Flocking & Mirroring: Entry 3
09:16:00
Mirroring and Flocking were my two favourite activities in dance class and I feel that they go together hand in hand.
Firstly, mirroring is a great baby-step leading towards flocking. Mirroring is very easy to implement and introduce to new dancers, but can also be used as a tool for more experienced dancers.
Mirroring involves paying attention to your partner and trying to mimic (or mirror) their movements exactly. For a very successful mirroring activity, a passerby should not know which of the two partner's is leading because their movements are so in sync.
Mirroring can be a fun warm-up activity or it can be done to practice moves you've learned in class.
As you can see, Nicolina and I enjoyed mirroring a lot!
Flocking is a lot like mirroring, but a bit more advanced. If I were to scaffold a lesson, I would begin with mirroring and move on to flocking after some practice.
In flocking, instead of having one partner, you are in a group of four and instead of facing one another, everyone is facing the same way in a diamond formation. (See picture below)
Flocking is interesting because the leader changes freely throughout the activity so everyone has a turn and everyone has some say in how long they are leading for. After practicing with mirroring, this is a good step up for more practice of leading and following movements. This activity can also be a great consolidation if there are movements that have been learned throughout the lesson, students can create flocking combinations and present them to the class as a routine.
Both of these activities work very well together within the creative process. Students are able to explore the generate movements with partners in mirroring and plan what their favourite movements are. Then working in their flocks they can explore and experiment, and create a routine to share with the class or with another group. They can then revise and refine their routine before creating a final performance of their flocking routine.
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