What does a student learn in
California, Grade 12, Arts: Dance ?

Students connect what they know from other subjects and their own life experiences to shape the choices they make when creating a dance.

Students pull from what they know, what they've read, and what they've lived through to shape original dance work. Personal experience isn't just background here. It becomes the material.

Students connect dances and choreography to the time period, culture, or community they came from, explaining what those outside forces shaped in the work.

Students study a dance piece alongside the historical moment or cultural tradition it came from, then explain how that context shapes what the movement means.

Students develop original movement ideas by drawing on personal experience, current events, or other art forms, then shape those ideas into a clear creative direction for a dance work.

Students develop original movement ideas and shape them into a dance concept, drawing on imagination, research, or personal experience to push beyond technique into real artistic thinking.

Students take a dance idea from first sketch to finished piece, making deliberate choices about movement, structure, and how the parts fit together.

Students take a movement idea and shape it into a finished piece, making deliberate choices about structure, sequence, and how the dance communicates something specific to an audience.

Students revise a dance they have made, sharpening movements and transitions until the piece is ready to perform or present.

Students revisit a dance piece, make deliberate changes based on feedback or new ideas, and bring it to a finished, polished state ready to share with an audience.

Students choose dances to perform in front of an audience, then study each piece closely to decide how to present it with intention and skill.

Students choose which dances to perform and explain why each piece is worth presenting, weighing how the movement, meaning, and context hold up in front of an audience.

Students practice and polish their dance pieces until the technical skills and artistic choices are ready to share with an audience.

Students rehearse and refine their own choreography until it's ready to perform for an audience. The focus is on polishing the details that make a dance piece clear and intentional on stage.

Students perform a dance to communicate a clear idea or feeling to an audience, making deliberate choices about movement, timing, and staging so the meaning comes through.

Students perform original or rehearsed choreography with a clear intent, making deliberate choices about movement so the audience understands the idea or emotion behind the piece.

Students look closely at a dance performance and break down how the choreographer's choices, such as timing, spacing, or movement quality, shape the overall effect of the work.

Students break down a dance piece by identifying how specific choices in movement, timing, and structure shape the overall effect. They explain what they see with precision, going beyond first impressions to examine how the work is built.

Students analyze a dance and explain what they think the choreographer meant to say. They read movement the way a reader reads a paragraph, looking for emotion, story, or argument behind each choice.

Students analyze a dance performance and explain what the choreographer was trying to say. They look at movement choices, structure, and context to build a clear interpretation backed by what they actually see.

Students pick clear criteria, like technical skill or expressive choice, and use them to judge a dance. The focus is on backing up an opinion with specific reasons, not just saying a performance was good or bad.

Students set their own criteria for what makes a dance work well, then use those criteria to judge performances with evidence from what they actually saw.