Hi dancers! Welcome to Creative Dance with Mark Morris Dance Group. My name is Miss Jillian and I'm really excited that you're here to move in group with us today. Today we're having dance class in my kitchen.
So before we get started today, just a reminder to all of our grown-ups, if you want to listen to any of the music that we use in dance class today, the Spotify playlist is in the description below. Also, as you know, Mark Morris Dance Group has not been able to be open during this time. And so these virtual classes from my house to your house are the only way for us to make revenue. If you are able to, any donation is appreciated to our relief fund. The link to that is in the description below as well.
And again, it is so much appreciated. We really thank you as our community, as for... Joining in with us, just being here, and for donating, so I thank you in advance. I think we're ready to get started, right? Alright dancers, you ready?
We're gonna start on the ground. If you've been joining for a meet for our past classes, you'll notice I've done a couple different warm-ups. Those are just basically for you to have different options during your weeks, but today we're gonna start back on the ground.
Like we have in the past, we're going to stretch those legs out nice and long. And we're going to start with our point and flexing of our feet. We're pointing those toes down and flexing those toes up.
We're going to make different shapes with our arms. We talked about shapes last week. Shapes are a frozen, a way that we can make our bodies frozen.
We might have a curved shape. We might have an angular shape. We might have a twisted shape. How can you twist your arms, twist your your insides, twist your back? Good.
Or we might have a stretching. Good. There's lots of different options. So flexing those feet up, getting ready to point and flex as we go.
Let me just get my playlist ready. Get this one right here. Ready, setting, go! Here we go. Flex those feet, sitting up nice and tall.
Point and flex and point and flex. Point and flex and point and flex. Point them down, flex them up.
Wiggle toes around and round. Make a round shape. Now remember you can copy the same shape as me or do a new shape. Point and flex and point and flex.
Point and flex and point and flex. Point them down, flex them up. Wiggle bodies around and round.
Angular. Try a new one. A new one.
Last one. Point and flex, point and flex, wiggle bodies around and round. Straight, straight, straight, straight. Here we go.
Point and flex and point and flex, point and flex and point and flex. Point them down, flex them up, wiggle bodies around and round. Excellent.
Alright, let's grab those feet. We're gonna make a delicious foot sandwich. Here's a piece of bread and... What? Your foot phone is ringing.
Say hello. Hey! No, um, listen, I'm recording dance class right now and I can't talk.
Yeah, we'll call you later. Bye! Your other foot is ringing. Pick up your foot phone.
Hi, no, I just told you I'm in dance class. I'll call you later. Bye. Alright, grab each of those feet, put your sandwich ingredients on.
What are you going to put on today? I think I'm going to put on peanut butter and honey. That's one of my favorite sandwiches. What are you going to put on?
Tell me. Oh, amazing! Alright, put that on.
Grab those feet on the count of three. Smush it together. One, two, three, smush.
Great. Sitting up nice and tall, we have our butterfly position ready. We're going to fly our butterfly wings little, fly our big butterfly wings up and down. Good.
We'll close our wings and open our wings. Opening one side and doing opposites, yes. And then we'll stretch our wings over at the very end, all the way to the front and to the side sitting up.
All you have to do is follow me and we're ready to go. Here we go. Flying. Big wings.
How about fast? Up, down, down, down. Even faster. Down, up, down, up, down, up, down, close.
Good, let's open then. Open, close. Open, close.
Sitting right there, butterflies. Ready? Let's open one side and close.
Here we go. Open. Close.
Other side. Open. Close.
Open. Close. Open. Opposites.
Close. Opposites. Wiggle toes and fingers. Close. Can you land on a flower?
Sitting up tall, stretching over to the side. Over. Let's go forward all the way to your toes. Other side. Sitting up tall.
Good butterflies! That was excellent! From here we're gonna round our back. Let me show you from the side.
Here's the straight back, nice and tall. We're going to tuck that head and from our tail to our head we're gonna imagine there's a string and we're gonna make that string round. Round.
Good. And we're gonna bounce like a ball. Bounce like a ball. And sit up tall, make that string straight. When we sit up tall, we'll bring up our hands and place them in back.
Whoopsie, my kitchen is so small. We'll look back at the ceiling and try not to fall. Reach for our feet, curl up like a ball, and we're going to balance in our boat position. Let's bend knees, stretch arms, yeah? Okay, we're ready to go.
