How I Taught the Lesson

When I taught this lesson, I performed a classical Indian dance piece and acted out the story depicted in the dance beforehand so that they could understand the dance movements.  I printed out sheets with the basic story line written in bullets (click here to download a copy) and asked them to identify each bullet of the story line as I acted it out.  I then performed the entire dance piece (about 9 minutes in length, but the story only lasted one minute) and answered any questions they had.

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Alternate Options

If You Are a Dancer

This lesson will probably require significant modification to adapt to your musical abilities.  If you are a dancer, I suggest that you do a similar lesson where you write out a story line, then demonstrate the moves without the music, pausing after each one so that the audience can identify the part of the story you are depicting.  An example of the story line in bullet form is the link to the file above.

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If You Are Not a Dancer but Have a Projector

If you are not a dancer, there are a couple of options.  One option (especially if there is a screen and projector connected to a computer) is to play an excerpt of a ballet the seniors would know.  The Nutcracker is an example.  Write out the story of a particular portion in bullet points.  Ask the audience to explain how they might depict a particular action in dance.  Then play the entire excerpt on YouTube, pausing it frequently to ask them what part of the dance has just been acted out.

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If You Are Not a Dancer and Have No Projector

Alternatively, if there is no projector, you can choose a popular 1950s musical and play a song from the musical that has a “storyline” from YouTube.  One example is the opening song of The Sound of Music (although you may wish to choose something else, especially since The Sound of Music comes up later in the curriculum) – you could talk about how Maria feels free when she is in the hills, singing, and that is her solace when she is lonely at the convent.  Print out sheets with the lyrics (in big print so that they can see what they are reading). 

 

Read through the lyrics and ask the audience what story is being told.  One way to make this more interesting is to ask them to guess the musical the song is from just by looking at the lyrics and reading them aloud.  Once the seniors figure out the story and musical, play the recording and ask them if anything in the way the actors are singing helps develop the story line – the tempo, the dynamics, the key signature (just ask them if it sounds happy or sad), etc.  

 

You may have to choose a couple of songs to fill an hour-long lesson, so just be prepared with a couple of songs.  If they want to talk more about a particular song, even if the topic of conversation is not directly related to the story line, let them talk and engage them in conversation – engaging them is, after all, the goal of this program.