Developing a program

The VCE Dance Study Design outlines the nature and sequence of teaching and learning necessary for students to demonstrate achievement of the set of outcomes for a unit. The areas of study broadly describe the learning context and the knowledge required for the demonstration of each outcome. Outcomes are introduced by summary statements and are followed by the key knowledge and key skills which relate to the outcomes.

Teachers must develop courses that include appropriate learning activities to enable students to develop the key knowledge and key skills identified in the outcome statements in each unit.

Courses must be developed within the framework of the study design: the areas of study, outcome statements, and key knowledge and key skills.

For Units 1 and 2, teachers must select assessment tasks from the list provided. Tasks should provide a variety and the mix of tasks should reflect the fact that different types of tasks suit different knowledge and skills and different learning styles. Tasks do not have to be lengthy to make a decision about student demonstration of achievement of an outcome.

In Units 3 and 4, assessment is more structured. For Unit 3, Outcomes 1, 2 and 3, and Unit 4, Outcomes 1 and 3, the assessment tasks for School-assessed Coursework are prescribed. The contribution that each outcome makes to the total score for School-assessed Coursework is also stipulated.

Teachers must develop courses that include appropriate learning activities to enable students to develop the knowledge and skills identified in the outcome statements in each unit.

Options for organising teaching and assessment of VCE Dance include:

• Delivering the complete study at the home school as a timetabled subject. In this situation, the home school is both the enrolling and the assessing school and the teacher will be a member of the school staff.
• Students, with the agreement of their home school, undertake VCE Dance through classes offered by a private provider. The private provider must be authorised by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, and registered with the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority. In this situation, the home school is the enrolling school and the private provider is the assessing school.
  Teachers should consult the current VCE and VCAL Administrative Handbook for information about responsibilities of enrolling and assessing schools, key dates, enrolment and assessment procedures and teacher registration.

Study structure

In VCE Dance, there is a similar structure in Units 1 to 4, with Outcome 1 focusing on dance perspectives, Outcome 2 focusing on choreography and performance, and Outcome 3 focusing on dance technique and performance. Teachers who are delivering ‘combined’ classes (for example, where Units 1 and 3 are taught in the same class) can use these similarities to facilitate planning. Outcomes 2 and 3 also have structural similarities in the way that each includes dance-making (choreography or learnt dance), rehearsal, pre-performance and performance. Note that the choreographic processes of improvisation, selection, arrangement, refinement and evaluation (ISARE) are only used in outcomes where the students are choreographing dance works and are not used in outcomes that focus on learnt dance works.

In VCE Dance, students develop knowledge and skills through different types of practice – choreography, performance and analysis. The study requires students to think critically about their practice, evaluate all aspects of their work and make connections between learning across the areas of study.

Concepts relating to the choreographic process and the realisation of a dance work are introduced in Unit 1, Area of Study 1, and then applied and developed across the study. Learning about safe dance practice and alignment is introduced in Unit 1, Area of Study 2, and must be reinforced and applied across the study.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dance styles and traditions in VCE Dance

Students who are using an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Island dance style or tradition as the basis of their personal movement vocabulary should discuss requirements with community members and/or traditional custodians who have relevant and reputable cultural knowledge. Students should talk about the terminology in the study and how the movement language can be accessed and used in respectful and culturally appropriate ways. Teachers should consult the DET Protocols for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island culture for further advice.

Cross-study terminology

Intention

In VCE Dance, all works created, learnt, performed and studied must be based on an intention. When studying a dance work by a choreographer who has not published a statement about the intention of their work, students can source information about the intention by researching the background and context of the work, the dance-design and/or the performance context.

Elements of movement

Students apply their understanding of the expressive capacity of the elements of movement to analysis, dance-making and performing processes. When making or choreographing a dance, they explore ways in which the elements of movement can be varied and manipulated to communicate an intention. When they study dance works by other choreographers, students analyse how the elements of movement have been manipulated to communicate the expressive intention.

Personal movement vocabulary

VCE Dance requires each student to develop and use a personal movement vocabulary. This vocabulary must allow the student to demonstrate a full range of movement categories and physical skills. It might be based on their preferred ways of performing actions and skills; for example, a movement vocabulary based on a particular dance style/genre/tradition. Students can use the style/genre/tradition as a starting point to explore further movement possibilities from both a personal and a creative perspective. This might involve transforming a ‘traditional’ or ‘typical’ style by manipulating the movement content. Students may use a mixture of styles and/or genres in their dance work.

Choreographic devices

The following list of common choreographic devices is not prescriptive and they will not all be found in every dance work. Students may use these devices and/or others including style-specific devices in their work. This list is provided as a guide to the range of devices that students might use. The list can also be used as the basis for research into style-specific devices that are variations of these generic devices. Note that the elements of movement can also be used as compositional devices.

