What is Creative Dance?
If the term 鈥淐reative Dance鈥� conjures up images of young children running and skipping with wild abandon, pretending to be butterflies, fairies, or pirates, you are not alone! Creative Dance is sometimes misunderstood by families seeking to enroll their children in dance classes - and even by some dance teachers. But even though Creative Dance may not be as clearly defined or widely recognized as classes like Jazz, Ballet, and Tap, there are many reasons why it is beneficial for students of all ages. Creative Dance is an imaginative and play-fueled dance class style that offers a valuable learning experience for students of all ages by helping them build motor skills, individual expression, social skills, creativity, and more!
Creative Dance is considered a conceptual approach to dance, combining movement and expression. In Creative Dance classes, students explore concepts such as shape, quality, rhythm, level, space, tempo, and relationships. Creative Dance generally involves the individual exploration of concepts through improvisation and movement generation, rather than the mastery of a specific dance steps and movement technique. In Creative Dance classes, there is a focus on gross motor skills, individual expression through movement, and the elements of dance: Space, Time, Energy, Body, and Action.
Creative Dance classes may include:
- A warm-up to help prepare the body and brain for movement
- Introduction of a dance concept through a movement pattern or structured improvisation
- Student application of a concept through a creative movement prompt or by solving a movement problem
- A cool-down that reinforces the dance concept and helps restore the body
In Creative Dance classes, students may work individually, in pairs, or in small groups. They may be encouraged to explore the dance concept in their own way, or work with others to apply the concept collaboratively. A Creative Dance Teacher may use props such as scarves, batons, bean bags, stuffed animals, hula hoops, or balls in their lessons. These props help encourage creativity and imagination, and offer different ways for students to explore the dance concept.
What are the benefits of Creative Dance for students?
Creative Dance offers physical, mental, and emotional benefits that can help improve students鈥� well-being and quality of life. The study of Creative Dance can help students:
- Develop and refine coordination and motor skills: Creative Dance utilizes the entire body in a variety of positions, pathways, and patterns, helping to improve full-body coordination. Students practice gross motor skills like crawling, walking, running, skipping, and jumping. Creative Dance offers all students, but especially children, an avenue to expand movement possibilities and skills and understand how their bodies move.
- Improve emotional health and well-being: Creative Dance promotes emotional health by offering a structured outlet for self-expression and emotional release. Creative Dance students take responsibility for their growth and learning as they explore dance concepts in their own way. Through Creative Dance, students can learn valuable life skills, such as persistence, adaptability, tolerance, and accountability.
- Develop social skills: Creative Dance often requires social interaction, collaboration, and cooperation. Students learn to communicate ideas to others as they work together to explore concepts and solve movement problems. Creative Dance can help students develop empathy as they connect kinesthetically with other dancers. They can come to respect themselves and others by participating in the creative process together.
- Improve cognitive abilities: Creative Dance promotes cognitive growth, as movement is a primary mode through which young children learn about and understand the world around them. Through Creative Dance, students learn to embody movement concepts in a way that works for their own physicality and development; apply new skills and concepts through movement; interpret meaning in and respond to movement.
Why is Creative Dance important in Early Childhood Education?
Creative Dance is beneficial for students of all ages, but it can be especially impactful for young children. Creative Dance prepares students for learning, in and out of the studio. As early childhood dance expert Lynn Monson puts it, "Movement is key to building the connections in the brain necessary for physical, cognitive and social development, and is the foundation for all learning.鈥� Creative Dance is often taught in early childhood education programs, or in preschool-age classes in the studio setting. Creative Dance is an excellent introduction to dance for young children because it utilizes play and imagination to teach developmentally appropriate movement skills and concepts.
Play is a powerful learning tool for young children, and a primary way that students experience and learn about the world around them. It can encourage inquiry and problem-solving, independence and teamwork, understanding and relationship-making. Moreover, Creative Dance engages students鈥� imagination, which is critical to children鈥檚 social, emotional, and cognitive development. Students learn to take risks, trust their creativity, and communicate their ideas through the imaginative aspects of Creative Dance.
Finally, as a conceptually-based approach, Creative Dance encourages developmentally appropriate movement skills. Creative Dance Teachers design dance activities that help students explore the concepts using movements that are safe for growing bodies and help prepare students for dance training in other styles.
Eve D. Whelchel, Dance Instructor at The Albany Academies in Albany, NY, sees these benefits in action every day with her preschool and elementary students:
"Creative dance in early childhood provides a pathway to holistic education and empowers our youngest learners to become co- creators within the framework of the course curriculum. I am fortunate to see the benefits of creative dance in the early childhood setting on a consistent basis. Students are building fine and gross motor skills as well as thinking critically through the exploration of the creative process. Creative dance reinforces core classroom content such as scientific themes, social emotional learning, and English language arts, providing enriching opportunities for students to 鈥渕ove to learn鈥� through interdisciplinary projects. Perhaps most importantly, creative dance in early childhood encourages students to gather as a community, harness their imagination, and discover how to express themselves through movement awareness building their confidence and self-esteem."
How does Creative Dance prepare students for dance training in other styles?
Creative Dance can prepare students for dance training in other dance styles, such as Jazz, Tap, Modern, Ballet, Hip Hop, and more. Through Creative Dance classes, students develop gross motor skills and improve their coordination. This provides a strong foundation from which students can learn the dance techniques specific to other dance styles. The movement concepts studied in Creative Dance, such as shape, quality, rhythm, level, space, tempo, and relationships, are integral to most dance techniques. Exploring these concepts at a young age can help students develop the spatial awareness, musicality, and performance quality that will help them find success in other kinds of dance training. Moreover, the imagination and creativity developed through Creative Dance can help students become comfortable with improvisation, composition, storytelling through movement, and portraying a character in a dance - all important aspects of artistry in dance!
What should dance families know about Creative Dance?
Creative Dance classes provide a great introduction to dance training for young students. Many dance studios offer Creative Dance for preschool-aged children, as it sets them up for success when they transition into the study of other dance styles. Creative Dance may also be offered to older students, and can be a wonderful stand-alone dance experience or supplement to other kinds of dance training. The benefits of Creative Dance know no age limits!
How can dance teachers learn more about teaching Creative Dance?
If you are a dance teacher who wants to learn more about Creative Dance, we encourage you to enroll in NDEO鈥檚 Online Professional Development Class, OPDI-M6: Introduction to Creative Dance for Early Childhood. This six-week online course, led by Professor Lynn Monson, explores the concepts and content essential for quality teaching and learning for creative dance. Though the course is specifically geared toward early childhood education, dance educators who want to teach and integrate Creative Dance into classes of any age group can benefit from the material.
Photo by聽Kendra Harris, Colorado Ballet