FirstWorks Arts Learning Presents Urban Bush Women Create Dance. Create Community For a special student performance/demonstration celebrating the history of UBW, movement for everyone & “Walking w/’Trane”. February 26, 2016 11:00 am @ The Vets 1 Avenue of the Arts Providence, RI 02903 Curricula Guide About FirstWorks Arts Learning FirstWorks has built deep, ongoing relationships with over 30 public and charter schools across Rhode Island to provide access to artists and help fill the gap left from severe public spending cuts. The program features workshops taught by leading artists who provide rich experiential learning in a classroom setting, allows students and their families to attend world-class performances, and provides professional development and lesson plans for teachers. “FirstWorks is clearly becoming a cultural beacon in its community and state. It’s very exciting to see how they’ve mobilized a community.” - National Endowment for the Arts Please visit us online at www.first-works.org for further information about Arts Learn- ing programming and season offerings. © FirstWorks 2016 WWW.FIRST-WORKS.ORG Table of Contents Theatre Etiquette. 1 Snapshot . .2 What is Modern Dance? . .5 African American Modern Dance . 7 Meet Jawole! . 8 Modern Dance Coloring Page! . 10 “Walking with ‘Trane” . 11 John Coltrane . 12 How People Feel About “A Love Supreme”. 14 Glossary. 16 K-4 Lesson: Jazz, Dance, & Poetry . 17 K-4 Lesson: Telling a Story Through Dance . 19 6-12 Lesson: Teaching Science Through Dance . 21 Additional Resources . 22 National Core Arts Standards . 23 Teacher Survey . 24 Student Survey . 25 WWW.FIRST-WORKS.ORG WWW.FIRST-WORKS.ORG | 1 1 Theatre Etiquette Be prepared and arrive early. Ideally you should arrive at the theater 30 to 45 min- utes before the show. Allow for travel time and parking, and plan to be in your seats at least 15 minutes before the performance begins. Be aware and remain quiet. The theater is a “live” space—you can hear the per- formers easily, but they can also hear you, and you can hear other audience members, too! Even the smallest sounds, like rustling papers and whispering, can be heard throughout the theater, so it’s best to stay quiet so that everyone can enjoy the perfor- mance without distractions. The international sign for “Quiet Please” is to silently raise your index finger to your lips. Show appreciation by applauding. Applause is the best way to show your en- thusiasm and appreciation. Performers return their appreciation for your attention by bowing to the audience at the end of the show. It is always appropriate to applaud at the end of a performance, and it is customary to continue clapping until the curtain comes down or the house lights come up. Participate by responding to the action onstage. Sometimes during a perfor- mance, you may respond by laughing, crying or sighing. By all means, feel free to do so! Appreciation can be shown in many different ways, depending upon the art form. For instance, an audience attending a string quartet performance will sit very quietly, while the audience at a gospel concert may be inspired to participate by clapping and shouting. Concentrate to help the performers. These artists use concentration to focus their energy while on stage. If the audience is focused while watching the perfor- mance, they feel supported and are able to do their best work. They can feel that you are with them! Please note: Backpacks and lunches are not permitted in the theater. There is abso- lutely no food or drink permitted in the seating areas. Recording devices of any kind, including cameras, cannot be used during performances. Please remember to turn off your cell phone. 2 | WWW.FIRST-WORKS.ORG 2 Snapshot Questions to Think About During the Performance • What kind of experiences do Urban Bush Women dancers hope to create? • How can you understand the storyline through dance? • How is modern dance different from classical dance? From ballet? • How can dance strengthen community? What You’ll See You will attend a FirstWorks Arts Learning performance by Urban Bush Women, a modern dance company from Brooklyn, New York. UBW will discuss their history as a modern dance company, will perform selections from “Walking With ‘Trane”, and will encourage audience participation. About the Artists UBW galvanizes artists, activists, audiences and communities through performances, artist development, education and community engagement. With the ground-break- ing performance ensemble at its core, ongoing initiatives like the Summer Leadership Institute (SLI), BOLD (Builders, Organizers & Leaders through Dance) and the devel- oping Choreographic Center, UBW continues to affect the overall ecology of the arts by promoting artistic legacies; projecting the voices of the under-heard and