A defining characteristic of humans is our desire to tell stories and communicate them to others, whether via the written word, orally, visually, musically, or through theater and dance. Each of us has stories to tell, imagined worlds that reside in our minds, and each of those stories cannot always be told in the same way. Because of this, I designed Dance Your Story Today to fill a void in how children give voice to their stories. As such, Dance Your Story Today provides children with a much-needed authentic arts integration tool that will capture their creative imaginations and harness their desire to move.
Fun Fact: Did you know that Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Ballet began by combining two versions of the same story? E. T. A. Hoffman wrote the original short story, “The Nutcracker and the Mount King” in 1816, and Alexandre Dumas adapted it in 1844 as “The Story of a Nutcracker.” The story we know today as The Nutcracker is a mixture of Hoffman’s and Dumas’ ideas.
By adding music to each section or scene of your story, you will do the same thing as other ballet and narrative dance composers. Ballets are narrative dances, they tell a story, like Cinderella, and the drama of your tale will provide the structure for the music you add to it.
Write your story in the fields provided. Think of the first text box as the “Once upon a time…” section, the introduction, and think of the last section as the “and they lived happily ever after section,” how your story ends.
In the middle sections you will write what happens to your characters. This will be the place where the drama and conflict of your story are written.
Once you’ve completed your story you can begin to add music.
Hint: It’s a good idea to create an account, it’s free, so that you can keep revising your story over time.
One way to begin adding music to your narrative dance is to reread the story and think about what’s happening during each section or scene. Each scene will have its own emotion or feeling to propel the dramatic action forward. Ask: Are the characters being chased or are they asleep? What emotions are the characters feeling at each point in the story? Does a new character enter the story or does one leave? This information will influence the music you select.
Now, look at the music. It’s organized by composer and many of the pieces have different arrangements and orchestrations. Click on each title to hear how each selection sounds. When you’ve found music that will work for a specific scene, drag and drop it next to the text.
Now that you have your story and music, you’re ready to dance. Remember, you can download the music and the story if you need to.
Telling your story through dance might be a solo performance or it might require one or two other dancers. Your story could require lots of dancers. It’s up to you.
Once you have determined how many dancers you will need, you can begin to choreograph each dance. As you think about your ballet’s premiere performance, give yourself enough time to rehearse.
Your dance could be something you create on the spur of the moment. In music, we call this an impromptu. On the other hand, you might want to add costumes or props or sets to give your ballet a more formal performance. It’s up to you.
Sometimes, our stories need words to be heard,
other times, illustrations and art.
But sometimes, our stories ask for the chance,
just to add music and dance.
The back story…
The idea for Dance Your Story came to me as I was working with a group of 10-11yr-olds in Seward, Alaska. These kids loved to dance, and I was trying to figure out a way to make Personalized Learning in my field, music, a bit more personal for them.
It seemed like a perfect match for personalized learning: 1) students expected to write stories and 2) their desire to move their bodies. Why shouldn’t a demonstration of their creative writing, their ability to collaborate and cooperate, and their use of music to illustrate the story’s drama be accepted as evidence of content mastery and skill development?
That was 2016. Now, six years later, I’ve created a beta site where anyone, young or old, can take that “What would happen if…?” and turn it into dance.
My hope is that the site creates a desire in each user to continue exploring movement as a means of communication that can be an extension of the written word.
ABOUT THE MUSIC
PUBLIC DOMAIN
The music comes from the public domain. Because of the tireless work of music historians, we have centuries of music to read, listen, and study. I selected well-known or lesser-known compositions from Schumann, Grieg, and Tchaikovsky, for example, and have arranged and orchestrated them to serve the purposes of this project. If the music is not in the public domain, it is one of my compositions.
LENGTH
When I thought about what this site might look like or how individuals might interact with it, I kept one mantra in mind: KISS (Keep It Simply Sophisticated). To simplify things for the user, who will be the principal dancer and choreographer, I kept the length of each piece to 75s, approximately. As music is added, I will create short, medium, and long versions of each piece so that the user has more flexibility.
FORM
I selected music that has easily identifiable forms so that the user can remember it easily—this will assist the user in creating choreography for each scene.
MLT
Dr. Edwin Gordon’s Music Learning Theory has played pivotal role in my development as a musician and as a teacher, and the music on this site reflects this influence. Without getting into the nitty-gritty of MLT, a basic idea of music learning is listening to different versions of a song. Not necessarily a different cover, where an artist may change the tempo or style, but a version where the mode or meter is altered. In this way, the musical mind learns about the structures of music informally. POINT : No matter how young or old you are, this music will develop your musical mind.
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