In partnership with the Department of Education, we created a series of free dance classes that can be used for self-directed or remote learning.
The lessons are inspired by Australian author and illustrator, Shaun Tan’s, “The Lost Thing”. In “The Lost Thing”, a person finds a strange, animated object that seems lost and out of place. After a series of adventures, they find the place where other lost things roam, and it is released back into the wild.
Written by Dr Katrina Rank, and presented by dance educators Candice Egan and Katrina Rank, each 30-minute closed captioned video offers a good warm up, improvisation and exploration activities, dance making activities led by the teacher and a cool down. They’re supported by self-directed, learn at home lesson plans and worksheets.
The target learner is in Year 5-6 but the class may be suitable to other year levels, depending on previous experience.
Lesson One: Dance With An Object
This lesson takes inspiration from the main character in “The Lost Thing” , an an odd object that seems to have its own history and purpose, which we never really discover. After a warm up, students build technical and improvisation skills, then they have an opportunity for an informal performance.
Download Lesson One Support Materials >>
Lesson Two: Impossible Object
This lesson uses the idea of objects that do strange things to inspire the creation of a dance sequence. This resource takes students through a safe dance warm up, and builds technical dance skills such as control, coordination, strength, alignment, endurance, balance and accuracy.
Download Lesson Two Support Materials >>
Lesson Three: Telling A Story Through Dance
In this lesson, students create a dance sketch based on a story similar to Shaun Tan’s, “The Lost Thing”. After a thorough warm up, they explore dance elements and choreographic tools through improvisation, to make an original dance sequence.