Dances From Spain and Mexico

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As we explore our country's history there is a growing awareness of California's own unique heritage with traditions left to us by the first settlers from Spain and Mexico.  Through the medium of dance, music, brief storytelling, and beautiful authentic costuming the audience is involved in an educational experience that's lively and entertaining.

Flamenco Los Angeles offers classes in flamenco, classical Spanish, ballet and folklorico dancing, as well as school assembly programs, performances and arts education workshops.

Description of Arts Learning Plan: This seven weeks residency begins with a professional development workshop, initiating staff and educators into the history, concepts and styles of  flamenco dancing.   A pre-planning meeting with the participating teachers is then scheduled to establish a partnership and review the content of the lesson plans. A series of seven workshops follows, presenting a specific chosen dance, thus enhancing cultural awareness, encouraging creative expression, team work and leadership. Time is set aside after each class to assess the students learning process. The goal of each workshop is to reinforce partnership between the artist and the teacher in an integral manner, so that they may be able to acquire enough knowledge to pursue and reinforce what has been learned after the artist has left the site. Two assembly programs conclude the residency, where a selected group of students will present the dance they have learned. A 50 minutes dress rehearsal is scheduled prior to the assembly for the participating students.

Instructional: First a planning meeting is conducted with the teachers to establish the body of the upcoming instructional workshops. A video representing different styles of Spanish and Mexican dances is made available for the teachers and students who are not familiar with these dance forms. Through partnership between the artist and the teacher, a comprehensive series of seven instructional workshops for educating the students in the chosen dance, is designed.  These standard-based workshops will instill cultural and self awareness; encourage language development through the improvisational creative process of choreographing a dance.  Students will acquire knowledge in regards to posture and expression, learn Spanish dance vocabulary and work with different rhythmic patterns.

Performance/Demonstration: The California Heritage Program is a school assembly program that presents a wide variety of dances from Spain and Mexico. Through the medium of dance, music, brief storytelling and with beautiful authentic costuming, the children will have the opportunity to experience the influences that are brought to California by the first Spanish and Mexican settlers and be involved in an educational experience that is visual, lively and entertaining.

Professional Development: A 2 hour fully interactive workshop is designed to introduce staff and educators into the origin, styles and technique of Spanish Dance. Concepts and ideas of how to apply this knowledge into the classrooms are discussed and implemented.

Collaborative Planning Meetings: One 50-minute planning meeting with the teacher to establish the body of the lesson and review how teaching practices are modeled. Artist and teacher will discuss how the teacher may implement their own ideas and synthesize those with artist-modeled lessons to refine their ability to facilitate lessons in creative movement. Within the design and intention of the artist / teacher follow-up meetings the future lesson plans are developed and the partnership is reinforced. Through relationship building, their own educative process is enhanced.

Resources: Standard based lesson plans, post performance enrichment packet, music, live demonstration, videos, authentic artifacts such as fans, castanets, and shawls can be brought to the classroom.

Special Requirement: Auditorium or Large Classroom, VCR. For Assembly Program, attendance only limited to number of seats in your facility, Class size limited to 50 students.

Busses Required Per School: None

Total Cost per School: $3,700.00

These configurations may vary.