Dance Educators Training Institute

August 11-15, 2008

Brief Description of K-12 Assembly Program

For K-12 school assemblies, ClancyWorks creates a program that excites students about the possibilities of dance to create community and exhibits ways that a choreographer sees moments in everyday life and turns pedestrian movement into a work of art. Stylistically the members of ClancyWorks have a diverse movement background which is highlighted in the performance in order to cover a range of modern dance and contemporary dance movement forms including contemporary modern dance, hip-hop mixed with traditional jazz and dances that include props/sets. A specific strength of the ClancyWorks Dance Company is the use of partnering in choreography.

A main objective in the performances of the ClancyWorks Dance Company is to educate students about the importance of teamwork and collaboration. Partnering techniques are used as a vehicle to exhibit the ways that an individual enhances his/her abilities by connecting with a positive group creating an environment of mutual respect.

School Assembly Requirements:

• a quality sound system that can play cds
• microphone with stand, if possible
• either a small room to the side of the performance area or a backstage area with a curtain
• the floor of a gym or a cleared and clean level stag
• no videotaping is allowed, per request of the artists
• With regards to audience size we are willing to perform for an audience size of up to 500 students. An audience of about 250 is preferable. Please note, if performances take place in a school gym, we request that the audience is set up on one side of the gym.
• We can do back to back performances. We need a minimum of 20 minutes in between each performance.
• We require a minimum of 30 minutes to set up for the show and 10-15 minutes to break down and pack up after a show.

Objectives of the program:

1. To allow students to see how dance connects with different aspects of their education
2. To engage students in an art activity that allows them to see the practical connections of art and life (for example: how connecting with individuals and partnering in dance allows one to see the power of working collaboratively and how working with others in a positive way can help the individual to accomplish tasks they could not do on their own).
3. To educate students about the importance of mutual respect, team work, and creating community
4. To educate students about different styles of dance and ways that choreographers create dances.
5. To expose students to a live dance performance that utilizes different styles of contemporary dance

Content of the Program:

The company presents an assembly that highlights work that is tailored to specific age groups. In each assembly there will be a mixture of group works, solo, duets and trios that engage students by the fantastic partnering sequences as well as by showcasing a variety of movement styles.

Audience participation is addressed in multiple ways throughout the performance and is tailored specifically for each audience. Sometimes the dancers engage the audience through dialogues and questions, other times it is through call and response exercises, and other times it is by giving the audience a short warm-up and creating a short dance with the students.

ClancyWorks Dance Company: Classes & Workshops

Adrienne Clancy and Members of the ClancyWorks Dance Company are available for traditional dance technique classes in contemporary modern, jazz, ballet as well as their trademark Partnering into Performance Workshops.

Partnering into Performance Class description

Adrienne Clancy and members of the ClancyWorks Dance Company pride themselves on their interest to teach to a wide array of individuals with a range of experiences with dance from the novice to the professional dancer. Important in Clancy's vision is the ability of the individual to remain human as they learn to strengthen their dance technique. In order to help participants develop a greater understanding of the class lessons, we engage the students through dialog that helps to deepen the awareness of the individual as well as the multiple implications of the dance exercises.

The Partnering into Performance Workshop will be a chance to learn more about Adrienne Clancy and her company's approach to partnering and using partnering and improvisational principles as a baseline for choreography. Clancy's approach to partnering blends concepts based on contact improvisational techniques, structural ideas based on architectural concepts, partnering principles learned from her experiences as a company member of the Bella Lewitzky Dance Company and community building principles based on her experience working with the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange.

Although each workshop is tailored specifically for the topic addressed and the needs of each population, you can count on a general teaching pedagogy that will be incorporated into every class session.

In all Partnering into Performance Workshops Members of ClancyWorks will:

• Lead a warm-up that will educate the participants about the importance of refining, strengthening, respecting and caring for a dancer's tool, the human body.
• Structure improvisational exercises that will help the participants to connect to one another, build community connections and trust in the group that will highlight mutual respect and understanding of different ethnic and racial cultures while at the same time teach the participants about craft and composition in choreography.
• Use the above structures to help the participants strengthen their unique artistic voice, build self esteem and confidence while empowering the participants to develop their understanding of choreography and collaborate to create compositional sequences
• Provide time in each workshop for the participants to share their work through immediate informal performances and to participate in constructive artistic feedback.
• Evaluate and analyze the work in order to deepen the participant's understanding of the formal elements involved in the compositional craft of choreography while at the same time strengthen the connections to one another as members of a community.
• The format of the feedback utilizes an affirmative manner of supporting the participant's work with the audience highlighting the positive aspects of a dance viewing and framing their feedback in relation to the dance improvisation and choreographic concepts taught in each workshop and how the work relates to other life skills and practices.