Einstein Middle School

7th-8th Grade Dance x Visual Arts

Ms. Virginia / Mrs. Rankins

For the past two months, Mrs. Rankins’ 7th and 8th grade dance classes have been learning a few different routines for the Einstein Middle School Christmas Show. When I started with them, they had just begun to master Bachata, a fun and fast-paced variation of a salsa. After a few weeks of introductory lessons on the elements of art and how they overlap with the elements of dance as well as a class on color, movement, and emotion, we began learning the basics of figure drawing.

Using what we’d built on in the past re: shape, form, and line, we began by observing how any human form can be broken down into a series of simple shapes. As a group, we brainstormed what shapes could represent each part of the body, starting with the head and moving down. With me at the board and them on their papers, we drew a simple form together as an I-do-you-do, and active / free participation was encouraged as we worked together to decide what would look best.

Next, I asked for a series of volunteers to come to the dance floor. One by one, they struck a pose — some sort of frozen dance move — while the rest of the class worked to quickly sketch out the shapes they saw on their paper. I waked around and guided them through a variety of challenges and I-can’t-do-it moments. The energy in the room grew noticeably as they realized it was all up to them; the volunteer was in charge of the pose, and they often landed on one after fun back-and-forth with the rest of the class about what looked coolest but also what was easiest to draw. There was a friendly and joyful atmosphere of competition as more volunteers were eager to go and choose a pose and more drawers got excited about what they could see themselves do. As a final round, I asked pairs of volunteers to come to the dance floor and gave them a color that they had to create and strike a pose together to represent.

Finally, we split the class into two groups. While Mrs. Rankins reviewed their Christmas Show Bachata routine with one group, I led the other half through a live-sketching exercise of the dance their classmates were performing. The point was to go quick and fast, trusting your instinct and not getting caught up in perfection. I asked everyone to either pick a dancer to follow and draw their movements or capture the movements of the whole group. It was pretty amazing being able to actively push the students to keep drawing and keep going, to not put their pencils down if they got confused, and instead to move through the stress and chaos and just draw with feeling. I intentionally did not clarify how exactly they should draw the dancing, and as a result we had everything from solo figure poses to step-by-step diagrams to movement captures. I was so excited to see how many directions they took it in.

The following week, we started learning about value and shading to add on to our figure drawing lessons. In our final exercises, students will work on a formal figure drawing of a freeze frame from a music video / dance / song of their choosing.