For Hindus, Diwali is one of the most important festivals of the year and is celebrated in families by performing traditional activities together in their homes. Diwali or Divali is a contraction of the Sanskrit word Deepavali, that means “row of lamps”. Small clay lamps filled with oil are lighted to signify the triumph of good over evil. These lamps remain lit through the night and houses are cleaned to welcome the goddess Lakshmi. Firecrackers are burst to drive away evil spirits. During Diwali, all the celebrants wear new clothes, and share sweets and snacks with family members and friends. Diwali.

In some regions of the Indian subcontinent, is considered to be the celebration of the marriage of Lakshmi with Lord Vishnu. In the eastern state of Bengal the festival is dedicated to the worship of Mother Kali, the dark goddess of strength. Lord Ganesha, the elephant-headed God, the symbol of auspiciousness and wisdom, is worshiped in most Hindu homes on this day. For Jains, Deepavali has an added significance to the event of Lord Mahavira attaining nirvana. Diwali also commemorates the return of Lord Rama along with Sita, his wife and Lakshman, his loyal brother, after a fourteen-year exile. In joyous celebration of the return of their king, the people lit up the kingdom with earthen diyas (oil lamps) and burst crackers.

Dance

Click here to download a pdf of Manju’s Diwali dance lesson.

To hear Manju’s pronunciation, click here.

To view a performance by the Berkshire-Hudson Valley chapter, click here.

The post Lesson: Diwali Dance first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

This past summer I was in Finland at JaSeSoi Ry’s International Music Village (Finnish Orff Association).  It was amazing and I loved my time both in Finland and making music with musicians and teachers from 14 countries.  I also fell a little in love with the Scandinavian lifestyle and their connection to the outdoors.  Did you know there are 188,000 lakes and more than 1,000,000 saunas in Finland?!

JaSeSoi Ry has put together an amazing resource online called “Nordic Sounds”.  There are songs, games, and dances from Norway, Denmark, Finland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Sweden!  Pronunciation videos, background info, teaching ideas and videos make this site exceptionally user friendly! Check it out here!

When I came back home, I began looking for more music and dances from this area of the world. Via Facebook, I came across a dance teacher in Portland, Oregon, who has been a tremendous help to me. Christie teaches Scandinavian dancing to children 5 years old and up to adults.  She has been incredibly generous and due to some technical problems with sharing music files, she even sent me 2 CD’s via snail mail!

Many of the dances are new to me, including the one I am sharing today. This is called the Nisse Polka, though Christie calls it the Nixie Polka and her students call it the Caterpillar Dance.  The Nisse is a Christmas figure – read more below! Many thanks to Christie (again) for her help in putting all of this together and for being so willing to share!  On to the dance!

Here is the dance performed by Christie’s kids at a Scandinavian celebration.

The post Nisse Polka first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

If you are dancing regularly with your students then it is a short and easy step to have an evening community dance with students and parents. I recommend starting out by having a dance for, say, only the fourth graders and their parents and siblings. Have the fourth graders take a parent or some other adult for their partners and do an hour of dances the fourth graders already know. You can do the same for the other age groups, and eventually alternate age-group community dances with whole school (all ages) community dances. If you do not have experienced dance musicians in your community, it is fine to have a community dance using recorded music. What a perfect way to spread the joy of the music in your classroom into greater school community. 

Someone asked me once about doing a waltz at the end of a community dance.  If you have the right combination of children and adults, it can be wonderful to end a community dance with the “Circle Waltz Mixer”.

