Ā鶹ŹÓʵֱ²„

Understanding music is an essential tool for a successful dance teacher. In a classroom setting, it is beneficial to be able to articulate to your students where rhythmic patterns lie, and where specific accents of movements occur. The first half of the course will raise awareness of the relationship between music and dance, covering the concepts of Beat, Pulse, Meter, Tempo, Dynamics, Articulation, and Phrasing. The student is given an opportunity to explore and apply to dance the concepts learned and write a short musical score to demonstrate overall comprehension. In the second half of the course, students continue to examine the symbiotic relationships that exist between music and dance finding meaningful ways to express those relationships in their teaching. Based on newly acquired musical knowledge and aided with a cadre of tools, students identify musical resources that support teaching and choreography needs. Participants will learn how to make effective music choices reflecting choreographic intent, build personal music libraries, and how to effectively communicate with live musicians in class and performance. In practicums, participants deconstruct a musical score and build a choreographic study derived from the musical structure. Finally, each student works collaboratively with the instructor in a composer/choreographer project with the instructor composing music for each student based on the studentā€™s articulated choreographic intent. By the end of this course, students have a very organic understanding of their relationship with music.

Book required: None

How do OPDI Online Courses for dance teachers work?

Our ā€œonlineā€ courses are guided by a professor and include a co-hort of students (other dance teachers) with whom you will collaborate. They also include graded assignments, feedback, final grades, and Professional Development Credits (PDCs). Our OPDI online courses require on average between 6 to 8 hours of work each week, but it all depends on your learning style. It could be less or could be more. You can also register as an Audit student and do as much or as little work as you want and will not receive a grade.

We utilize the Sakai online learning platform to deliver the course materials and instruction. Our courses are asynchronous, so there are no required meeting dates or times but we do have a Course Start and Course End date; however, our courses offer at least 2 optional live Q&A-Feedback zoom sessions during the course to enhance opportunities for connection with other students and the professor. Every week of the course there are assignments that you will need to complete with due dates listed in the course outline / syllabus.

Assignments can be done at any time during the week prior to the due date and may include reading, watching videos, posting answers to prompts on a discussion board, writing an essay, reading and responding to other students' posts on the discussion board, taking a cell phone video of yourself completing a particular movement, taking a quiz, or completing a final project. The professor provides written feedback and grades and you get to connect with other students (who are actually dance teachers) via our discussion board and the optional live Q&A feedback sessions.