Grade 10 HPE – Movement Composition

In-Class Test - Criterion B

Name: Michaela Date: Friday, January 26th

Task Instructions: Answer each question below individually. You are to use a laptop and access
the document from ManageBAC task. This is “open book”, in the sense that you can use your
planning document and choreography breakdown chart to help answer the following questions.
You are not permitted to access the internet for ANY reason and test could be taken away if
caught.

Duration: 55 minutes

Question 1: Explain and justify how your dance movements and sequences evoked your chosen
theme. Use specific examples to support.

Throughout the course of our dance, we tried to convey our relationship (good/bad) through our
use of space and the way we moved together. Often we would move and come together, and go
apart, as well as use aggressive movements to allow our theme to be as understandable as
possible. Our relationship fluctuates quite a lot and quite abruptly throughout the course of our
dance. Within the first second of the second minute, we are doing the exact same move
together. We are moving at the same time to the same spot. However the move right after this,
at 1:03, we are moving the opposite way, as I jumped back and she jumped forward. We looked
at each other from there as we moved together and kept moving so we were eventually apart.
One of the main times in our dance in which we looked like we were coming together, and then
quickly pushed each other away was at 1:41 in which we came together and stayed together
until 1:49, in which we pushed each other away. This type of back and forth movement is the
entire base of our dance and it conveys our theme by the constant coming together and pushing
away, mimicking a real bad/good/toxic relationship/friendship.

Question 2: Make clear connections and explain how you applied each of the elements of
dance to your choreography.

We incorporated many elements of dance in our final performance. Specifically, we mainly used
body movement, space, and relationship. Throughout the dance we were constantly trying to
use the space around us in order to keep it interesting, as the song we chose, No Diggity, is kind
of slow. We were often balanced and unbalanced, as many of our moves required us to shift our
weight. For example, at 1:03 we would jump back and land on one foot and stay there for a
couple seconds. Many of our other moves required us to shift our weight onto one foot, then
stabilize ourselves, and then shift our weight again. An example of this is the first move of the
second minute—we stepped out and shifted our weight onto the foot while staying bouncy and
utilizing our arms.
Because the dance was slow, we kept ourselves kind of slow, but we moved as much as we could
to the slow beat. We tried to bounce a lot which helped make the dance seem more interesting,
which also helped to create interest because it helped to show different meters—we would have
some faster moves and some slower moves, but mainly slower moves. The faster moves were
often abrupt and ended quickly, for example at 1:15, in the chorus when we would do a large
step and slide.
Dynamics was used less than the other elements, however we did use energy in order to make it
seem more interesting. Though the moves were slow we tried to keep them energetic and
bouncy.
One of our main goals in order to create a nice dance to watch was to use our space. Through
this we were able to move apart, and come together, turn our bodies in different directions, use
different levels (low, high, etc.), in relation to each other. As previously stated, because our
theme was bad/good relationships, we often came together and then went apart. We would
synchronize our moves and then do different things. At 1:53, we walked together from opposite
sides, reached for each other, and then pushed each other away. At this point I was behind and
my partner was in front. When we finally pushed each other away for the last time, we leveled
ourselves so that we were standing in a line. Before this, at the chorus of the song, we would
start one way (we were facing different ways) but we both kicked our feet to the ground and
used the force of the swing of our foot to bring us in the same position, which was with our right
side facing the audience. Finally, at many points in the dance, we would drop to the ground,
specifically at 1:09, when we went from standing straight up to kneeling down completely, and
then abruptly standing up again. The different uses of space ensure that the dance is engaging
throughout.
The last element of dance that our dance was mostly centered on was relationship. Our entire
theme was based on relationships so we needed to ensure that we focused a lot on making our
relationship obvious. We would constantly come together, push each other apart, and move the
same way. At 1:15, we did a move in which we used our arms and our legs to drop down and
step to the side. This move was synchronized, as was the entire chorus. However at 1:03, again,
when we jump, the move is different yet conveying the same thing.
All of the elements of dance we used really helped focus the theme and make it not too hard to
figure out, especially with the fluctuating movements.

Question 3: How successful were you in creating appropriate Choreography? Evaluate and justify.
 Do you feel your theme was conveyed clearly and that you used all elements of dance
effectively?
 Did you meet all Task Expectations? (For example – 2 minutes, creative beginning and
finish, appropriate music, range of movements, group formations, creativity, etc.)
 What could you have improved on?

I feel that overall we were successful in creating appropriate choreography. We used all
elements of dance pretty effectively, some more than others. We also met all of the
expectations, as we completed 2 full minutes of choreography, used a large range of motions,
utilized our partner in our dance, and the space around us, etc. I feel that the main thing that
we could have improved on was our transitions. We could have made them more fluent. When
choreographing, we tried to make our dance flow as much as possible, but in the song there are
a lot of pauses, and that was something that we should have considered better, as we mainly
choreographed to the music. We also could have used our time better, specifically in the final
performance, as if our moves were more synced, it would have looked like our transitions were
better. I feel that if I were to fix something, it would be to pin point certain parts of the song
and use those to our advantage, in the sense that we could have correlated a move to different
beats/lyrics, and come the final performance, it would have looked much smoother.

Question 4: Looking at your Planning Log (Session Goals), do you think you were effective in
developing and setting goals to improve your dance? Explain why or why not.

I think that we were effective in setting goals to improve our dance because we set our goals in
order to ensure that we maximized the use of our time and worked on and perfected as much
of our dance as possible. Because of this, we were often quite productive in class and finished
the entire piece in the 3 work periods. The only thing that I think we should have worked on
more is fine tuning and coming up with strategies to keep us more synced throughout, because
our choreography followed all of the requirements and looked interesting to watch. I feel that
the first class was the most productive—we completed 45 seconds of our dance. However in
the second and third classes, though we were productive and came up with a lot of new moves,
we would often forget them for the next class, so we would have to start from a certain point
and redo the choreography from there. However other than that, I think that we used our class
time to the best of our abilities and came up with choreography that was centered around our
theme.