talking-dancing-howling-walking-whispering-spiraling…

“Moving Words in Space” is an artistic and teaching practice based on a dialogue between dance improvisation and language learning. I have been developing this teaching approach with adults for the last twenty-five years, but I have also used it with children to teach English under the name “Jump’n Turn”. In this contribution, I retrace the developmental stages of “Moving Words in Space”, before describing how I use performance scores to introduce children to the English language through “Jump'n Turn”. To illustrate this process, I use “Scramble” (1970), an exercise and performance score originally created by the American dancer and choreographer Simone Forti. The tasks are extremely simple yet have a strong pedagogical potential. I explain how I guide young children through the activities so they can experience language fully through movement while performing a score that was created during the development of postmodern dance in the United States.

Authors

Publication Details

Journal
Scenario A journal for performative teaching learning research
Published
2025-10-13
DOI
https://doi.org/10.33178/scenario.19.1.6
Primary Topic
Narrative Theory and Analysis
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

talking-dancing-howling-walking-whispering-spiraling…

Agnès Benoit
Scenario A journal for performative teaching learning research
Narrative Theory and Analysis
article

talking-dancing-howling-walking-whispering-spiraling…

Agnès Benoit
article en

Abstract

“Moving Words in Space” is an artistic and teaching practice based on a dialogue between dance improvisation and language learning. I have been developing this teaching approach with adults for the last twenty-five years, but I have also used it with children to teach English under the name “Jump’n Turn”. In this contribution, I retrace the developmental stages of “Moving Words in Space”, before describing how I use performance scores to introduce children to the English language through “Jump'n Turn”. To illustrate this process, I use “Scramble” (1970), an exercise and performance score originally created by the American dancer and choreographer Simone Forti. The tasks are extremely simple yet have a strong pedagogical potential. I explain how I guide young children through the activities so they can experience language fully through movement while performing a score that was created during the development of postmodern dance in the United States.

Scenario A journal for performative teaching learning research
Openalex Percentile: Top 71%
Narrative Theory and Analysis
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