Life through Dance

The Hawk Conservancy Trust is famous for its breathtaking, world-class flying demonstrations.

These often incorporate emotive pieces of music, playing while the birds show off their incredible flying techniques for audiences.

Sometimes it really is enough to just sit and watch but we’d like to give pupils the opportunity to choreograph a dance that tells a story about the birds, using music famously played during our flying demonstrations.

Choosing from four pieces of music, teachers will pick one they would like the pupils to use for their dance. The aim will be to interpret the story of one of the many big journeys in a bird’s life.

These journeys can be:

• Hatching to fledging
• Learning to fly
• The great migration
• Survival (choosing its habitat and creating a territory)
• Survival against all odds (conservation threats)

Before the school visits the Hawk Conservancy Trust, our Education Officer will visit pupils on a linked outreach visit to deliver the music and give a presentation about the chosen journey that pupils will be interpreting for their dance.

During the school visit to the Trust later in the term, pupils will get the chance to present their dance in front of a live audience! While the music plays through our sound system, pupils will use one of our large flying arenas as the stage and perform in front of the Trust’s visitors as a prelude to one of our flying demonstrations.

Key subject:

Dance and PE

Subject links to:

English, Drama, Art

Adaptable for:

Key Stage 2 – Key Stage 4

Objectives:

• Create, rehearse and perform a dance as a group which tells a story about part of a bird’s life.
• Opportunity to improvise and devise a story to follow.
• Create roles and respond to each other’s ideas about the choreography of the dance.
• Working together as a team.

Curriculum links:

• Perform dances using a range of movement patterns.

Running time:

• Pre-visit outreach visit – 45 minutes
• Rehearsal on day of performance – 30 minutes

(times adjustable)

Links to outreach visit topics:

Habitats and Adaptations, Vulture or British Raptor Conservation, Life in Words

If you are interested in finding out more or booking one of our on-site school workshops, please get in touch using the below form.