I almost forgot to tell you! We're gonna do it slow two times and then we're gonna do it two times fast. Follow me and I will keep you up to speed. Sitting up nice and tall. Oh, I missed our introduction!
Let's try one more time, yeah? Sitting up nice and tall. Ready, set...
Here we go. Round your back and bounce like a ball. Bounce like a ball. Bounce like a ball.
Stretch your arms up high and sit up tall. Look back at the ceiling. Try not to fall. Reach for your feet. Curl up like a ball.
Balance on your bottom. Zip. One hand, two hands.
Good. Hold it. Sit up tall, let's try again. Round your back and bounce like a ball.
Bounce like a ball, bounce like a ball. Stretch your arms up high and sit up tall. Look back at the ceiling, try not to fall. Reach for your feet. Curl up like a ball.
Balance on your bottom. Zip those legs. One hand.
Two hands. Sit up nice and tall. It's time to go fast.
You ready? I'll show you how fast we're going to go before we do it. It'll be this quick.
Grab your back and bounce like a ball. Bounce like a ball. That fast? Five.
A six. Here we go. We go around your back and bounce like a ball. Bounce like a ball. Bounce like a ball.
Stretch your arms up high and sit up tall. Back to the ceiling, try not to fall. Reach for your feet, curl up like a ball. Bounce on your bottoms.
One hand, two hands. Good balance. That's pretty fast. You ready to try one more time?
Okay, this is the grand finale. Looks like you're ready. Sitting up nice and tall.
Ready, steady, here we go, we round our back and bounce like a ball. Bounce like a ball, bounce like a ball. Stretch your arms up high and sit up tall. Back and ceiling, try not to fall.
Reach for your feet, curl up like a ball. Bounce up your bottom, zip. One hand, two hand. Are you ready to try a bonus?
Can you straighten one leg? Let's go. Good job.
You can put your hands on the ground to help you balance. Straighten both legs. Hands off. Good job.
That's hard. Nice work. Good job.
Alright, we rounded our back and bounced like a ball. So I think it's time. Oh, my body needs a stretching. Does your body need a stretch today?
I think so. We're going to open those legs out nice and wide. They don't have to be far apart. They might be closer together, whatever is comfortable for you. What's most important about opening up our legs wide is that our knees are not bent.
They're stretched straight and our knees are facing up to the ceiling, not forwards. So put your fingers on your knees to make sure they're facing up to the ceiling and make sure they're not bent. If you're If you have a little tunnel under your knees, bring your legs closer together so that your knees can stay down. Good.
Follow me to stretch. Today we're going to do what I like to call a pizza stretch. We're going to make a great big pizza in between our legs here. And so the first thing we'll need to do is spread the dough. We'll spread it this way and this way and this way.
And then follow along with me and you'll get a hang of the pizza stretch. Spread that dough. All the way to your other one.
Pat that dough. Great. Let's reach up high.
And to the side. Grab your sauce. Spread smooth sauce on your pizza.
Other hand. Reach up high. And to the side.
Smooth sauce. We need sprinkly cheese. Reach up high. Get that sprinkly cheese.
And sprinkle that cheese. You choose a special ingredient. What are you going to put on your pizza?
Ooh, yum! Okay, we're going to twist behind you and grab that. Sprinkle it everywhere you like. Twist behind you and grab one more. Good.
Stretch hands up high. Put your pizza inside the oven, stretching as far over as you can. Check those knees.
Make sure those knees are facing up and they're not. Remember what to do. Bring your legs closer. On the count of three, you'll be ready to eat. One, two, three.
Pizza! Let's make a table for our pizza. Hands and feet on the ground. Tabletops pushing belly buttons up to the sky. Good.
Today can you make a three legged pizza lifting one leg up? Pizza. I mean tabletop. Try your other leg.
Take a bite of your pizza. Take another bite. What kind of shape is a tabletop? Is it straight?
Angular? Round? Twisted?
Good Sid. God love those dear people. Delicious!
Good, now that we're all stretched out, today to go from sitting all the way to standing we're going to be animals. We're gonna be low-level animals down low on the ground, medium level. Animals on the medium level, bending our knees.
And then high level animals, way up high in the air. Now remember, you can practice being the exact same animal as me. Or you could choose your own animal on these levels. On the low level, first animal I'm going to start with, we're going to start with.
