A Three-Day School-Wide Dance Project!
Hardtberg Gymnasium
HBG has a fantastic layout across four main buildings. The main classroom buildings are laid out in an L-shape with a breezeway between them. The front courtyard of Hardtberg Gymnasium. The school consists of 4 buildings all together, two for classrooms and two gyms. There is ample green space and a wonderful open feeling to it.
One of the activities I was most looking forward to during my time in Bonn was the chance to work with teachers and students in one of the surrounding gymnasiums. It may at first sound like a place to go work out, but German gymnasiums are actually part of their divided higher-level public schooling, usually encompassing grades 5-13.
Our team of five TGC fellows (Jean Marie, Joe, Kyle, and Laura) joined Hardtberg-Gymnasium just in time for their final week of school before summer holidays. We were excited to learn the entire school would be working a large-scale tanzen (dance) project to wrap up the school year. Any of my friends or family members will tell you that dance is NOT one of the areas in life I excell at. However, I greatly admire those who can dance, and was greatly looking forward to seeing how these projects would play out.
The Projects
When we spoke with Marina before heading to Bonn, she explained the overall expectations and program for the dance projects. Teachers, professional dancers (hired by the school), and students all created different sessions based upon styles or history of dance. Students grades 5-11 then picked which session they would like to attend and work on for the last three days of school. There was a vast variety of dancing styles to be done in workshops, though hip-hop and modern dance seemed to be the most popular. In the end, most students picked to join professional or student-led workshops. The teachers we observed acted as facilitators of the dances not leaders. It was amazing to watch students as young as 7th grade create choreography, choose music, and lead their fellow students in the dance. You could watch their problem solving skills grow as they adjusted their dances based on the skill and coordination of their classmates. They worked out issues themselves, rarely relying on staff at all.
lists of the dance workshops offered
Total Engagement
The school is also ALL working on choreography for a flash mob they will be doing after the presentation of their projects. It’s been great to see students from yr 5-12 all working together on this! I was a little surprised at how engaged all of the students have been. I think my school would have some super engaged, some kind of participating a quite a few that would think they were way too cool to participate. I don’t know if it’s just American high schoolers, but I think many would be too embarrassed to look silly to participate as fully as these students are doing. How do we change that sense of throwing out your cares. Perhaps the fact that older students are teaching the younger ones sets a tone. Or that every student is doing a dance, not just some. Or that the groups were student designed and student chosen
Anime Tanzen
Laura and I wandered into a group led by year 8's doing Anime Tanzen (anime dance). They were so animated (excuse the pun) and excited! The student leaders had created an entire script melding the songs, dances, and characters from five different amines. They had assigned roles, were arranging choreography and rehearsing. Several students were creating costumes and props. I sat down with a group painting dragons and showed them how to shade a few areas to make the scales pop. We chatted in English about their favorite animes. I tired a few German phrases and words and my new friends corrected me on nearly all of it, laughing a little at my pronunciation. I can’t wait to see their performances on Thursday!
The Performances
All students came back to school later in the afternoon of the 23rd to perform their routines for. their classmates and families. It was a joyful and exciting place to be as students rushed from one performance space to another. We were able to watch Anna's group of students, and caught the beginning of the Anime Tanzen group. Unfortunately their highly complex script led to some confusion with the tech crew, and the lights and music did not work out. I felt terrible as the kids tried to figure out a way to save their performance.
Flashmob
All week students not only worked on their own dance projects and performances, but practiced the choreography for a school-wide flash mob to end the evening. The choreography was created by one of the teachers at HBG to the tune of Shut Up and Dance With Me by the band Walk the Moon. The kids all worked so hard on this, and it was really wonderful to walk by nearly any room and see groups of them all practicing the same steps. Joe, Mika and I spent a good deal of one morning practicing the steps with the students in our room. Fun, but man I have no sense of rhythm!
By the time each of the performances were done, and families were heading home, we returned to Bonn. It was an amazing few days we shared with the teachers and students of Hardtberg Gymnasium. I loved how strong they finished the year, with total student engagement in the final days.
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