The People Among Us Project

Objective of the project: This project was designed in order to help students to understand the
importance of accepting others, despite their apparent differences. The main objective is to help
students to look beneath the surface when interacting with others. As students study the people that
they interact with on a daily basis, they will learn to understand and appreciate how life events can
shape a person.
Choreographic Process:
Building a foundation: Before jumping into choreographing the dance itself, students were given
creative and artistic tools that could later be used in expression. Dancers studied different movement
qualities and learned how to use them to express different emotions. After building this foundation they
were ready to apply it to this specific project.
Three important questions: Throughout this project students will be working to understand the answer
to three questions: What makes people unique and different from one another? How can I look beyond
the surface to better understand someone else? How can our differences unite us?
1. What makes people unique and different from one another? : In order to answer this question,
students will first look inwardly and analyze themselves. Once they are able to understand what
makes them unique, they will be able to look outwardly to see similar unique attributes in
others. Each student will write an I am statement (I am strong; I am thoughtful; I am a
dreamer; etc.) that they feel best encompasses their personality and life experiences. They will
also write out a statement describing a memory or attribute of their personality that has helped
shape them. Students will then use the tools they learned at the beginning of the semester to
transform their statement into movement. Each student will create a short sequence of
movement that represents the attribute that makes them unique.
2. How can I look beyond the surface to better understand someone else?: Now ready to focus on
others, students will begin this next choreographic process by selecting someone that they want
to learn more about and interviewing them. In a discussion at the beginning of the semester the
students decided that one of the best ways to understand a person is to look at their life
experiences. For this reason they developed one question to ask their interviewees: What is
one event in your life that has had a great impact on who you are today? The students will take
these recorded memories and identify the setting and emotion of these stories and convert
them into movement in groups of two and three.
3. How can our differences unite us? : The students will learn the answer to this question by
working together with an older group of dancers. As the students work with other dancers that
they have never before met, it is the hope that new similarities between them will be found and
appreciated. Students will collaborate with high school aged dancers from the local dance studio
Carolina Dance Center. Both groups of dancers will unite together to choreograph a piece that
demonstrates how the things that make us unique can bring us together.
Layout of the Dance:
This dance will be a suite of three short dances- one dance to address each question:
Dance 1: A compilation of the students movement solos expressing their I Am statements. A
voice over of the students saying their I Am statements will accompany the music and
movement.
Dance 2: Students choreography of their interviewees memory with the recorded voice of the
speaker in the background.
Dance 3: A combined and unified dance with Powell Elementary School dancers and Carolina
Dance Center dancers (most of the choreography and movement decisions will come from the
students, guided by their adult director).