Oopsie. It's our snakes. Are you ready?
Slithering down low. We're going to use our hands. Well, our hands. Is this my hands?
No. Our hands and our feet to push us along as snakes. You can watch me in practice. Or like I said, you can choose your own animal.
As long as it's on the low down. Hello. As you can see, my kitchen is not very big, so you might want to check with your grown-up to make sure you have enough space.
We're going to practice traveling our animals forwards and backwards. Ready, snakes? Here we go.
One. Two. Three.
Backwards, knees, push with those hands. Again. Push.
Push. Nice! Medium level, let's bear walk. Backwards bears.
Medium level, crab walk. Bending the... those knees, stepping from side to side. High level.
I'm gonna choose to be a jumping kangaroo. What other high-end milk would you be? Giraffery, chicken pie, tippy toes? Nice job! Good work!
It's time to practice some of our ballet steps. We're gonna plie. Do you remember what a plie looks like?
I'm having some technical difficulties today with my camera. Woohoo! Let's try it out here.
Can't quite see my leggies. There we go. We're going to plie, putting our feet in first position.
Our heels are together and our toes are apart. Plie. stretch, releve. And today we're going to practice a passe, arms out to the side in second position to passe on one leg. That foot goes right up to your knee.
If you feel like you're falling down, some keys for balancing is keeping your eyes focused on one thing and not moving your eyes off of it at all. Another thing that might help you is hold your grown-ups hand or hold. a wall if you must.
Are you ready? We're going to do our plies, passes, releves. We're going to jump out wide. Strong plies in second.
Second position is feet far apart. Twisting to the ground. Tilting from side to side. And then we're going to bring back our energies. We practiced energies a while ago.
We're going to be smooth painters with our arms. Smooth painting. Imagine there's paintbrushes.
And then we're going to do sharp slicing. With our arms, yes? Great!
Follow me if you forget what we're doing. I'll lead you through it. Put those feet in first. Put your hands on your hips.
Good job. Here we go! Standing up tall, proud chest, chin's up.
Plie stretch and Plie stretch and Rest arms out to second Plie on one leg down First, hands on hips. Let's try again from the beginning. Here we go.
Plié, stretch and rev. Arms out to second. Passe on one leg. Good job! On the count of three, jump open.
One, two, three. Strong. Let's see those muscles. Stretch.
Good job. Strong. Stretch. Good job.
Let's twist. Twist. Stand up nice and tall. Twist the other way. Twist.
Stand up nice and tall. A few tilts. Tilt.
Up. Tilt. Tilt.
Tilt. And... Good. Put those paint brushes on your hands.
It's time to paint smooth. We're going to have just paint brushes on our hands at first. So put those paint brushes on. Dip them in your favorite paint. Remember, our feet are staying soft.
on the ground. We're just using our arms to dance, just our hands to paint a smooth picture. And when I say... what should our magic word be today?
When I say... slice that means we're going to switch to an angular painting with our paint brushes yeah okay follow me keep those feet glued on the ground continuous never ending round big or small Do your arms move together? Or do they move two different directions? Maybe together?
Or separate ways? What's that magic word again? Goodness. Ready? It's almost time to change energies.
Slice! Do they move together? Or separate? Smooth!
Slice! Remember, there's no wrong way to dance. Grab those paintbrushes off your hand and let's put them on our feet this time. Smooth with our feet.
You might glide. Do you remember that magic word? You're right kids. Slice! Slice!
Just dancing with those legs and feet. Smooth! Ready? Slice! Grab those paint brushes off of your feet.
Put them on your head. Can you paint with your head smooth? How about slice with that head?
Smooth. Got a whole body smooth. I'm going to do my hair.
How about whole body slice? Good work! Hands up high, hands down low to take a bow.
That was awesome dancing. That made me feel a little bit tired. Did it make you feel tired? No? Oh!
Maybe I need a nap. I'm just kidding. Now, in our past dance classes we talked about dancing sharp and smooth like we just did, and we also talked about making shapes like we did at the beginning of class. Remember we made round shapes with our arms? What other kinds of shapes did we make?
Angular shapes with lots of angles. Straight shapes. And twisted shapes.
Yeah, now we talked about how shapes are frozen. They don't move a muscle. So does this look like a good shape? No, right?
