Exploring Social Justice Through Dance
This spring, Mr. Drew Hetzel, Upper School P.E. Teacher, invited Ms. Jo Kreiter, a choreographer and site artist with a background in political science, to several physical education classes.
Ms. Kreiter worked with eighth graders to explore a relationship between dance and social justice, and through a series of movement explorations, students studied political or personal agency and alliance as experienced in and expressed by the human body. Students learned about the body’s empowerment in relationship to gravity, both by resisting gravity and giving in to the delightful sensations of falling. They worked with the edge of the stage in the Gymnasium to defy gravity in ways that were both artistic and athletically challenging. They also built alliance with each other though catching, pulling, and tossing the weight of another person. Finally, they made their own duets and trios, integrating agency and alliance into their own creative voice.
Students continue to develop autonomous dance performances with Mr. Hetzel, building off the ideas and movement forms introduced. "They are an enchanting and highly focused group of young artists and showed incredible courage as they experimented with new artistic ideas," said Ms. Kreiter after having worked with our students.