• MOTIF – an action which helps communicate the artistic intention and is therefore repeated or developed through variations in time, space and/or energy. For example, the swan-wing gesture in Swan Lake that is repeated with variations of speed and accent – slowly and with fluent undulations to indicate flight, quickly and in smaller dimension, with irregular vibratory and percussive accents, to indicate frailty.
• AUGMENTATION – making larger in size or extent. For example, adding outstretched arms, small kick then large leg circle. 
• ABSTRACTION – focusing on pure movement or design rather than plot emotion or character. Or altering the realistic appearance while maintaining the essence of the topic. For example, reality=normal walk, abstracted=bent on knees, on toes. (You can still see what it was but it is altered.)
• REPETITION – repeating one or more components of a composition (movements/phrases) so that they appear again and again for effect and help set the theme in the viewer’s mind.
• ACCUMULATION – gathering and collecting; starting with a single action and adding on another action while keeping the original action. This is done successively, for example: Step; Step, kick; Step, kick, turn; Step kick, turn, jump.
• INVERSION – taking an action or phrase and inverting it (flipping it upside-down) to flip it on its axis, either upside-down or laterally. For example, doing a leg action with the arms, physically turning the movement upside-down, or executing a phrase or action from the right to the left side of the body.
• DISTORTION – twisting out of shape, deforming; taking a movement or a whole phrase and changing it from its original format. This might include using different movement qualities.

Form

When viewing dance works for which choreographers have written no form, students and teachers should make their own judgements about plausible forms.

Cohesive composition

Unit 4, Area of Study 2, Outcome 2 requires students to choreograph, rehearse, perform and analyse the realisation of a solo work. This work must be a cohesive composition; that is, a dance that explores ideas to communicate an intention. The dance design of a cohesive composition is structured across a beginning, a development/s and a resolution/s. It can be structured using forms such as narrative (ABC), binary (AB), ternary (ABA), rondo (ABACA), theme and variations (A A¹, A², A³), episodic (an ordering of sections such as ABACCDA or AA¹BC) or free-form (a dance that is designed but where each section is different).

Examples of structures

Types of contrast

Action and Reaction is a time-based manipulation that is evident when one or more dancers start to move and another dancer(s) subsequently reacts by moving. Dancers can be in contact or non-contact. For VCE Dance, action and reaction assumes that the dancers’ movements overlap in time.

Action and reaction in contact involves partnering, duo or pas de deux, trio or group lifts, and exists when there is contact between dancers, or knock-on effects in groups of dancers. Dancers in a group often continue to move at the same time but respond to physical contact, with differing choreography to each other.

Call and response is a time-based manipulation that uses sequential start times: a group dances and then stops moving while another group begins to move with a different movement vocabulary. Dancers are in non-contact formations.

Dance works for analysis

For Unit 1, where possible, teachers should select works from a range of styles. By studying a range of works or excerpts, students will develop knowledge of a broad range of choreographic practice and see examples of works that use a personal movement vocabulary drawing on but not limited by specific dance styles or techniques. Examples of this type of movement vocabulary can be found in many contemporary works, particularly those of Australian choreographers.

In Unit 2, students are introduced to the elements of movement – time, space and energy – and ways in which choreographers manipulate these elements to communicate an expressive intention. For Unit 2, Outcome 1, students should study works from a range of choreographers, traditions and/or styles. For example, teachers could select:

• a group of works or excerpts that explore a similar theme
• works that show development of choreographic and performance practice within a particular tradition or style
• works by a range of choreographers that are performed by a single dance company
• works in a range of styles that were originally created for film, music theatre or performance art
• works that introduce choreographers relevant to Units 3 and 4
• works being viewed by Unit 3 students in a combined Unit 1 and Unit 3 class.

Genre and/or style-specific language

While students need to be able to identify the movement vocabulary used in each of the movement categories, some steps may not be identified as being a particular style or genre. In these cases, students can use any description that gives a sense of what is happening in the phrase. Words that can be used to describe movements in the different movement categories include:

• TAP: shuffle, brush, slap, wing, time step, dig, heel dig, drawback, toe stand.
• JAZZ: drop, chasse, ball change, isolation, axel turn, jazz split, fan kick, stag leap, layout.
• BALLET: releve, pique turn, plie, glissard, pas de bouree, grande jete entournon, fouette, pirouette, arabesque, sissonne.
• CONTEMPORARY: contraction, release, lunge, triplet, spine roll, attitude, cambre.
• BALLROOM: heel pull, pivot, three step, volta, fleckle, boda fogo, feather step, natural turn, reverse turn.

Using Information and Communications Technology (ICT)

Ways in which technologies can be used in VCE Dance include: researching, recording and documenting performance and written work, seeking feedback, designing a dance, or collaborating with others during and outside of timetabled classes or scheduled rehearsals.

When filming dance or analysing videotaped works, students should consider the use of effects to create illusion within the work; for example, camera viewpoint, camera angles and their impact on the dancer/s’ use of space, editing processes to enhance or impede various aspects of the dance, and the effect of film on performance quality or dance dynamic.

ICT can be used throughout Units 1 to 4 in a variety of ways that include:

• using online individual or group blogs to document the dance-making process
• uploading source material to assist in developing an intention or a personal movement vocabulary
• using a search engine to research ideas for an intention; exploring the movement vocabulary of a dance tradition or style, or of a particular choreographer or dance company
• using an in-built computer camera to record and play back dance-making processes and/or rehearsals for critical feedback – from self, peer or critical friend
• embedding a YouTube video in a blog relating to the content, theme or stimulus of an intention
• using a mobile phone to take photographs or videos of dance-making or in-class rehearsals, and using them for evaluation and discussion
• locating copyright-free sound effects and audio clips online to accompany a choreographed solo or group work, or sourcing images to project during a performance as a production element
• using dance-notation software to document ideas and movement phrases
• uploading a video of an out-of-class rehearsal for viewing on a blog or website
• using editing software to mix sound tracks.

Teachers should ensure that students are aware of copyright requirements for accessing and attributing source material used in dance-making and performances. Teachers should also ensure that students are informed about appropriate online behaviour.