Emotional Interpretation of Themes from "The Nutcracker Suite"
Grade
K-2
3-5
6-8
9-12
Construct/Component
Social Cognition
Subject
Area
Music
Objectives
Students will figuratively interpret emotional inferences of the music from "The Nutcracker Suite" through dance movement gestures. This lesson will help students in the communication and interpretation of feelings, self-marketing and collaboration (Verbal Pragmatics & Social Behaviors).
Estimated Time Needed
Mini Lesson is 1 Thirty Minute Class
Teacher
Preparation
Recognize the four measure "A" and "B" themes to the March.
Materials
Sheet music and/or recorded music from The Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky.
Lesson Procedure
First, as a warm-up, students move freely to the steady beat of the piece "March." There are two constraints: quietly, and without touching anyone or anything else.
Second, introduce the musical form A-B. As the melodic theme for "A" is played (first 4 measures) students close their eyes and imagine a picture or emotion. One picture and one emotion are offered to describe that theme. Often students will offer the word "march" as either the picture or emotion. They are then encouraged to expand that original idea by suggesting "marching where," "who's marching," or "what does that feel like when you see this marching?" This exercise is repeated with the four measures of the "B" theme.
Before students begin experimenting with movement a small lecture is given to define literal and figurative gestures. A gesture is a single movement, not a series of different movements. A literal gesture is one that obviously describes the picture or emotion (e.g. bird flapping its wings, or rubbing fists over one's eyes for sadness). A figurative or interpretive gesture is often a more abstract metaphor (e.g. bird: first one hand slowly raises up to 60 degrees then the other; sadness: both hands pretend to hold something at chest level then they both gently drop towards the floor).
Students experiment with a dance gesture to fit the "A" theme's picture and emotion. Several students are encouraged to offer their gesture and those gestures are written on the board. Students then vote on which gesture should be emblematic and used by the whole class. A caveat is given that this vote does not depict the "best" gesture, simply the one that happens to display the chosen emotion at this particular time…that interpretation could be different tomorrow. For the "B" section the students choose a different dance gesture to express that theme and the process is repeated.
Finally, the music is played and every time the "A" and "B" themes are played the appropriate gestures are danced.
Debrief (checking for understanding)
I was very happy with the process of this lesson. All the students participated in discussions and activities with great enthusiasm. There were many times when students leaned into discomfort by both sharing their images, movements and feelings, and then again by struggling with disappointment when their gesture or idea was not used by the group. It really helped to set up the discussions by encouraging students not to celebrate when their idea was chosen, and likewise to not bemoan when their's was not chosen. I kept a fast pace in the lessons so that the students didn't have much time to intellectualize or dwell on the voting procedure. Instead we were up and moving from one activity to the next.
Extension/Going Further
This lesson was expanded further by having four different classes prepare for a winter concert. Each class was given a different piece from the suite. The individual classes repeated the above process for their given dance. In this deeper exercise students were encouraged to define pictures, emotions and gestures that would be "appealing to others" because these were to be performed in front of an audience. The exercise was also expanded by having them assign a color for each of their formal sections and then wearing those two colors as a costume for the performance. One further extension came from adding other instrument colors to the performance of the music. I had each of four classes choose a separate woodwind instrument that would play the melody.
Comments/Instructor's Note
This lesson worked extremely well in helping students to recognize and then verbalize abstract emotions and imagery. A powerful ally in this process was an interdisciplinary project that the first grade music, art and drama teachers agreed on at the beginning of the year. We used the unifying theme of "character" and have drawn our specific subject area concepts from that theme. For instance, the "A" section of the "Arabian Dance" was characterized emotionally as "dynamic/bittersweet," movement wise as "toe tap with arching arms," color wise as "red/black," and instrument wise as "the clarinet." Because I was coordinating four classes, each with its own set of characteristics, I would sometimes forget (or even feign forgetfulness) the class specifics, but the students always knew the myriad distinctions that they had defined. There was a great sense of student ownership and satisfaction when the dances were performed at the winter concert.
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