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IB Dance offers students a unique opportunity to explore and refine their dance talents while developing a deeper understanding of the art form. However, the structure of the course differs significantly from most other IB subjects, which can often lead to confusion. In this post, we'll guide you through the IB Dance syllabus, breaking it down so you can approach the course with confidence.
IB Dance Syllabus + Topics
The IB Dance syllabus adopts a holistic approach, meaning that it is essentially you and your teacher that shapes your studies. While the IB offers a great deal of flexibility, they also provides clear guidelines to help structure the course. In this post, we'll break down these guidelines, allowing you to grasp the structure of the course.
The IB Dance syllabus is comprised of three main components:
- Composition and analysis
- World dance studies
- Performance
Composition and analysis
This component of the syllabus focuses on the creative process of making dances. Students will explore various compositional techniques and develop a deep understanding of how movement, form, and content interact to shape meaningful dance works.
In this topic, you will:
- Focus on the creation of dances and the analysis of how dances are composed or arranged.
- Think creatively and explore movement possibilities.
- Explore dance vocabularies to express a specific intention.
- Learn various ways to structure dances effectively.
- Understand and apply movement principles to create well-structured dance pieces.
- Explore how dance structures can support diverse viewpoints, ideas, and purposes.
- Examine the interrelationship between form, content, and function in dance compositions.
- Create original dances.
- Analyze your work through written analytical statements, demonstrating how the composition supports particular viewpoints, ideas, and purposes.
- Higher Level students will additionally:
- Create dances that have contrasting compositional structures and make connections across all areas of your dance learning.
- Make connections across all aspects of their dance learning and analyze how these connections influence their compositional work.
World dance studies
In this part of the syllabus, students explore the wide variety of dance traditions from around the world. By researching and analyzing both familiar and unfamiliar cultures, students will gain a deeper understanding of how different historical, social, and cultural factors shape these dances.
In this topic, you will:
- Explore a diverse range of dance practices from around the world.
- Investigate dance cultures and/or traditions, both familiar and unfamiliar to you.
- Acquire theoretical knowledge and practical experience of selected dances from two cultures and/or traditions.
- Learn to describe the similarities and differences in the historical contexts of the selected dance cultures or traditions.
- Analyze the similarities and differences between the historical and current social and cultural contexts within each selected dance culture or tradition.
- Identify and analyze the dance elements in the selected dance cultures and traditions to understand their similarities and differences.
- Organize and present a coherent written investigation based on your findings.
- In Higher Level (HL), you will also:
- Compare and contrast two short excerpts from two dances selected from two different dance cultures and/or traditions.
- Focus in depth on one aspect (or a limited number of aspects) of a short excerpt from each of the two dance works investigated in your report.
- Your role will be that of an observer, not the maker of the dances being compared.
- One dance must come from a culture or tradition that is familiar, and the other from a culture or tradition that is unfamiliar to you.
- HL students are required to choose different dances for this component, meaning the dances studied in the World Dance component cannot be submitted for the Dance Performance internal assessment
Performance
In this part of the course, students focus on developing dance skills and performing for an audience. The goal is to prepare for a final performance assessment while building both technical and artistic abilities.
In this topic, you will:
- Engage in dance artistry, from classroom practice to performing for an audience.
- Specialize in any style of performance, but you must experience more than one style from different dance cultures and/or traditions.
- Prepare to present one or more dance styles for assessment at the end of the course.
- Develop body strength, coordination, rhythmic accuracy, and spatial awareness.
We hope you found this post helpful. For more useful materials associated with the IB check out the wide variety of IA, EE and TOK exemplars available at Clastify and other guides available on our blog.
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