After reading some of the comments surrounding the questions I had written on my blog, I decided to do some research on Imagery.
When, I teach pre-school children imagery is the one tool I have noticed that really stimulates their thinking.
I spend a lot of the time during these classes relating an image/ action to the movement we are performing.
With the help of my mum who is a ballet teacher, she has created a class that is based around imagery, movement, rhythm, performance and creativity to help introduce Pre-school children into the world of dance.
I have gained so much knowledge watching her teach this class and realised the importance of keeping a young child interested and alert for 45 minutes is not an easy job.
This is when I realised that a three year old will never react or understand if I asked he/she to perform the movement of a plie. However, If I ask her to open the window so her teddy bear can see out and look at butterflies and fairies she immediately can relate and better comprehend the movement.
I then thought about how imagery carries on throughout a dancer's entire life not just as a young child.
When teaching technical elements, using imagery can really aid development. For example, in ballet when teaching a rond de jambs/ plie or any action where the hips must stay in line and facing forward to convey the image that you have a set of headlights on your hips and they must stay level and forward as if you are driving a car really helps some pupils. Sometimes you have to have a range of images as different images "click" with children.
Also, for a professional who is waiting to go on the stage the ability to use imagery to rehearse backstage is a great tool. A great definition I found was "Imaging allows a vision to be created in the dancer's internal environment"
Hi Jessica,
ReplyDeleteI can definitely relate to this post. As a dance teacher I constantly use imagery with my younger (and sometimes even older students) Infact, when doing my teacher training including imagery was a requirement of my lesson plans as one of my teaching methods.
When getting children to roll down through their spines if they are doing a floor exercise I tell them to imagine their back is 'a string of pearls' so they try to go down vertebrae by vertebrae, rather than going down with a straight back, and it really works!
Even just getting the really little ones to pick a colour of the imaginary horse they are riding when doing gallops keeps their interest much more than just telling them to gallop from the corner. I think imagery is such an important part of teaching children.
Emily.
I think this is such an interesting topic to talk about. Since discussing this in our SIG group i think it has also brought us all to know that we all use imagery, but in slightly different ways. As my focus is now students between the ages 11-16 I had a deeper thought and some people say that we do not use it for older students but I still use it for mt classes just as you mentioned the headlights. I think it all depends how a students learns to feel a movement there is some students I use imagery miles more than others.
ReplyDeleteKirsty
Hi Emily. I feel this is a great topic to look into- with lots of scope.
ReplyDeleteI think using imagery makes a situation more real and relatable and adds understanding of how and why you do a certain movement and allows the movement to become more purposeful.
Would be interesting to see how your inquiry develops around this topic
Lauren
I have just come across this article which has a discussion point of imagery which i thought might be of interest for you-https://cpdfordanceteachers.com/2012/05/31/what-is-proprioception/
ReplyDelete