Dance Class Music for Ballet and Creative Movement (Children 3 and up)
In 2009, I published my first official class music review and giveaway on Dance Advantage. After receiving the album, Richard Maddock’s Music for Movement and Imaginations quickly became one of my favorites for use in my creative dance classes for children.
If you are familiar with the first volume, you’ll find the same musical support for a class format that blends ballet technique with creativity in the dance studio. There are selections for loosely structured, full-body warm ups like “Skip and Freeze” followed by accompaniment for ballet fundamentals like pointe and flex, pliés, tendu, and port de bras. Several tracks for traveling steps and pieces to accompany enchainments (or combinations) are also included, followed by one of my favorite features from the first album, a series of “dance-a-story” selections for creative movement explorations or choreography.
With 37 tracks, there is more material on this album than a dancer teacher needs for a single lesson, making the music useful for continuing development of little dancers over weeks of class. But beyond being useful, it’s important to note that, like all of Richard’s piano accompaniment for dance, the music is also beautifully expressive and a pleasure to listen to. Diverse in tempo and mood, the tracks range in musical style from dreamy arpeggio to swinging jazz to strutting tango. Each one communicates with an energy that’s appropriate for the intended exercise but could easily support ideas of your own design, all while encouraging an imaginative spectrum of movement from your students.
I recommend Music for Movement and Imaginations, Volume Two to any teacher who would like to enliven and enrich their ballet classes for children. In fact, no creative dance teacher should miss adding both of these volumes to their class playlists.
Nichelle Suzanne is a writer specializing in dance and online content. She is also a dance instructor with over 20 years experience teaching in dance studios, community programs, and colleges. She began Dance Advantage in 2008, equipped with a passion for movement education and an intuitive sense that a blog could bring dancers together. As a Houston-based dance writer, Nichelle covers dance performance for Dance Source Houston, Arts+Culture Texas, and other publications. She is a leader in social media within the dance community and has presented on blogging for dance organizations, including Dance/USA. Nichelle provides web consulting and writing services for dancers, dance schools and studios, and those beyond the dance world. Read Nichelle’s posts.
