Visual & Performing Arts · 9th Grade · Movement and Meaning: Dance and Choreography · Weeks 10-18

Dance as Storytelling and Expression

Examining how choreographers use movement to convey narratives, emotions, and abstract ideas without words.

• Common Core State Standards
• NCAS: Creating DA.Cr1.1.HSProf
• NCAS: Performing DA.Pr4.1.HSProf

About This Topic

Dance has always been a vehicle for human communication, capable of conveying emotions, characters, and narrative arcs without a single word. This topic examines how choreographers make deliberate structural choices to guide an audience's interpretation of a piece. Students study how the use of unison communicates shared experience, how canon creates a ripple effect of time, how contrast between performers or sections generates tension, and how spatial relationships establish power dynamics or emotional connections between characters.

NCAS Creating DA.Cr1.1.HSProf and Performing DA.Pr4.1.HSProf both require students to engage with the expressive and communicative dimensions of dance, not just its technical execution. Understanding that movement choices carry meaning transforms students from movers into artists who can justify every decision in their work with reference to intentional communication.

Active learning is central to this topic because storytelling through movement must be tested against a real audience. Students cannot know whether their expressive choices are landing without performing for peers and receiving structured feedback. Short choreographic tasks followed by viewer response protocols give students the information they need to refine their intentions, building exactly the craft awareness NCAS standards require at the high school proficiency level.

Key Questions

1. How can a dancer use movement to communicate a specific emotion or character trait?
2. Analyze how different choreographic choices (e.g., unison, canon, contrast) contribute to a narrative.
3. Construct a short dance phrase that expresses a personal experience or abstract concept.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze how specific movement choices (e.g., gesture, posture, speed) communicate a particular emotion or character trait in a dance excerpt.
• Compare and contrast the narrative impact of different choreographic structures, such as unison versus canon, in conveying a story.
• Design and demonstrate a short dance phrase that effectively expresses a personal experience or abstract concept to an audience.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of a peer's dance phrase in communicating its intended meaning, providing specific feedback on movement choices.

Before You Start

Elements of Dance: Space, Time, Energy

Why: Students need a foundational understanding of how to manipulate space, time, and energy to begin exploring how these elements create meaning.

Basic Movement Vocabulary and Technique

Why: Students require a working knowledge of fundamental movement skills to effectively translate ideas into physical expression.

Key Vocabulary

Kinesthetic Empathy	The ability to understand and share the feelings of another person through observing their physical movements and expressions.
Choreographic Device	A specific technique or tool used by a choreographer to structure movement and convey meaning, such as canon, unison, or contrast.
Narrative Arc	The progression of a story in dance, typically including a beginning, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution, conveyed through movement.
Abstract Concept	An idea or notion that is not concrete or tangible, such as freedom, chaos, or joy, which can be explored and expressed through movement.
Spatial Design	The intentional use of stage space, including levels, pathways, and proximity between dancers, to enhance meaning and visual interest.

Watch Out for These Misconceptions

Common Misconception

A dance can only tell a story if the movements literally mime the actions being described.

What to Teach Instead

Literal pantomime is one option, but abstract movement can communicate just as powerfully, often more so, because it allows audiences to project their own specific experiences onto the work. Showing students a piece like Paul Taylor's 'Mercuric Tidings' alongside a more narrative work demonstrates how abstraction can carry emotional weight without pictorial representation.

Common Misconception

If the audience doesn't understand exactly what a dance means, the choreographer has failed.

What to Teach Instead

Ambiguity is a valid and often intentional artistic strategy. Many of the most powerful dances invite multiple readings. The more important questions are: Does the audience feel something? Are they engaged? Are the movement choices consistent enough to create a sense of intentionality? Peer feedback protocols help students learn to distinguish productive ambiguity from unclear communication.

Common Misconception

Emotion in performance is spontaneous and cannot be planned or rehearsed.

What to Teach Instead

Professional dancers and choreographers plan the emotional architecture of a piece very carefully: which qualities of movement communicate which states, where in the body tension lives, how timing affects intensity. The emotion translation lab activity demonstrates that specific, reproducible movement qualities consistently produce specific perceptions in viewers, showing that expressive performance is a craft, not just a feeling.

