• 
  • 
Donate
  • Home
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Meet the Team
    • Work with Us
    • Policies
  • Our Work
    • What We Do
    • Our Approach
    • Our Impact
    • Current Work
    • Previous Work
    • Activity Reports
  • Support Us
    • Support Us
    • Donate
    • Fundraise
    • Other
  • Resources
    • Resources
    • Our Resources
    • Other Resources
  • Shop

Daily activity 84: Isadora Duncan

July 16, 2020

This week’s theme:

Mysterious People – Inspirational Women pt.2

Fact of the day:

Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) is known as the ‘Mother of Modern Dance’.

Resources list:

Youtube; sheets or flowing cloth.

Activity 1:

As a child Isadora Duncan hated sitting still, she longed to leap, spin and twirl and express the joy of being alive through her body.

Come up with some actions or dance moves that express different emotions. How would you show you were happy, sad, angry, scared, surprised, etc? For example, you might leap about the room for happiness, crouch in a ball for sadness, etc.

Activity 2:

Isadora once said “I want to dance like a wave on the ocean or a tree in the breeze. Natural and free”.

Move your body to show what a wave on the ocean looks like, and what a tree in the breeze looks like. Come up with some other natural things that you could move like (a bird in the sky? A dolphin in the ocean? A crab on the beach, etc)

Activity 3:

Isadora set up her own dance schools for people not to follow her dance moves, but rather to come up with their own dance moves.

Listen to music from different musical genres such as Classical, Reggae, Pop, Country, Dance and Rock & Roll. Does the music make you want to dance in different ways? Come up with your own unique dance moves for each piece of music. You could film your dance routines and share with us on our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter or send it to melanie@purplepatcharts.org and we’ll put it online for you!

Activity 4:

While dancing Isadora wore bare feet and free flowing loose white outfits – she wanted the cloth to echo the flowing movements of her limbs.

Make yourself a dancing outfit from sheets or flowing cloth, you could make a veil, or tuck cloth into your waistband that swishes when you move.

Activity 5:

Isadora believed that “You were wild once, so don’t let them tame you!” She didn’t like the restrictions of classical dance and ballet, and her unique, new, and ‘wild’ style of dancing shocked some people, but she was just being herself. We’re all unique and different and do things in our own ways – it’s what makes us special.

Think of different ways to complete tasks, as we all do them slightly differently and all of those different ways are right. How many different ways can you think of to travel from one side of the room to the other – you could wheel in a wheelchair, sprint, hop, moon-walk, etc – give them all a go. How many different ways can you write your name on a piece of paper? How many different ways can you greet somebody? How many different ways can you draw a flower?

 

← Next
Previous →
View All

William

I’ve learnt lots of new things, and I look forward to what we’re doing each week. I’m happy that I’m part of a group and am able to be myself at Purple Patch.

More

Megan

The best bit is seeing a sense of achievement in the participants as they learn, have fun and become more confident and independent.

More

John

If I didn’t have a bursary I wouldn’t be able to come, and I’m so glad that I can. It makes me happy to be part of the group.

More

Alex

Purple Patch Arts is one of the most innovative, creative and inspiring organisations we have had the pleasure of working with.

More

Diane

Purple Patch is a very supportive, nurturing and caring environment. Staff are good at knowing and adapting to people’s needs and helping them to progress.

More

Linda

The connection you create with people is what really makes this job great; knowing that what you do could make someone’s day a little better.

More

Donate

As a charity, receiving support is hugely important in making sure we can continue to deliver our work to the people who need it most.

Donate

Sign up to
our newsletter

If you’re interested in finding out what we’re up to, please sign up to our newsletter below.

Sign Up

Latest News

To celebrate our 15th Birthday in October 2024, we hosted ‘The Purple Patch Approach’, a day of interactive workshops and expert insights, to encourage other organisations to use our approach in their work to involve, inspire and engage learning-disabled people.

You can now watch our video about the day and ways to get involved:

Watch Video
Older News

Contact



075103 30105



info@purplepatcharts.org

Latest Posts

1 day ago
  • 6
  • 0
2 days ago
  • 12
  • 0
Purple Patch Arts is a charity and a company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales

Charity number: 1178031
Company number: 07047385
Registered office: Hillside Enterprise Centre, Beeston Road, Leeds LS11 8ND

Please click here to see our
Privacy notice
Accessibility
Vacancies
Policies

Staff Area

  • Follow
  • Follow
Disability Confident Employer logo
Mindful Employer logo

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in .

Skip to content
Open toolbar Accessibility Tools

Accessibility Tools

  • Increase TextIncrease Text
  • Decrease TextDecrease Text
  • GrayscaleGrayscale
  • High ContrastHigh Contrast
  • Negative ContrastNegative Contrast
  • Light BackgroundLight Background
  • Links UnderlineLinks Underline
  • Readable FontReadable Font
  • Reset Reset
Purple Patch Arts
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

3rd Party Cookies

This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.

Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!

Cookie Policy

We only use cookies for the administration of this site (to see if you are logged in or not) and to analyse the use of the website via Google Analytics. You can find out more about the cookies the site uses in our Privacy Notice