You want to make all your muscles frozen like they were stuck in an ice cube. That's right. Now before we get moving in our shapes, I'd like for us to practice our dance skills.
So when you hear the music, I would love to see our slithering on our bellies like a snake, walking like a bear, or jumping or hopping like a kangaroo. You may choose whatever skill you like, but when the music stops, you must freeze in a shape. That means no wiggles, and it might be curvy, or round, straight, angular, or twisted. Awesome.
Let's get our... Let's get our shapes on. Excuse me one minute, I gotta find our shape music.
Here it is. Remember, you might be a snake, bear, or kangaroo when you hear the music. So that's slithering, bear walking, or jumping, slash hopping.
I thought I saw the music. Peace. Good work.
Okay. So today... We're going to talk about moving, isolating our body parts versus dancing with our whole body. Remember earlier when we were dancing with our paint brushes and we were using just our arms?
Or just our legs? Just our head? and that we did our whole body. Today we're gonna see what kind of dances we can do with just one part of our body versus our whole body. So the first dance step that we're going to use is isolating our legs.
We're standing up on our feet to chasse today. We stand all on one foot, putting our other foot out. Chasse means to chase. This foot is going to go away, and this foot is going to go away.
gonna come chase it. He's gonna come and try and get him and when he gets to the very top we're gonna jump and this foot's gonna go away. Ready to see that in regular time?
I'm gonna get you, no you're not! I'm gonna get you, no you're not! Try the other way. Cha-se, cha-se.
Good. It's almost like your heels click. You'll notice the only part of our body dancing is our legs. So put your hands on your hips to keep your upper body very still.
Can I hear your tongue clicks to help us cha-se? Ready, steady, let's chassé. Good! Our chassés are kind of like gallops, right? Can I see your gallops that we did?
That's right, that's another way that we can isolate our lower body. What about our upper body? We can do different positions with our arms. So isolating just our arms to dance. We can make first position like a round basket, second position, and fifth position.
Good! Our arms dance first, second, fifth. First, second, fifth. Good!
How about our whole body does chassés? Can you put your arms in fifth position? And our legs will chassé.
Five, six, here we go. Chassé and chassé. Very good!
That was our whole body dancing. Hmm, how else can we isolate our bodies? We can dance smooth and sharp like we did before. I think maybe it's time to make up some dance sentences, some choreography. Today our choreography our gorya-our choreo-excuse me, my tongue got all confused.
Today our choreography is going to go Chasse and chasse with no arms. Then chasse and chasse with our arms in fifth. Should we try just that?
Practice with me. No arms, two chasse's. One, two.
Arms in fifth, two chasse's. One, two. Good. Then from here we're gonna put our arms out. to smooth dance with our arms for eight counts.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Good, then we're gonna glue our arms to our sides. And what was the opposite of smooth?
Sharp, sharp dances with our legs for eight counts. One. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Then, to finish, you're going to melt into a twisted shape with your whole body for 8 counts.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Should we review the whole thing? Remember, chasse is no arms. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Smooth. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Sharp. One, two, three. Four, five, six, seven, eight.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Good. That's a twisted ending. Okay, let's try this all together. Alright, no music because we're going to listen to the counting.
Remember, there's eight counts in each phrase. Ready for our chasse, just our legs. Chasse. Ready, set, here we go.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, hold 7, 8. Smooth. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, sharp legs. Go.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Melt. 2, 3, 4, 5, twist 6, twist 7, and hold. Good. Should we try that one more time? Remember, it goes legs, whole body, arms.
Legs, whole body. Ready? Here we go. Legs, legs.
Add your arms. Legs and arms. And we freeze. Arms, smooth.
Four, five, six, seven, legs. One, two, three, four, five. six, seven, and eight.
Twist, two, three, four, five, six, seven, hold, eight. Good job! One more just for good luck. Great!
Maybe we'll add some music this time. Remember you can do the same music as, I mean the same dancing as me, or your very own. Let's see, what will match our chassis?
We'll do this one, I think. Ready? Let's go!
Shape! Twist! Good job! That was great! It was awesome dancing with you today.
I'm so happy that we were able to dance together. A quick reminder that these videos will be up online for you to dance to anytime and there's lots of other dance videos too for you to try. Well, I hope you're staying safe and having fun.
I'll see you next time.