The Arts · Grade 9

Active learning ideas

Dance History: Modern and Contemporary

Active learning turns abstract historical shifts into something students can feel and discuss. When students physically embody Duncan’s flowing arms or Graham’s contractions, they grasp the philosophical break from ballet as lived experience, not just dates on a page.

• Ontario Curriculum Expectations
• DA:Cn10.1.HSII
• DA:Re7.2.HSII

• 45–75 min
• Pairs → Whole Class
• 3 activities

Activity 01

• Timeline Challenge
• 60 min · Small Groups

Choreographic Style Exploration: Graham vs. Cunningham

Students research Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham, identifying key movement qualities and choreographic principles. They then attempt to create short movement phrases embodying each style, focusing on contraction/release for Graham and chance procedures for Cunningham.

How did modern dance challenge the conventions of classical ballet?

Facilitation Tip

During the Timeline Walk, place a large image of Isadora Duncan next to a blank space and have students physically stand where they think her work sits in dance history, prompting spatial reasoning before discussion.

• Remember
• Understand
• Analyze
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills

Activity 02

• Timeline Challenge
• 75 min · Small Groups

Timeline of Innovation: Modern Dance Milestones

In small groups, students research specific innovations or influential choreographers in modern dance (e.g., Isadora Duncan's free movement, Doris Humphrey's fall and recovery). They create a visual timeline, presenting their findings and explaining the significance of each contribution.

Differentiate between the choreographic styles of Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham.

Facilitation Tip

For Embody Styles, start Cunningham’s improvisation with a single focus point on the floor to ground students before layering chance procedures and multi-focus tasks.

• Remember
• Understand
• Analyze
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills

Activity 03

• Timeline Challenge
• 45 min · Whole Class

Contemporary Dance Trend Forecasting

Students analyze short video clips of diverse contemporary dance works, discussing current social trends (e.g., technology, globalization, identity politics). They then brainstorm and present predictions for how these trends might influence future choreographic creations.

Predict how current social trends might influence the future direction of contemporary dance.

Facilitation Tip

In the Future Dance Debate, assign roles like 'AI choreographer' and 'human storyteller' to push students past vague predictions into concrete scenarios.

• Remember
• Understand
• Analyze
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills

A few notes on teaching this unit

Teach this topic by pairing historical context with movement to make invisible shifts visible. Avoid lecturing about styles; instead, let students discover distinctions through contrast tasks like mirroring Graham’s contractions versus Cunningham’s chance phrases. Research shows kinesthetic anchors help students retain abstract concepts, so anchor every lecture snippet with a related movement phrase or image.

Students will articulate how modern and contemporary dance differ from ballet and each other, both in writing and movement. They will debate trends, journal personal reactions, and compare choreographic philosophies through structured tasks that reveal contrasts kinesthetically and intellectually.

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Watch Out for These Misconceptions

• During the Embody Styles activity, watch for students who describe modern dance as 'messy ballet' without recognizing Duncan’s philosophical rejection of corsets and pointe shoes.

  During Embody Styles, pause the Graham and Cunningham improvisations to ask students to describe what their feet, torso, and arms are doing without using ballet terms like 'port de bras' or 'plié'. Highlight how Duncan’s barefoot, undulating spine contrasts with ballet’s upright alignment.

• During the Future Dance Debate, watch for claims that contemporary dance is just a repeat of modern dance with new music.

  During the Future Dance Debate, show a 30-second clip of a contemporary work that integrates VR or AI before discussion. Ask students to identify how technology changes the choreographic process, not just the product, prompting them to move beyond superficial comparisons.

• During the Timeline Walk, watch for students who group Graham and Cunningham together as 'modern dancers' with no distinction.

  During the Timeline Walk, place Graham’s photo next to a photo of a contraction and Cunningham’s photo next to an image of chance procedures like rolling dice. Ask students to physically demonstrate what each image suggests about the dancer’s approach before placing them on the timeline.

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Methods used in this brief

• Timeline Challenge