Active Learning Ideas

Emotion Translation Lab

Give each student a written emotion or scenario card (grief, joyful reunion, quiet determination). Without showing the card, students have five minutes to develop a 15-second movement phrase expressing it. Partners watch and write down what emotion they perceive, then share. Debrief focuses on which movement qualities (tempo, spatial level, use of breath) communicated most clearly.

30 min·Pairs

Choreographic Device Workshop: Unison and Canon

Teach a simple eight-count phrase to the whole class. First, have all students perform it in unison and discuss the emotional effect. Then create a simple four-beat canon between two halves of the class. Ask students what changes about the meaning when the same phrase is structured differently, then show a professional example of each device.

40 min·Whole Class

Think-Pair-Share: Narrative Viewing

Show a clip from a narrative dance work, such as a section from Alvin Ailey's 'Revelations' or a contemporary story ballet excerpt. Students independently sketch or write the story they perceive, then compare with a partner whose interpretation may differ. The debrief explores how the choreographic choices led to shared and divergent readings.

25 min·Pairs

Small Group Study: Personal Experience Phrase

Students create a 30-second phrase based on a personal experience or abstract concept they choose, using at least two choreographic devices from a provided list (unison, contrast, accumulation, spatial relationship). Small groups watch each piece and give structured feedback using sentence starters: 'I perceived...', 'The moment when X made me think...' Students revise based on feedback.

55 min·Small Groups

Real-World Connections

• Professional dance companies like Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater create works that tell stories of the African American experience, using specific movement vocabularies and choreographic structures to convey historical narratives and emotional depth.
• Film and theater directors often collaborate with choreographers to develop movement sequences that reveal character, advance the plot, or establish mood, such as the fight choreography in a historical drama or the ensemble numbers in a musical.

Assessment Ideas

Peer Assessment

Students perform their short dance phrases for a small group. After each performance, peers use a provided rubric to assess: 1. Did the movement clearly communicate an emotion or idea? 2. Which specific movement choices were most effective in conveying the message? 3. What is one suggestion for enhancing the clarity of the expression?

Exit Ticket

Students watch a 1-2 minute video clip of a professional dance piece. On their exit ticket, they must: 1. Identify one emotion or idea the choreographer attempted to convey. 2. Describe two specific movement choices that supported this communication.

Quick Check

Teacher poses a specific choreographic challenge: 'Create a 4-count phrase that shows a feeling of surprise.' Students quickly demonstrate their phrase. Teacher observes and provides immediate, brief verbal feedback on the clarity of the expression.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do dancers express emotions without words?

Dancers use qualities of movement including speed, weight, spatial level, directionality, and use of breath to communicate emotional states. A slow, low-to-the-ground movement using heavy weight reads differently than the same spatial pathway performed quickly and lightly. Choreographers select and combine these qualities deliberately to guide how an audience perceives the emotional content of a piece.

What is the difference between unison and canon in dance?

Unison means all performers execute the same movement at exactly the same time, creating a sense of shared experience, community, or overwhelming force. Canon staggers the same phrase across performers with a time delay, creating a wave-like effect that suggests cause and effect, ripple, or the passing of time. Both are tools for creating specific meaning through how bodies relate to each other in time.

How does active learning help students develop as storytellers through dance?

Storytelling through movement requires testing your intentions against a real audience and revising based on what they actually perceived. Active learning structures like the emotion translation lab and structured peer feedback give students that essential loop of intention, performance, reception, and revision. Without this feedback cycle, students cannot develop the craft awareness needed to make intentional communicative choices as performers and choreographers.

Can a dance tell a story without a beginning, middle, and end?

Dance can organize itself in many ways beyond linear narrative. A piece might explore a single emotion from multiple angles, build in intensity without resolving, or juxtapose contrasting states without explicit connection. What matters is that the structural choices create a meaningful experience for the audience. Many contemporary works are organized thematically or spatially rather than narratively.