Literature review three

With this final review I have just began to read the book, Movement and Dance in early childhood, the second edition, by Mollie Davies.

I feel that this book will be a big insight and help into beginning my research and inquiry, so although I have not read the book fully it was a piece of literature I thought was worth me making a note of.

The book looks at all the aspects involved in dance with young children, from ‘what is movement?’ and how to move, right through to creating, performing and appreciating dance.

I intend to continue this review when I have read more.

Through dance the child can discover the body as an expressive instrument and develop the aesthetic and creative side of nature ( hinkley 1989:7)

A section of this book looks at the child as ‘the creator or the dance maker’

In this section it talks about dance is not something that can be branded as ‘you are now a chorographer’ it is something that is done and developed over time and that there is always room to learn or do more.

Hawkins states (1964:30) ‘the creative aspect of dance should start early and be developed continually’

This section also goes on to state that helping children develop creatively at this age through dance is helping them grow as an individual and unlocking aspects of there personalitys and developing them early on that may not have been tapped into if it wasn’t for dance.

In all three literature reviews I have looked at for dance with young children, every time the focus has been on the creative not the exercise. This is something I like and would like to look further into with my own research, of course it is a form of exercise so physical and health benefits do come into it but it can offer so much more for children with the emotional developments as well,

A quote I found which emphasizes this in the book is by

Harlow and Rolf (1992:16);

It is the aim of dance education in early years to foster and develop all these natural abilities by providing opportunities for children to create or compose simple dance sequences.

References;

Harlow, M and Rolfe , I (1992) Lets Dance : a handbook for teachers.London BBC education

Hawkins, A (1964) Creating through dance.Englewood Cliffs, NJ; Prentice-hall

Hinkley C (1980)Creativity in danceAustralis – Synden Creative publishing co