This week in Dance, Middle School took inspiration from various pieces of Cave Art to create sequences and stills. To begin with, they used travel, height, shape, speed and movements to represent painting, hunting, being hunted…

After carefully listening to a piece of music, we discussed a narrative which could be represented alongside the music: busy painting before reaching for a weapon and venturing out the cave to hunt for prey.

To begin with, Middle School needed to pretend they were in a bubble so their movements were confined to one area. We enjoyed including an exaggerated movement to represent blowing paint onto our hands to create handprints in our cave just like the technique used by the Stone Age painters. 
 

We used stillness and expression to show we could hear something outside our cave so we grabbed our weapons.

Using slow pace, long outstretched legs and toes when walking, varied heights to represent being stealth and creating tall, slender and compact body shapes we explored around our cave. 
 

Responding to the music, we made our aim, fired and held our pose for dramatic effect as the music faded.


To end our session, we then became the hunted animal. Then imagined sinking into the wall and becoming part of a painted mural on the cave walls. 
 

Bringing them to present day, I wandered through the caves and the children breathed in and out slowly trying to communicate their story with me from within the walls. I told them I could sense they had once been free before being in danger…and now…trapped eternally in the cave wall.
 

Absolutely incredible, Middle School!

 

Week 5 PE in M.School