Imber Olympic Club - Dance

A small team of staff and students have set up an Olympic Club to introduce a variety of different aspects of organizing and co-ordinating an Olympic Games Opening Ceremony and subsequent Olympic Competition. Together the staff and pupils decided it would be a good idea to structure the school year into half term sections where members would have the opportunity to access different aspects of an Olympic Games. Traditionally all Olympic Games are started with an opening ceremony and a big part of that ceremony is dancing and performances in keeping with the Olympic Spirit and theme, which we used as our ‘starting block’.With the ‘olympic spirit’ in mind we looked at different musical styles and the words that came to mind were upbeat and positive, with a clear message of aiming for the top. We chose a song called ‘Believe’ from the film ‘Honey’ and the students really enjoyed dancing to this as it ticked all the above boxes.The students who took part are not from a dancing background - their forte lies mainly in sport with most having had little or no dance training. But as you will know if you are a ‘Strictly’ fan, that sports people have mostly excelled in the ballroom due to fitness and dedication. All our students succeeded in learning the dance moves but they also brought in their own creativity in coming up with some moves of their own which we included in the routine. We also managed to incorporate some moves that represented some olympic events. The students were definitely comparable to Austin Healy rather than Mark Foster in terms of their dance ability. I am totally confident that the students will have no problems ‘throwing shapes’ on any dance floor in the near future.Mrs S. Collyer