Year 5 project… starting points

Project with Year 5

'Belief that arts cannot be taught as a subject but is an approach. It is hard to access the whole power of the arts when they are done within a system (or curriculum) which is based on rejection of the fundamental principles much art is based on. Therefore art is useful in schools (beyond learning the skills of particular art forms) as an approach to inquiry, wonder, discovery and reflection changing the structure of the lesson itself not being the subject of the lesson (unless it is to teach formal technical skills in a given art form)' Akinleye (this blog, 11th Feb)

To create a piece for 20-30 year 5 children over 4 1 hour sessions, ready for performance to a public audience.
Challenges: short time frame, many children may be in the process but not performance but still to have them feel they are investing in the group, public audience, carving out this space for working in a very different way

Starting points…

Knowing from past experience that they are a boisterous group, very physical, determined and love sharing their ideas

Desire to have the dance come from them in its entirety, and I just work as a facilitator

If I begin with 'what issues are important to you at the moment' (identity, community etc..) then are we not still using the body to dance about something rather than it coming from the body?

So how to begin…

With questions, in no hurry to find answers, but with an aim to make more sense of them each time than the last?

What is our body for? What does it mean to us?
My own response
- communication with others
- enjoyment of the senses
- food, water, sleep is not what our body is for but what sustains it
- travelling places and doing things
- telling us what to feel - our body reacting is what tells our brain how we feel not vice versa

From their discussions
- various individual and group task work
- workshopping these over the first couple of weeks
- thinking not of 'material' but choreographic structures and shaping
- using a playlist to provide a work ethic and background? (Bonobo, soundscapes)

Questions arising…
If I begin with 'what issues are important to you at the moment' (identity, community etc..) then are we not still using the body to dance about something rather than it coming from the body?
I can not start every project with the above question??? Or can I???
The body as a the means by which we experience things not an expression of another issue (bullying etc..)
Or could it be the bodies in relation/response to the environment 
https://vimeo.com/10586620