Thread: Fun thing for intermediate class?

Tonight is my last class for myintermediate students until our summer session begins and I want to do something fun with them. We've been working on a lot of improv, and we've been having fun with Gia's Create a Combo cards. But, my students don't really see improv as "fun", so.....what other "fun" things can I do with them tonight?

It's the last class so I want to keep it light - no heavy technique tonight!

Any fun suggestions?

" Gia's create a combo cards" what are those?????

SOOOUUUUULLLLLL Train. Partner 2 people to dance down the middle of the dance line. While they are waiting their turn they must agree on the step. When the get to the end of the 2 lines the next 2 begin their promanade....FUN!

How about doing improv to 'easy' fun music? Middle Eastern music is hard for students, I've had lots of fun with mine doing improv to the soundtrack from Chicago. At home, I use the Crazy Frog version of Axel F. Anything silly & fun.

If you've been doing heavy work on improv, maybe the students would enjoy learning a short choreography that they can practice on their own during the break. Doing it to silly music would make it even more fun.

Originally Posted by Littawyn

" Gia's create a combo cards" what are those?????

These: Create a Combo Dance Deck

I love them!

If you're doing entire routines with them, tag team improv can be fun--each student takes one section of the routine (depending on how many students you have, you might need more than one student per section, or a few routines). One of my teachers does this with her classes and it's fun. Everybody gets to be audience and performer in turn, which takes some of the pressure off of the performance side of it.

I love the Soul train idea...and I have used cards of my own similar making...

Play Shimmy May I? or Shimmy Says

Like mother may I or Simon Says...only get your students to lead the exercise...can be combos or single moves...leads to giggles...truly it is fun at any level...or age hehe!! ..g.:

Maybe this isn't the best idea- but we used to 'draw' the alphabet with the different movements...like capital A's with the chest and Z's with the hips, U's to lowercase n's with the arms...it helped my students learn the creativity of improve and also the fact that MED is beautiful when you add the element of leveling...
and it's a killer workout...especially if you try and make a sentence...

I must be such a keener because I would be having great fun doing an interesting set of drills! From a student perspective *all* of these sound like a lot of fun to me, although silly music scares me!

Originally Posted by taobellydancer

Maybe this isn't the best idea- but we used to 'draw' the alphabet with the different movements...like capital A's with the chest and Z's with the hips, U's to lowercase n's with the arms...it helped my students learn the creativity of improve and also the fact that MED is beautiful when you add the element of leveling...
and it's a killer workout...especially if you try and make a sentence...

I use a similar activity, only we play the "belly dance name game", each dancer spells his or her name using their BD movement vocabulary. Its great way 3-4 weeks into a session to help students remember each other's names. I don't use it the first night because beginners won't know enough movement to spell anything...

Remember in elementary school when we would play that game where everyone is in a circle and one person starts by saying a word and the next person repeats it and says the first thing that pops into his head then the next person repeats both then adds his own and so on? What if you did that with dance vocabulary? Would start exercizing choreo memorization and improv skills but would be fun and silly and light...

I just realized you wanted feed-back for your class a couple nights ago... sorry, I was so late to this thread; something for the future perhaps...
Blessings,
Rach

Originally Posted by anala

SOOOUUUUULLLLLL Train. Partner 2 people to dance down the middle of the dance line. While they are waiting their turn they must agree on the step. When the get to the end of the 2 lines the next 2 begin their promanade....FUN!

I would love that activity! Can I invite Don Cornelius?