websites, and Personal Insights about Dance Literacy

and Teaching Literacy through Dance

Videos

I found these two videos on YouTube.

The Loop Dance Company is the more interesting of the two and shows footage of kids engaged with dance and literacy.

The Sole Creations Dance Company is more about the company performing literary works that children are familiar with. Two different approaches to dance and literacy and worth a look at.

I prefer Loop’s approach and find it more effective in bridging the gap between dance and literacy.

Loop Dance Companyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TvTQIwn-lY&feature=related

Sole Creations Dance Company http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5BYf9-aw7E

CODE Council of Ontario Drama & Dance Educators

A great resource website for Dance & Drama. Lots of info and links to articles and websites specifically on the topic of Critical Literacy.

Critical Literacy is described as an active, challenging approach to reading and textual practices. Critical literacy involves the analysis and critique of the relationships among texts, language, power, social groups and social practices. It shows us ways of looking at written, visual, spoken, multimedia and performance texts to question and challenge the attitudes, values and beliefs that lie beneath the surface.

Council of Ontario Drama and Dance Educatorshttp://code.on.ca/resource/critical-literacy-drama-and-dance

Dance Literacy

These two websites deal with dance literacy using Laban Motifs and the Language of Dance as their basis. Important in understanding dance literacy and how dance is a language in and of itself and engages students on a cognitive level in much the same way that learning a language does. Also great for getting ideas of how to teach dance in support of language and literacy acquisition as opposed to teaching language and literacy using dance. Supports arguments for the inclusion of dance in the curriculum as its own subject.

Language of Dance http://www.lodc.org

 Dance Literacy https://files.nyu.edu/bhk215/public/danceliteracy.html

Grammar Dance

Great video of a classroom project involving dance and language acquisition. A wonderful example of how an elementary classroom teacher was able to incorporate dance into his class to teach descriptive language.

Teach Find / Grammar Dancehttp://www.teachfind.com/teachers-tv/ks2-literacy-grammar-dance