Multi Faith Dance Workshops
Multi faith dance workshops are great at educating students on a range of faiths. Linking to the different dance styles associated with those faiths makes the subjects come alive.
We had a very multicultural week teaching in two schools in South London for their Multi Faiths weeks – St Andrews Primary and Christchurch Primary schools.
They wanted some dance workshops to link in with the different faiths that each class in the school were studying.
These were the multi faiths dance workshop styles that we taught over the two days:
Christianity – English Country dance/Morris dance
Islam – Egyptian dance/Belly dance
Judaism – Israeli dance
Hinduism – Bollywood dance
Sikhism – Indain classical dance
Buddhism – Balinese dance
We aim to increase the learning of these topics with dance relating to those religions. So at the start of each dance workshop we talked about the faiths and the main practices of each of the religions. We then talked about how dance fits in to each religion.
We show photos, costumes or props relating to each dance style so that the children can get a rounded sense of the dance. Music is very important, so we also play lots of music linked to that topic. The practical part is next – doing a warm up and then teaching a dance routine linked to that faith.
Balinese dance
For the nursery class we taught them Balinese dance as they were studying Buddhism. We showed them some big gold necklaces that are used as the costume when performing traditional Balinese dance. We also showed some photos of children in Bali dressed up for their dance performance, as it’s really good for younger classes to look at props and photos as it really engages them.
At the end of the day when we were saying goodbye, a nursery teacher said they were so inspired by the workshop that that afternoon the children had made some necklaces like our Balinese ones! We were so chuffed that they enjoyed it so much that they decided to follow on from our workshop to make their own costumes. It’s great what our dance workshops can inspire 🙂
See pics below of our necklace we bought in, and the child’s necklace they made – we love it!
For more info on how we teach dance linking to religious education, please take a look here
