I was, however, bailed out a little bit thanks to a CNY assembly at the school which was scheduled to start right when my 2nd class ended. As a result, I had a slightly shorter first class, followed by a significantly shorter second class. In short (no pun intended), I didn't have to provide an long list of CNY-related material for the students.
| Gong Xi Ni | Teach a variant of the dance |
| So, the last time I did this song, in both classes the attempt was a minor disaster. The students couldn't really pull off the double circle, let alone the switching of partners. Plus, the students were hyper-squeamish about holding hands. And so, this time, I wanted to take things deliberately slowly. First, even before the students walked into the room, I had them practice outside taking three steps and clapping on the 4th beat. I emphasized the need to avoid stepping on that 4th beat, even though I figured it would be impossible for some students to get used to. After practicing this about 4 times outside, I then had the students follow me in, still doing the 3-step/clap pattern. I had the ropes arranged in a big circle today, and I led the students around the outside of the circle. After everyone was inside, I stopped the class, reiterated the need to try to stay still during the clap, and we tried doing the pattern first in place, and then ever so slowly (there was hardly any room with the 1st class) marching around in a circle. Finally after a few more iterations, I had the entire class take a step away from the circle. I then invited one better behaved student to come with me and try demonstrating the partnered march around the circle. However, instead of holding hands or arms, I used a single rhythm stick and held onto one end while the student held the other end. I then positioned the student on the outside of the circle (while I was inside), and I informed the class that the job of the marchers was to make sure that the stick was always over the rope. My hope was that this would mean that (1) students would always stay on their side of the rope, and (2) the students were paying attention to the rope and the circular path. I then proceeded to demonstrate with the student how to do the 3-step around the circle. However, clearly we could not clap, so I implored the rest of the students to do the clap. After a few iterations, I had another student come up and take my place for a few iterations. I think that having a few selected students raised the interest of most (not all) of the remaining students, although it was oftentimes still a bit of a struggle to keep everyone paying attention. Anyhow, I proceeded to add a pair, followed by more iterations, a few more times. Once I had 4 pairs of students, I then decided to introduce the partner switch. During the last time we tried this, I tried doing the double swap (both rings of students moving), and that ended in utter chaos. This time, I instructed the inner circle people to let go of the stick, and I then had the outer students freeze, but with the sticks out. Then, I had the inner circle students continue (in the same direction they were walking) to the next partner. I reminded the outer people that having the sticks out was important so that the inner people knew where to go; that seemed to keep most of the outer people from moving. We practiced this by doing one iteration of 3-step, followed by the switch. I then added another pair of students, and we practiced continuous 3-steps until I announced it was time to switch. For the first class, I added about 8 pairs of students, leaving about half the class on the outside clapping; for the second class, which is smaller, I added all of the students (12 pairs), which made for a somewhat cramped inner circle. The teacher was the last one clapping, so I gave him a pair of small Chinese cymbals which made his 4th beat clap a lot more pronounced. After practicing continuous 3-steps and me announcing a switch, I then had them march to a recording of Gong Xi. It worked! Well, at least the students kept their circles reasonably well, and there weren't any collisions. Gong Xi has stanzas that span 8 bars before "Gong Xi" is sung, and at the 7th bar, I would announce it was time to switch. That provided enough time for the switch and for the students to reposition themselves for more marching. Yay! Compared to the previous time I tried this, this was a complete success - the students were marching in pairs, with a bit of a challenging rhythm, and they were able to do a partner switch. Gong Xi is supposed to have students face and bow, but I figured that would be something for another day. | |
| Rhythm Practice | Practice Rhythms found in Lion Dances |
| I suspected that the CNY assembly would feature something along the lines of a lion dance or some other traditional Chinese music, so I wanted to get the students used to following me in a rhythm that resembled some common drum rhythms featured by lion dance troupes. I didn't have much time for this in the 1st class (and I didn't get to do this with my 2nd class), but here was the progression that I had planned with the students: Q R Q R Q re Q R Q ee Q R ee ee Q R ess ee Q R ess ee Q re ess ee Q ee ess ee ee ee ess ee ess ee Q = quarter R = quarter rest e = eighth r = eighth rest s = sixteenth Each of the progressions adds only one more clap/hit. Naturally, we were practicing these at a really slow tempo. I only got to the 4th line before I ran out of time, but with that, I demonstrated what that line sounds like if we were to repeat the first line at a brisk tempo, and when doing so (on a large Chinese war drum), many students realized that they had heard something like that before. In order to usher the class out, I then played a short (about 24 second) recording of an actual lion dance troupe, complete with drum, gong, and cymbal. | |
So, that was really only one and a half activities for a day, but I thought the students actually got a decent amount out of it, and it was CNY relevant. Not all students in the 1st class got to dance, but I think that was probably ok, since the room that I have can't accommodate 16 pairs of students, and there were a few students who really could have caused some major disruptions had they been dancing along with everyone else.
I know I'm going to try to go back to the rhythm for the next class, since in that 1st class the students seemed very eager to learn more. During past classes when I had the students use rhythm sticks as drumsticks (while drumming on the ground), it seemed like I could get the students to follow me pretty well, and if I can get them to do that last line of the progression (above) at a good speed, it's going to sound awesome.
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