The Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast

Welcome to the Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast. I'm your host, Maia. No matter who, what, or when you teach, I'm here to share all my best tips and tools, along with real and practical conversations with fellow dance educators to help you be the very best dance teacher you can be.

Let's talk about it. Hey, everyone. Thanks for joining me.

I am so excited to be here with you at the start of a new dance season. And because of that, I wanted to share some icebreakers that can be used early in a new dance season or any time that you're working with a new group of students that you want to get to know a little bit better, maybe have bond amongst themselves a little bit and just break the ice. So here we go.

I'll start by saying that if you have been listening to the podcast since season one, and you heard my episode about how to learn dancers names quickly, that does have some tips for icebreaker style games and activities that you can do in class. And I won't obviously repeat all of those, but I'm going to do a super quick review for anyone that missed it or just needs a reminder. And then I'm going to get into some additional icebreakers that are good, not just for learning names and maybe won't even involve learning names, but really more for that breaking the ice concept.

So when dancers are first coming in and they're shy, or maybe they already know some of the other dancers in the room from school. So they're prone to just going into their little clicks of kids that they already know, but you want to make sure they're all friends and they're all being friendly with each other. These are the types of activities I'm going to really get into after this quick review.

So a couple of the name games that I had mentioned in the previous episode were circling up and doing some kind of rhyming game where the dancers say their name and some kind of little chant that incorporates their name and a rhyme about loving dance or something like that. You can look them up online. You can listen to that episode.

I give some ideas there. The repetition of the names for me is so, so crucial because I'm not great at learning names. So any kind of chant where the student repeats their name multiple times and then you repeat it back is really good.

And I feel like it's impossible for all of your dancers to become friends with each other if they don't know each other's names. Maybe they can have like a surface level friendship. They'll go home.

They'll be telling their parents. Oh my gosh, my friend did this at dance today. It was so fun.

Oh, yeah. What's your friend's name? Uh, I don't know. So learning names is definitely a crucial part of breaking the ice so you can do circle name games.

One that I did not mention in the previous episode that I learned at like a youth leadership conference. It's called HOBY, the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership Conference. If you are a fellow HOBY alum, ask me how I feel.

Okay, that's a little inside one for us HOBY people. Give me a shout out in the casual dance teachers network. So if you've attended HOBY or like really like any leadership team building activity, you might know this one.

It's called the Wiggalo and you do this little chant that goes like this. You have you say the person's name. So it's a great way to learn names.

You say, Hey, Maia. And I say, Hey, what? Repeat it. Hey, Maia.

Hey, what? Can you show me? I say, what? How you Wiggalo? This is great for dance because then I will reply. My hands are high. My feet are low.

And this is how I Wiggalo. When I'm saying this is how I Wiggalo, I can move my body any way I want. So even though this wasn't taught to me as a dance game, so much great use of movement here.

And then the whole group repeats back. Her hands are high, her feet are low. And this is how she Wiggalos.

And then there's a little cheer. And I'm a little bit embarrassed to be singing this for you without like a group of people hyping me up. But it goes like this.

Wiggalo, Wiggalo, Wiggalo, Wiggalo, Wiggalo. And while you're doing that, you do the person's little Wiggalo dance that they did. So again, I feel super goofy doing that without a bunch of people in a circle around me.

But I promise you when you're all together and you're all matching each other's energy, it is super fun. And you get the movement and learning people's names. So that's a new one for you.

As far as learning names, another one that you can do in a circle is having a ball of some sort that you roll to each other as you say each other's names, or you toss it across a circle as you say each other's names. Or maybe you have some sort of additional get to know you question or share a little fun fact about yourself and you roll the ball from one student to the other. Super simple.

You can get to know each other's names that way. And again, I have kind of gone into more detail about those activities. That's why I'm super skimming over them.

So if you are not getting what I'm saying, I will link the name game episode in the show notes here, go back and listen to that one. And you'll get a lot more context. If you're just looking to get students more comfortable, not necessarily with each other's names, but with just moving their bodies in front of each other and being uninhibited.

