Dance Elements and Music

Start with dance elements

Dance Elements and Music is a section of the Dance Styles and Forms unit in Performing arts (theatre, dance). Its resources offer different ways to study movement and music, from short flashcard prompts to maps that organize ideas visually.

Start with Centre Stage Final Performance for an overview of time, energy, space, relationships and body. Its notes on time include rhythm, duration and tempo. Then open Space to look more closely at pathways, levels, proximity and body shape. Comparing the maps can help you see how a broad element breaks into more specific choices.

Connect positions, movement and music

Fundamentals Dance Positions uses task cards to describe arm positions. Study a card, then try to recall the position before looking at its description again. Components of Dance adds prompts about movement, patterns and accompaniment.

Next, use Music and Dance Relationships to explore ideas such as call and response, direct correlation and music visualization. You can compare these terms with the ideas about time and rhythm in Centre Stage Final Performance. The Dance mind map also brings together movement, music, expression and communication.

Use the resources together

Stories Through Dance brings elements such as energy, time, space, action and body together with ideas about subject matter, audience and purpose. It offers another way to connect the elements you have seen in the other maps.

After studying a map and the related flashcards, try the page's quiz as a practice activity. Then return to the resources to look again at any terms you want to understand more clearly. Pick a map or flashcard deck to get started.