Digital-dance​

©Ana Sánchez Colberg, all rights, intellectual property of teaching method and lesson plan. No part can be used without permission of the author

This week marked the beginning of the project as such, working directly with the participants. Each session will begin with a warmup of around 20 minutes and from that, we will proceed to the tasks of the day. Each session is designed to be multimodal and multimedial from the outset, alternating movement tasks with introduction to various digital tools, including setting digital tasks that involves the participants in creative movement. The aim for this week is to enable them to use the notepad, create simple animations and experiment with photo and film capture of their movement and capture favourite locations within the school.

Session 1, Monday, July 8

On our first session on Monday, I started by saying hello, presenting the project, and framing the tasks for the day. Coincidentally, the topic of the summer camp is 'Welcome to the Modern Age". I decided to use that to start a conversation with them and introduce the work with digital platforms. I asked them, "what is modern age", one participant immediately responded 'now'! I continued, what makes 'now" modern? A quick succession of responses: television, phones, cars, rockets, computers...I then asked so what is 'not modern', one of the participants offered the thought "what is ancient"! We then moved on to a lively conversation exploring the question how do we go from 'ancient to modern'? Someone suggested "by changing things". I proposed, when we try new things to find new ones we are doing 'experiments'. What are experiments for? Most agreed "to find new things". I shared with them that this week we will be doing an experiment in three parts. The first part (session 1 Monday) will focus on what we already know- we will draw a character. Whatever they want. In the second stage will begin to explore the 'new' (session 2 Wednesday) the character will be made into a film, "like cartoons" one of them responded. The third stage of the experiments (session 3 Friday) will be totally new, they will act and direct in their own films!

We moved on to make our drawings. Most participants were able to complete the task without help. A few needed simple prompts to help them focus and stay on the task ('let’s do the head', 'do you want to add arms?', what color do you want to use?'). A significant aspect emerged, all (but one who drew his favourite cartoon) chose to do a self-portrait, although I never suggested 'draw yourself'. In evaluating the drawings, one could identify a correlation between their drawings and aspects of proprioception. For example the relational size of the body parts of one participant who is on wheelchair suggested her strong focus on her face and head, and a proportionally lesser focus on limbs. One could hypothesise that these drawings are already a first step towards illustrating and therefore externalising the perception of their bodies and self. The session ended with all participants learning how to 'open' the e-notebook, find the photo app and take a picture of their drawing. Most were able to do this with minimal support, just showing them where the buttons are. Some needed help with steadying the notepad and pressing the shutter, but many of us do too!

Session 2, Wednesday July 10

We always start with our warmup! This session focussed on creating the short animations of their drawings. We started by talking about Session 1, we revised the vocabulary learned (experiments, stages, animation), before proceeding to the task of the day. In the planning time, I had discovered Animated Drawing a Meta AI research (sketch.metademolab), still at Beta stage that turns simple drawings into animations. Participants took their notepads and waited for instructions. Three participants were able to find the site themselves. The others required that the facilitating team accessed the site for them. The three participants that could navigate the web were able to upload photo, test various animations and save them in the notepad. Most needed help with the uploading and downloading. However, with the help of facilitators they chose from the various animation options independently. By the end of the session each participant had a series of short, animated moments in which their character executed various movements (dance, walk, jump, silly, boxing) from the menu provided in the application. It will be my job to edit them into a single strip for future work.

Session 3, Friday July 12

After the warmup I set the task for the day, reminding them that this was the third and final step of this week’s experiments. In this session we will learn to film each other’s movement, so they are the characters of the film! I introduced to them three basic perspectives: landscape/ long shot, medium shot and close-up. We addressed each perspective individually. I would say that 30% were able to do the shooting on their own, with the other 70% needing some assistance, mostly with focusing and stability of the equipment. After all participants had danced and captured, I organized the final task of the day. We would take 30 minutes to walk around the school to film our favourite place(s). The group was divided into teams of 1-2 with one facilitator.

This exercise was a window into how they perceive and how they feel about the site were some have spent years in residence. It was quite moving to see how the space around them has affective value.

The camera allowed them to capture and give voice to this otherwise silent aspect of their lives in the school.