At Montessori Dance we value the unique creative expression of each individual. There is no one right way to express one's intelligence through movement and dance.
You might be wondering what differentiates Montessori Dance's approach from traditional dance classes?

We draw on the Montessori approach of developing the child's own initiatives and natural abilities by guiding the children through improvisation based activities that explore aspects of dance such as shape, pathways and dynamics.
The children are guided to create their own short phrases of movement by applying compositional tools such as repetition, changing the size, orientation, the quality of the movement and so on.
Instead of teaching children the steps to follow, repeat and perfect, we encourage the children to explore, experiment and collaborate with each other to generate their own movement phrases. The emphasis is much more on the process rather than the outcome. The children are involved in the decision making process of creating the dance and therefore have ownership of their work.
In both our workshops for educators and children, we introduce what is commonly referred to as the Elements of Dance: space, time, dynamics and relationships. These elements offer the language with which to explore and understand dance as an art form. Compositional tools are then introduced so that children can organise and structure the exploration of these elements into movement phrases.
I'll go further into the elements of dance, improvisation and the dance making process in future posts.
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