Lesson Overview:

Students present dance compositions based on a character in Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George. Then, as a group, they choose different elements from each dance sequence and incorporate them into a cohesive dance composition representing the Georges Seurat painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grand Jatte.

Length of Lesson:

Two 45-minute periods

Instructional Objectives:

Students will:

• choreograph a dance phrase using five steps from a compositional strategy.
• perform the created dance phrase for the class.
• choose portions from the different dances to create a larger composition or production.

Supplies:

• Music selections, such as pieces by Claude Debussy ("La Mer" or "La Faun") or Maurice Ravel.
• Prints of the painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat (see Sources).

Instructional Plan:

Note: this lesson should be taught as the final lesson in a three-part unit. Students should already have completed the activities and assignments in Introduction to Seurat and Sondheim and Choreographing Characters in a Painting.

Introduction

Display a print of Georges Seurat's painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

Share with students the following quote by Jules Christophe, which originally appeared in a publication dated March-April, 1890. (The quote is cited by Pierre Courthion in Georges Seurat, p.82; Seurat had input into the original quote.)

"Under a blazing mid afternoon summer sky, we see the Seine flooded with sunshine, smart town houses on the opposite bank, and small steamboats, sailboats, and a skiff moving up and down the river. Under the trees closer to us, many people are strolling, others are sitting stretched out lazily on the bluish grass. A few are fishing. There are young ladies, a nursemaid, a Dantesque [sic] old grandmother under a parasol, a sprawled-out boatsman smoking his pipe, the lower part of his trousers completely devoured by the implacable sunlight. A dark-colored dog of no particular breed is sniffling around, a rust-colored butterfly hovers in mid-air, a young mother is strolling with her little girl dressed in white with a salmon-colored sash, two budding Army officers from Saint-Cyr are walking by the water. Of the young ladies, one of them is making a bouquet, another is a girl with red hair in a blue dress. We see a married couple carrying a baby, and at the extreme right, appears a scandalously hieratic-looking couple, a young dandy with a rather excessively elegant lady on his arm who has a yellow, purple, and ultramarine monkey on a leash."

Classroom Activities

Students present their short dance compositions one at a time and the phrases are evaluated using the Assessment Rubric. (This assessment was also used in Choreographing Characters in a Painting).

Once each student has performed his or her dance sequence, the class incorporates the individual pieces into a group presentation.

All of the separate dance compositions are performed simultaneously. Students should take their beginning poses as if they were in the painting. The dance is re-choreographed or restaged to accommodate all of the characters moving at the same time. It may be helpful to practice four to eight counts at a time and make revisions as necessary.

If two or more students are portraying the same character, they could stand side-by-side, upstage and downstage, or in another place while still maintaining the balance in the work. It is not necessary for all of their parts or dance phrases to end simultaneously. If possible, perform the piece to music.

Have the students complete a self-evaluation using the Assessment Rubric.

Assessment:

See the accompanying Assessment Rubric.

Sources:

Print:

• Broude, Norma (ed.). Georges Seurat: Rizzoli Art Series. New York: International Publications, 1992.
• Courthion, Pierre. Georges Seurat. New York: Harry N. Abrams , Inc.,1968.
• Fry, Roger (essay) and Sir Anthony Blunt (foreward and notes). Seurat London: Phaidon Publishers, Inc., 1965.
• Herbert, Robert L., Francoise Cachin, Anne Distel, Susan Alyson Stein, and Gary Tinterow. Georges Seurat: 1859-1891. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991.
• Sondheim, Stephen and James Lapine. Sunday in the Park with George. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1986.
• Thomson, Richard. Seurat. Oxford, England: Phaidon Press, 1985.

Authors:

• Lillian Hasko, Dance Teacher
  Montgomery County Public Schools
  Silver Spring, MD United States