Getting our groove on with the Royal New Zealand Ballet.

We’ve been hard at work developing our dance for our Arts Celebration piece. So, it was perfect timing for a workshop with Jordana from the Royal New Zealand Ballet (RNZB).

At the Arts Celebration, you'll see us using dance to share some of our learning about stars. Based on the New Zealand Curriculum for Year One, our children are exploring how to:

• use their body, face, and voice to ... tell a story, and respond to music

• demonstrate the difference between locomotive (or ‘travelling’) movement, like crawling or jumping, where they move around a space, and non-locomotive movement, like stretching or bending, where they stay in one place

• create simple sequences of movement with different levels, which are the height at which a performer moves, which may be high, medium, or low

• create simple sequences of movement with different pathways, which are patterns a performer creates in the air or on the floor by moving parts of their body through space.

Our workshop with Jordana of RNZB focussed on these kinds of movement: movement on the spot and through space, creating short sequences to tell a story. We also got a taste of the brand new ballet for children that the RNZB has been developing. It's based on the fabulous picture book 'The Bomb'/'Te Pohū' by Sacha Cotter and Josh Morgan. It's a quintessentially Kiwi story of a boy who wants to be able to do the best bomb ever, just like his big brother. 

Linked here is a gorgeous reading of the story by Troy Kingi, accompanied by the NZSO.

Movement without locomotion takes a lot of focus and awareness of our bodies. Our tamariki listened hard to Jordana, warming up our bodies and learning some beginning moves. Then we moved on to some bigger actions that involved moving and leaping around our space. 

We were able to learn some of the choreography from the show, telling the story of this page of the book with dance moves and actions to evoke how the perfect bomb is 'booming', 'slapping', 'splashing', 'dripping' and 'soaking'.

 

We are grateful to Jordana for sharing her knowledge and Zest for dance with us. There is nothing like learning with an expert to build skills and Love of Learning.

Check out the NZ Curriclum Parent Portal page linked here for more on this, and also handy tips on how you can support your child with this learning at home.

And, if you're keen for more, you can catch free RNZB performances of 'The Bomb' at Te Papa on Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th September. Access this link for details of workshops and performances.