When it comes to moving. I still love the idea of circling up and you can do like a cipher and hip hop. If you're not doing hip hop, you could also consider calling your circle time like a dance off where dancers go into the middle and show dance moves that are related to whatever style you're doing.

But dancing in a circle as opposed to just always facing the mirror, I think is a great way to start no matter what level you're at, because it creates that community so much more than just right off the bat having dancers go to spots facing you or facing the mirror or both, where you're then kind of establishing hierarchy right off the top. So any activity in a circle where there's some kind of interaction happening across the circle and throughout the circle is going to be a great way to break the ice at the start of a new season. Another way that I like to do this and take students out of their comfort zone, even a little bit more and still force them to interact is to do really, really simple guided improv exercises.

So I might let the students pick a spot in the room to start, and then I'm like letting them settle into their comfort zone of like everyone has their spot and their little window and they're facing the mirror. And I say, okay, on the count of three, everyone just start walking randomly anywhere around the room 123 go. And a lot of times, students, especially that have danced before, take a second to even be able to process that like, wait, what is she saying? She's saying to walk anywhere.

And all I'm doing is walking, she's not giving me a dance step, and it will throw them off if they're not accustomed to this. Now, the initial point of that is, again, just get them comfortable with active listening and being prepared to do whatever you ask, even if it's outside the realm of what they're used to doing in dance class. Depending on the age of the dancers, and you know how good they are at following multi step directions, I will then start to layer on some additional directions to this, that get into the field of getting to know the other dancers around them.

Now the most sort of advanced level of this would be contact improv, right where you then are making full contact with the other dancers in the room and trusting them to help you. But just to be honest, where I'm currently teaching, none of my students are really at the level of full blown contact improv. But just gauge where your students are.

And you can do any level in between. So level one for me of starting to get students comfortable interacting through improv is that as they're walking around the room, I will tell them that they now have a rule to make eye contact with any dancer that they walk past. Seems kind of obvious, but probably the dancers are not going to make eye contact unless you tell them to, they're just going to be worrying about themselves and their own bodies in space and looking right past everybody.

The next step after eye contact would be any kind of very light physical touch. For example, if students are just getting to know each other, you might tell them that the new rule is as they're walking around the space, anytime they make eye contact with a dancer, they now have to approach them, reach out their hand, shake hands and introduce themselves by name, even if they already know each other. This can be kind of funny and goofy, but it's a great way to reiterate names.

And again, have the students get comfortable with contact without being like, okay, now we're going to touch, right? Because you're just doing a handshake, they're already comfortable with a handshake. So it breaks the ice of touching another body without making it something that they're not already accustomed to in day to day life. And if they're comfortable with the handshake, maybe have them lean into another dancer when they pass them or one dancer has to crawl under the other dancer when they pass them.

I mean, there's an unlimited number of kind of rules and variations that you can put into this improv activity to make it more challenging, more interesting, more exciting, more fun and adapt it to your dancers. But at the basic level, the idea is just to get the students comfortable with using the full range of space that they have in the room and the full range of contact options that they have with other dancers while getting comfortable with the other dancers and friendly and having fun. So that's what I do for early in the season guided improv.

Also within the realm of improv, but definitely structured in a completely different way is dance charades. Again, if you're like an OG listener, you're probably rolling your eyes because I bring up dance charades so much, but it's a super versatile kind of game and tool to incorporate into the classroom. And it takes so little effort.

So it is one that I use a lot. So just hear me out on this one. When students are first coming into the room, especially younger dancers that don't have a lot of experience with improv, I will have them come up with one fun thing that they did over the summer that they want to share with us.

And then they have to share it through dance charades. And we all guess what it was that they did over the summer. That was so fun.

So that's a lot less contact, right? It's a lot less interaction between the dancers, but they're still getting comfortable with improvising in a way, sharing something personal about themselves. And then the other dancers will be kind of shouting out. So it gets them a little bit comfortable using their voice as well.

So I think that's a really good one for younger and less experienced dancers. For older dancers, they might not love that. I might feel a little juvenile to them.

Something that I like to do with slightly older. I mean, really, I feel like any level of dancers can do this. But again, if you have a group that's like so over games, and they're going to be way too cool for that.