people of color; bringing attention to and addressing issues of equity in the dance field and throughout the United States; and by providing platforms and serving as a conduit for culturally and socially relevant experimental art makers. WWW.FIRST-WORKS.ORG | 3 Mission Founded in 1984 by choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Urban Bush Women (UBW) seeks to bring the untold and under-told histories and stories of disenfranchised people to light through dance. They do this from a woman-centered perspective and as members of the African Diaspora community in order to create a more equitable balance of power in the dance world and beyond. As UBW enters its 32nd year, they continue to use dance as both the message and the medium to bring together diverse audiences through innovative choreography, com- munity collaboration and artistic leadership development. 4 | WWW.FIRST-WORKS.ORG Q: Where does the dance company name Q: What does “diaspora” mean? come from and what does it mean ? A: di·as·po·ra: noun A: UBW founder Jawole is inspired by many 1. the movement, migration, or scattering of different things. Jazz is one of the biggest a people away from an established or ances- sparks for her creative mind. The name she tral homeland chose was inspired by a jazz album by Art Ensemble of Chicago called “Urban Bushmen”. 2. people settled far from their ancestral Jawole liked how the name invoked the idea homelands of the urban city and jungle - or bush - at the URBAN BUSH WOMAN CORE VALUES: same time and identified a unique blend of modern and ancestral roots, just like Urban VALIDATING THE INDIVIDUAL -- Bush Women calls upon. Each individual has a unique and power- ful contribution to make. Q: What are “bushmen”? CATALYZING FOR SOCIAL CHANGE -- A: Bush·man: noun, plural noun: Bushmen UBW’s work intends to help people make sense out of the world and prepare to a member of any of several aboriginal take action in it. peoples of southern Africa, especially of the Kalahari Desert. They are traditionally BUILDING TRUST THROUGH PROCESS -- nomadic hunter-gatherers. The term is no A transparent process of artistic and longer in favor and these people are now managerial leadership builds and nur- called “The San”. The term, ‘bushman’, came tures trust. from the Dutch term, ‘bossiesman’, which meant ‘bandit’ or ‘outlaw’. ENTERING COMMUNITY & CO-CREATING STORIES -- Each community is unique and has the answers it seeks to uncover. CELEBRATING THE MOVEMENT & CULTURE OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA -- UBW is committed to highlighting the power, beauty and strength of the African Diaspora. RECOGNIZING PLACE MATTERS -- We recognize that being part of, respond- ing to and contributing to the overall well-being of our home community, Brooklyn, is of the utmost importance. WWW.FIRST-WORKS.ORG | 5 3 What is Modern Dance? modern dance: NOUN, 1. a form of contemporary theatrical and concert dance employing a special technique for developing the use of the entire body in movements expressive of abstract ideas. Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance (as opposed to participation dance), primarily arising out of Germany and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The oversimplification of modern dance’s history often leads to the erroneous explana- tion that the art form emerged merely as a rejection of, or rebellion against, classical ballet. An in-depth analysis of the context of the emergence of modern dance reveals that as early as the 1880s, a range of socioeconomic changes in both the United States and Europe was initiating tremendous shifts in the dance world. In America, increasing industrialization, the rise of a middle class (which had more disposable income and free time), and the decline of Victorian social strictures led to, among other changes, a new interest in health and physical fitness. “It was in this atmosphere that a ‘new dance’ was emerging as much from a rejection of social structures as from a dissatisfaction with ballet,” wrote Joshua Legg in his 2011 book, Introduction to Modern Dance Techniques. During that same period, “the champions of physical education helped to prepare the way for modern dance, and gymnastic exercises served as technical starting points for young women who longed to dance” (Anderson, Jack (1997). Art Without Boundaries: The World of Modern Dance. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. p. 8.) —and women’s colleges were already offering “aesthetic dance” courses by the end of the 1880s. Simultaneously, dance artists such as Isadora Duncan, Maud Allen, and Loie Fuller were pioneering new forms and practices in what is now called aesthetic or free dance for performance. These dancers disregarded ballet’s strict movement vocabulary, the par-