Friday, September 20, 2019

Layering Languages in our Body Exploration

We began our time together reflecting on our movement exploration so far through the use of some video observations. This included the video of Lane and Grace yesterday viewing their "shadow videos" in motion. After lunch children were invited to explore their body motions in shadow form and perhaps make a "video" with their shadows. We began with only light, shadow, and our bodies. 

Another video we had shared with the children was a video taken during Early Birds where Sally and her sister Marley made a rainbow out of their bodies. Sally had also made a picture of a rainbow on transparency which we brought out today along with other options for projection. The children chose to put Sally's rainbow on the projector. Lou Lou began dancing and soon singing...

"That's a rainbow...we can make a rainbow...we can hug a rainbow." -Lou Lou

Lane sat observing this from the side, "How 'bout we put music on." Jill asked, "What would be the perfect song?" 

"What if we put on the song 'Tiny Dancer?'" - Lane

Other songs chosen to move to:
Lane: "The other 'Tiny Dancer.'" (First the Florence and the Machine cover, then Elton John's original.)
Sam: "Light and Shine...the one we sing at school." ("This Little Light of Mine")
Lou Lou: "My favorite song is 'Dance Hula.' ...There's one called 'Dance Hula Lady Bug.'"
For Leigh, we played music from The Greatest Showman.

As the children explored, they added layers, increasing complexity from simply light and shadow, to added projection, layers of projection, singing, songs, music, dance, individual dance, group dance, jumping and big motion exploration, varied speed of motion, moving to the beat and rhythm, and eventually instruments. These layers of languages intersected as the children experimented with their body movements, light, and music.

"I want to see what it looks like when we flip it over." 

Sam said as he flipped Sally's rainbow illustration. He worked with various materials at the projector, layering and rearranging the materials to create different perspectives. You can see his hand's shadow as he works with materials while Lane and Lou Lou dance in the foreground:

It has been such a fascinating first two weeks!! We hope you have a fabulous weekend and we cannot wait to see where these explorations take us next!