B.U. Dance Workshop

This post is two days late but don't worry, the memory of yesterday's visit is still fresh in my mind. The campers always love the B.U. (Boston University) dance workshop. It's only 45 minutes long, but it's 45 minutes of movement games, music, and of course dance. All the campers think they are Michael Jackson when it comes to dance skills, and on Tuesday they had the chance to prove it.

The B.U. student who lead the workshop was very skilled with the children, maintaining their focus and attention and getting them to enjoy the exercises. He began the workshop with a number of different movement games designed to increase the campers' awareness of their bodies and surroundings. He moved on to some different contests where the campers had to make groups and work together in order to win. After about 25 minutes of warming up, the campers were ready to finally dance.

The student taught them a simple dance, comprehensively broken down into different sections (the final section was three poses of each camper's own choice). They practiced each piece separately before they were ready to do the whole dance. Then they practiced the entire dance twice before splitting into two groups to "battle" each other.

After 45 movement-filled minutes, it was time to sit still and listen to the story teller from the Read Boston StoryMobile. Surprisingly, the campers were very still as they listen to the story teller. I believe it was a combination of the enthralling stories, and the fact that dance, while movement-based, requires focus, so the campers' focusing abilities were already in play. Whatever the reason, it made a cool Tuesday morning.

-Benjamin

Here's the dance video: