Creative Dance: A Manual for Teaching All Ages

This manual is intended for a broad audience of educators who value dance as a way of learning and who are seeking ready to use lesson plans and activities while acknowledging that adaptations are relative to a participant's age, culture, and abilities. Throughout, Lloyd includes ideas and concepts inspired by colleagues and mentors such as Anne Green Gilbert, Theresa Purcell Cone, and Gladys Andrews Fleming, who all contributed to developing various creative dance teaching approaches. Organized into 12 chapters, this book presents readers with foundational requisites that establish a core understanding of creative dance. The first three chapters describe the values and benefits of creative dance, the role of the teacher, and the basic components of a creative dance program and lessons. Chapters 4 through 7 guide readers through learning about the four dance elements of body, time, space, and force as principal elements for participants to explore and experience, propelling teachers and students toward what Lloyd instills in the Preface, "to find joy and fulfillment in creating your own dances wherever you are and whatever your age and ability may be" (xxi) In Chapter 7, Lloyd shares one of her experiences from teaching 35 preschool and kindergarten teachers in Penang, Malaysia. She realized that she did not have percussion instruments to teach the six qualities of movement. Lloyd recalls, "I realized that the voice was the perfect percussion instrument and mentally designed the sounds that we would use in the next activity coming up quickly! The teachers were surprised when they learned later that they were part of the creative process while it was being taught I wanted to thank them (so) I named it The Penang Lesson" (204) This story and other examples in the book demonstrate a personal perspective running through Lloyd's book that the reviewers term "flexibility of mind and receptivity of heart." Chapters 8, 9, and 10 offer effective teaching methods using numerous props such as scarves, hoops, beanbags, and fabric. Also included are ideas for using pictures and colors, different tactile and auditory stimuli, percussion instruments, and a unique symbol system for recording created dances. In addition, Lloyd shares strategies for using poems, songs, stories, and action words to create new movements and dances. These chapters segue into Chapter 11, "Creating New Folk Dances for Today's Generation," based on the work of Theresa Purcell Cone. Folk dance is proposed as an ongoing creative process in response to the conditions and events of people living today in contrast to traditional and historical folk dances. For Lloyd and Purcell Cone, folk dances can be created from celebrating a space shuttle mission or weather report, among other current events shared by a community. The application of the terms new, folk, and contemporary supports that folk dance represents what is important to its current creators and doers and not only to past traditions and events. This is one example of theoretical propositions that Lloyd proposes dance scholars to further consider as a new perspective on teaching folk dance. Chapter 12 provides assessment and evaluation tools for creative dance teachers that Lloyd deemed necessary to include in an age of greater accountability. This is followed by a 22 page section of resources. Lloyd's inclusion of Fleming's (1976) work with children is exemplified by Fleming's poem titled "Bill of Rights" (11) which encourages the possibility that each individual in any society can access his or her dancing body in newly discovered and differently expressed ways when one considers the body as a material manifestation of the self, the awareness of self, and self in relation to others. Overall, the underlying theme of Lloyd's wonderful work affirms that creative dance is a valuable alternative to learning codified dances that emphasize repetition and reproduction of others' works. Instead she proposes that using one's imagination to create meaningful movement that represents personal expression and communication of ideas and feelings is a way to achieve "flexibility of mind and receptivity of heart." Lloyd's book is an essential work for creative dance teachers and for educators in all disciplines teaching dance anywhere in the world who are looking for ways to cultivate creativity, imagination, and collaboration.