And also, if it's a group that maybe has been dancing together for a while, and they might already know each other, but you want to make sure that they truly are respecting each other, getting to know each other really well, and not just being surface level, quote unquote, dance friends. Partner up the dancers on the first class, and have them actually get to know their partner, like have them do a little mini five minute interview, talk to each other, and then introduce their partner to the class. So they get five minutes to, you know, just talk freely with a friend, get to know somebody that they maybe don't know really personally yet.

And then at the end, they get to present to the class. Hey, this is my friend, Maia. Maia did this over the summer, she really likes this, she's looking forward to this in dance class, she wants to learn more about this, you can get a lot more in depth again, with the older dancers, have them dig deep, ask them to share some more personal things about what they want to learn in the class of what they want to get out of the class and how they want to support each other and help each other.

And I think that's setting a really nice tone of support for dancers. That's not just again, this surface level, like, oh, we're gonna have fun and toss a ball around or whatever, which is great. But sometimes those older dancers are going to need a little more introspection and a little more depth, and it might take more to draw it out of them.

So asking them to share it with a peer and then having just the students share that with you instead of expecting students to come to you telling you what they want and advocating for themselves is a really healthy way to kind of kick things off, I think. And then if you want to really continue this long term throughout the season, make sure it sticks that you're not just doing this, you know, first week of class, super fun, rah rah, and then it goes right into like, nobody's socializing or advocating for themselves or anything anymore after the first week, partner your dancers up, and then have their partner, you can use this phrase, which I also learned from Hobie, the youth leadership conference I was telling you about. So it has really shaped my worldview, obviously, as we're learning today.

And this is the idea and I use this term in my my own life, like with my friends, as well as in dance class and in leadership functions and things. And that is to have an accountability buddy, a buddy that's going to hold you accountable. So I literally will call my friends up for stuff and say, Will you be my accountability buddy on this, I'm saying I'm going to go to this function.

And I know that when it rolls around, I'm going to want to be in my jammies in bed. So will you be my accountability buddy for that. And it's something that I genuinely use.

And I think it's a great way to make light of something that we might genuinely need help with. So again, if you're wanting a group of dancers to create goals for themselves and to be held accountable for sticking to them, but you know that you as the teacher coming in with a group of middle schoolers or high schoolers being like, you better make this goal and stick to it. And if you tell them in three weeks from now, hey, I thought you set this goal, I don't see you working very hard for it.

What is that going to do? You're the bad guy. They're going to roll their eyes and huff at you, right? Nine times out of 10, that's not going to be as effective as if you partner them up with someone in their class. And you say, Hey, share your goal.

What do you want to have accomplished by the end of maybe not the year, maybe just like this unit, you know, the next three, four weeks, what do you want to have accomplished by the end of that? Okay. Now you guys know each other's goals, and you guys are accountability buddies. So every class you guys check in with each other and say, Hey, how are you doing on that goal? And you're accountable to each other.

It does break the ice in a nice way. And again, it takes some of that onus off of you being the big bad teacher that's trying to hold everyone else accountable because they're most likely going to feel way more comfortable with that being their friend. And with that said, if any of you needs an accountability buddy for any of your own goals for this season, hit me up in the casual dance teachers network Facebook group.

I am more than happy to be your accountability buddy. I would actually love that. You can also always shoot me a DM on Instagram, which is the casual dance teachers podcast on Instagram.

If you are not on Facebook or prefer a DM or just Instagram as a platform in general. And yeah, I would just love to be your accountability buddy. I'd love to hear your goals and also your own icebreakers that you do and what works in your classes for students to get to know each other and, you know, break that initial ice and work through that initial shyness or awkwardness that you might get from any new students.

So definitely share those with us. Huge thank you to all the members of the casual dance teachers network, everyone following us. If you haven't left a review yet, I would be really, really grateful if you would leave a review for us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever you're listening and make sure to show some love to GB mystical too.

That's who wrote our theme music, which is so fun. As always, I'm going to close with a quote. This one is not specifically dance related, but I just really liked it.

This is by Kate D Camilo, who honestly I had to look up. I had no idea who that was. She is an author and this is credited to her.

Each new friendship can make you a new person because it opens up new doors inside of you.