For art's sake
Here is a lesson plan about dance and music art.
Lead-in.
Which four main things are mentioned?
Lead-in.
What do music and dance mean to you? What art forms do you know that use music and dance?
Choose three adjectives that describe how you feel when you dance.
stylish
attractive
awkward
stupid
free
excited
happy
relaxed
embarrassed
sincere
emotional
confident
nervous
confident
nervous
Which four main things are mentioned?
- The founder of the school believes that ballet should be affordable to children from families with different incomes.
- One of the students seems to find ballet lessons as interesting and exciting as school lessons.
- Going to the Nashville Ballet School is a luxury not every family can afford.
- The Nashville Ballet School provides its students with all the necessary outfits.
- Many students from the Nashville Ballet School end up on Broadway.
- The school is reserved to girls only.
- The school continues to exist thanks to all kinds of financial support and its founder's determination.
- Training in this ballet school is hard and exhausting.
- Training in this ballet school is great fun.
Match the words on the left to their meanings on the right:
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Use the words from the table to finish the sentences:
- Students pay what they can, which means they can easily ... to pay the school.
- Despite both parents ... the luxury of dance classes would have been ... .
- At the ballet school, students are ... with leotards, shoes and costumes.
- Thanks to a ... of donations, grants and Cross's determination, the school keeps on.
- Why is your ... so big for this? - I just wanna make this opportunity ... to as many students as possible.
- The opporutinity extends to a hundred and twenty girls and boys a year, all of different cultural, racial and socio-economic ... .
- It also teaches valuable life skills like teamwork, time management and ... .
- The show "The Little Engine that Could" ... one of the ... in a wheelchair.
- ... make Jack a dull boy. (proverb)
Discussion
- Have you ever been to a ballet or dance show? Did you like it?
- Is it easier to tell a story with a ballet or a theatre play? How are these two arts different?
- What makes a great dancing performance?
- Can dancing help improve self-confidence? What activities can help improve self-confidence?
- Do you know any famous ballet dancers?
Ballet is a French word. Do you know how to pronounce these French words that are present in English?
matinee
cafe
bouquet
ballet
chic
déjà vu
eau de toilette
en route
genre
souvenir
R.S.V.P
cliché
faux
silhouette
Which musical genres are most popular in the USA?
How are they related to the geography, you think?
Which of these genres do you like?
What kind of music can make you feel this way:
angry
happy
relaxed
excited
sad
thoughtful
What music did this man play? What musical instrument did he play?
A year ago, if you had asked up-and-coming American musicians about the pianist Don Shirley, they probably would have said, “Who?” That’s changed. Shirley is a central character in the movie “Green Book,” which is nominated for five Oscars. Based on a true story, the film follows a concert tour that Shirley, who was Jamaican-American, took through the Midwest and the South, in the nineteen-sixties. He hires Tony Vallelonga, an Italian-American bouncer from New York City, to serve as his driver.
My uncle Jim loved Don Shirley, especially “Water Boy,” Shirley’s biggest hit from the best-selling 1960 LP “Don Shirley Trio.” “Listen to that mournful cello!” he would exclaim during the song’s florid introduction. When the song’s gospel piano rhythm started, he would do a little uncle dance. Shirley was one among dozens of pianists who were popular at mid-century, a moment when the piano was at its zenith in American life. It wasn’t only my uncle: just about everybody had at least one LP of a pianist.
Shirley outlived his fans and died quietly, in 2013, at the age of eighty-six. Wikipedia flatly declares that Shirley was a “jazz pianist and composer,” but that’s not exactly true. Recently, I asked the jazz bassist Ron Carter about Shirley. He said that he liked Shirley but that jazz musicians from the era didn’t discuss him much. “You needed to be on the Juilliard or Carnegie Hall scene to know about Shirley,” he said. “My friend Kermit Moore, the great cellist, was close to Shirley.” Carter went on to discuss how Shirley was denied the opportunities to perform much classical music because of his skin color, a circumstance that parallels Carter’s own experience.
Race and music engender an uncomfortable paradox in American musical history. It’s maddening that Ron Carter and George Walker were denied careers as classical performers, yet our world has been immeasurably enriched by a generous serving of Carter’s jazz bass and Walker’s symphonic compositions.
Shirley’s first record, “Tonal Expressions,” from 1955, comprises jazz standards that Shirley views through the prism of classical style: his take on “I Cover the Waterfront” contains left-hand cascades that nod toward Debussy; “No Two People” begins with a quote from Bach; and “My Secret Love” is a rich chordal exploration in the style of Rachmaninoff.
Another early disk is “Orpheus in the Underworld,” a brooding and lovely set of original rhapsodies that Shirley based on his own phantasmagoric painting, which appears on the album cover.
My own pick for Shirley’s best record has no flashy keyboard athletics nor extreme combinations of style. On “Piano Arrangements of Famous Spirituals,” the themes are given stark and regal settings far closer to Thelonious Monk than anything lurking on the fringes of the easy-listening category. The jacket for the 1962 LP, which features a sombre color palette and Shirley looking pensive in a velour sweatshirt, is a wonderful postcard from a nearly vanished era.
Answer the questions:
- What has recently made Don Shirley recognised by a larger audience?
- What events in Don Shirley's life does "Green Book" describe?
- When was Don Shirley very popular?
- Why do race and music engender an uncomfortable paradox in American history?
- What was so special about Shirley's early jazz records?
- What kind of music does the narrator like?
- How do you feel about racism in music?
- Do you like to listen to the piano? What other musical instruments do you like?
Which words or phrases in the text show that:
- Don Shirley wasn't known a few years ago
- The film "Green Book" is a biopic
- 'Don Shirley Trio' album was sold in big quantities
- The narrator's uncle used to dance to Shirley's music
- Once piano was at the peak of popularity in the US
- Don Shirley wasn't a popular subject in others' conversations
- Carter and Shirley were denied for the same reason
- It's a shame that some black people couldn't play classical music
- Shirley also painted
- The narrator avoids superficial music
- The jacket of the narrator's favourite Shirley's album is a reminder of the past
- Do you know any famous musicians?
- What genre is their music?
- What musical instrument do they play?
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