Mrs. Golesh's Class Wednesday Jan. 9th, 2013

The fourth day I visited Mrs. Golesh's class we talked about the castles that were built in the Middle ages and their construction. To start the class we, again, warmed up with the brain dance. This time Mrs. Golesh led them in the brain dance. She did very good incorporating some crossovers to keep the brain dance interesting. I have noticed that starting every class with the brain dance seems to be a nice opportunity for students to come to class knowing what it will start with. They seem to enjoy being able to remember what order the brain dance goes in and have fun changing it up sometimes.

 I taught the students two dances that were done in castles in the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance periods. The first dance was called the Pavane. The Pavane was always the first dance done at any dancing parties held in castles. The dance following the Pavane was called the Gallard. The Gallard was a more lively, quick, jumping dance. As I taught both of these classes we talked about the music that was played live at the dances by musicians who sat up on a balcony over the dance. We practiced the dances to the actual music that would have been played at these dances. We also talked about the different clothing and costumes that would have been worn at these dances. We talked about how the clothes were extremely heavy so they probably would not have jumped very high and they would have needed to be very graceful in their dancing. The students were allowed to dance in boy-boy, girl-girl, or boy-girl partnerships so they were more comfortable, but I did explain that traditionally the dances would have always been done boy-girl.

Overall the lesson seemed to go really well. The students were very receptive to being taught a dance that really came from the time period they were studying. I could tell that the students were a little uncomfortable with some of the creative portions of the classes that we had been working on, but they did seem much more comfortable learning the pre-set movement. The students also seemed to enjoy getting to know more about the social culture of the time period they were learning about. In the future  it would be nice to have access to even more pictures, videos, and possibly even costume pieces for the students to see. I think this was one of the most enjoyable and successful classes we have had so far.