A few years ago I discovered that the Circle Waltz Mixer (sometimes called the Family Waltz Mixer), a dance I had done only with adults, is a wonderful dance for children. I adapted it a bit (replacing the waltz at the end of the sequence of the original Family Waltz Mixer with a two hand turn) and tried it successfully with 5th graders, then 4th graders and 3rd graders. Here is an adapted version (replacing the two hand turn at the end of the sequence with a slow bow) of the dance that works great with 2nd graders and can sometimes work at a community dance. While the below description is specifically how to teach the Circle Waltz Mixer at a community dance, it is also a great way to teach the dance to, say, a 2nd grade class. Instead of adult and child partners, I recommend having “gent” and “lady” partners. The boys are the “rocks” and the girls are the “twirlers”.  Of course you can do the dance another time with girls being “rocks” and boys being “twirlers”, but I find that it is much easier for you and for the children to keep track of the “rock/twirler” roles if you do this as a “gent/lady” dance.

Here is how I teach a Circle Waltz Mixer in a community dance situation. The main difference between this and the version of “Circle Waltz Mixer” in “Sashay the Donut” and in the YouTube videos is #14, replacing the two hand turn with a slow bow. 

Note: In the Youtube videos we are using the cut from the “Sashay the Donut” CD for the Circle Waltz Mixer: “In Continental Waltz”.

Process

1) Have all children get adult partners, all adults get child partners (as much as possible).  At a minimum, make sure all younger children are with either and adult or an older (say, 4th grade or older) child.

2) Have them all promenade in a circle. Adult/older person promenade on the inside and say “I am a rock”. Child promenade on outside and say “I am a twirler”. 

3) Have them face the center so the “rock/adult” is on left and “twirler/child” is on right.

4) At this point I say “All the rocks do this” and I demonstrate putting my hands together up above my head (like you are going to dive upwards). Everyone can look around and make sure every other person is a rock.

5) Demonstrate how to twirl (I always teach this while dancing with them with a wireless headset microphone) with the dancer to your left (I am assuming you are a “rock”): both facing the center, the Rock takes the handy hand of the Twirler to the Rock’s left (Twirler’s right hand in Rock’s left hand) and gives the Twirler’s hand a light tug. The Twirler moves to their right while turning so that they end up facing the Rock. The Twirler and Rock change hands (Twirler’s left in Rock’s right) and the Twirler keeps turning and moving to their right, ending up on the Rock’s right.

6) Have everyone point to their own right and say “That is the direction the twirlers go”

7) Tell the “Rocks” to glue their feet to the floor (do not move their feet at all during the twirl). 

8) Have everyone practice one twirl.  If it doesn’t work perfectly, have everyone go back and practice again.

9) Add the forward and back between the twirl and practice a few twirls (Twirlers keep moving to the right past successive Rocks).

10) Demonstrate how to twirl someone into the partner-facing-partner-holding-two-hands position that you twirl into to prepare for the next figure.

11) Have everyone twirl into that position.

12) Have everyone drop hands and watch you and your partner demonstrate the “in, out, spin in, out, in, spin out” figure.

13) Have everyone practice that figure.

14) THIS IS THE KICKER: Instead of a two hand turn here, I demonstrate with my partner a verrrrrrry sllllooooow bow to partner followed by “Open like a book and face the center”. This slow-bow-open-like-a-book replaces the two hand turn (which can be disorienting and likely get some dancers on the wrong sides of their partners).

15) Have everyone practice the slow-bow-open like a book.

16) During the dance if you see a section of the circle get hopelessly confused it is OK, with the music still playing, to stop the dance, have all the “Rocks” put their hands up in the air, and then figure out where there are, say, two “Twirlers” next to each other and put one of them into the part of the circle where there are two Rocks next to each other.

I do the Circle Waltz Mixer at a family dance only if:

 * the acoustics are not too bad and the dancers are doing pretty well with the other dances

  * there are not too many really young children dancing

  * there are enough adults and older children to make a circle of partners where all the “Rocks” are adults or older children.

  * there is enough time to do the teaching and still have plenty of time for everyone to enjoy the dance.

At its best, you will reach a point where you are not calling, and everyone is dancing to the music. Voila! you are in dance heaven.

The post Teaching and Dancing the Circle Waltz Mixer first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

Download Marjie Van Gunten’s Leaf Children Lesson

The post Lesson: Leaf Children first appeared on Teaching With Orff.