Monday 29th was our first official Creative Living session where I was delivering Creative Movement at Alvaston and Bolton’s Welfare Club. The session was an introduction of what creative movement is and how we can be creative when dancing. I had hoped that today could be an opportunity for participants to try movements out and for me to gage their interests and how the participants like to move.
We began by introducing ourselves both verbally and physically. I asked for the participants to think of a hand movement or gesture to introduce them. Each participant began to think of their own movement- Most of which contained some form of Jazz Hand. We were obviously feeling quite jazzy! We then played with these movements thus creating our own Jazz Hand themed Routine. This was a great ice breaker warm up as we all laughed and joked, smiled and had a fabulous time trying to remember the order of the movements and even developed the movements in reverse!
We continued to work with the idea of sharing our own movements with each other and played a game of follow the leader. Where we started in a circle taking it in turn to offer movements for each other to follow. This was a great opportunity for each other to try and test their own movements and try out other participants movements too, again we had a large Jazz hand influence which added lots of sparkle and shine to our movements. We developed this task to following a partner using a scarf. Using the scarf meant that we had something that wasn’t a direct body part to focus on. We were able to re-create each other’s scarf patterned and movements which often meant our bodies could move differently to create those patterns and shapes. This exercise brought focus to our work and was captivating to watch as the room was silent with focus yet full of life as the different coloured scarves floated up, down and all around with the addition of the odd Jazz hand making an appearance!
As a group we built up a responsive dynamic where we were all feeding off each other’s ideas. I decided to teach a few dance steps in sequence using the scarves. Once we had learnt a short phrase we split off into two teams to create our own ending using the scarves as focus. Each group prepared something that was collaboratively created and unique to them. We finished the session with a very energetic dance off, showcasing both routines which again weren’t short of those fabulous Jazz hands. We were all quite worn out after our dance off so returned to our chairs for a relaxing cool down followed by a cup of tea and a shortcake biscuit- What a perfect start to the week!
