dances made to be viewed in the dark by young people
a performance + education workshop for K-8 public school classrooms
As part of Control Group's project series dances made to be viewed in the dark (2015–2019), we're creating a program specifically for in-school presentations with elementary and middle school audiences.
Darkness Studies shares our multi-year exploration into the experience and contents of darkness in an education, artistically exciting 45-minute program by 2 dancers and a musician. Centered around a short performance made specially for young audiences, the workshop will introduce students to fundamental concepts in physics, biology, and health. We’ll set up theatrical lighting instruments used in the performance to demonstrate how light travels, how electricity can control intensity, and how the color spectrum works. We’ll talk about the biology of the eye, demonstrating focus, adjustment to night vision, and how the senses work together to help us understand our surroundings.
The workshop will involve experiencing darkness and silence and discussing what we’re seeing and hearing. We’ll explain why humans sleep better at night, share simple study aid tactics for meditative calming and centering, and discuss our associations with darkness – fears, nightmares, the unknown, and how, like in the dance performance, we can understand much more than we thought we could if we stop and unfurl our senses.
Rounding out this rare opportunity to see professional dance, we’ll also offer a movement experience connected to images and ideas in the performance. We’ll distribute curriculum information to classroom teachers ahead of each event, and supply handouts that reinforce the students’ learning process and gather valuable feedback for our future use.
For more information or to schedule a program at your school, contact Lindsay Pierce at firstname.lastname@example.org.
Intrigued? Here are some video clips of previous dances made to be viewed in the dark series works:
2016: ALONE WITH TODD – the story of a soldier's journey home from Iraq and back from an abyss.
2015: CAVE / dances made to be viewed in the dark – a conjuring of darkness, and the wonder, fear, and magic that it brings with it.