Sing, Dance and Create with the Shape Song!

Read It. Move It. Share It. 

Each month I recommend a picture book for dance educator Maria Hanley to use in her children's dance classes in New York City. This month I chose a new title from Barefoot Books called The Shape Song Swingalong. I hope you're ready for some sing-along swing-along fun!

Quite a while ago, Maria mentioned to me that she was interested in exploring shapes with her little ones, so I've been on the lookout for some good picture books about shapes. I had already discovered a few treasures at our local library and was about to recommend one when I came across The Shape Song Swingalong. 

I may still recommend the other book a little later, but for now The Shape Song Swingalong was just too much fun to pass up. Based on a song written and sung by SteveSongs, this book is all about shapes--specifically lines, circles, rectangles, and triangles--and the many fun things you can create with them.

Along with the words to the song, the bright and childlike illustrations by David Sim show how you can use the shapes to make houses, pencils, animals, sand castles, and just about anything else you’d like to make. And one of the reasons I really like this book is that it incorporates so many of the arts, including dance, into this concept.

I have a shape collection and I use it to create

Anything I want to see or be or do or make.

Is it work? Is it play? Is it music? Is it art?

With my shape collection all I need to do is start...

Many of the illustrations also show four multicultural children, each one of them representing a different shape. One of my favorite spreads shows the kids making their respective shapes with their arms. It reminds me of how fun it is to make the letters Y-M-C-A over your head to the classic Village People song of the same name. Similarly, I think kids would enjoy making lines, circles, rectangles, and triangles when they hear The Shape Song Swingalong. 

Even more fun would be making shapes to the actual shape song, which comes as a CD with the book. Wait until you hear its catchy refrain, which is so hard to get out of your head once you’ve heard it!

If you've read this far, and perhaps are bouncing in your chair or singing the refrain of the song yourself, then we have a giveaway for you! Barefoot Books is kindly giving away a copy of The Shape Song Swingalong and accompanying CD to one lucky reader of my blog or Maria's blog. 

If you win the book, Maria and I will want to know how you end up using it with the little ones in your life--be that in a dance class, in a traditional school setting, at home, or somewhere else. We really want this giveaway to help promote movement and creativity, so you'll have to write us back with the details of your book-related activities. 

So, if you're still reading this post and would love a copy of the book, there are three ways you can enter the giveaway. If you do one of them, you will be entered once. If you do two, you will be entered twice. And if you do all three, you will have three chances to win:

• Leave a comment on this post letting me know what your favorite type of creating is. Mine is creating stories with words, but I also love creating arts & crafts with my kids.
• Leave a comment on Maria's post letting her know what your favorite shape is and why. Also check out her post to see how she used the book in her classes!
• Like Barefoot Books on Facebook and then let either me or Maria know in a separate comment.

Leave your comments by 11:59 pm EST on December 7, 2011. Maria and I will then pool the responses and randomly pick a winner. If you'd like to learn more about the book in the meantime, you can check out this interview with SteveSongs via the Barefoot Books blog. Have fun!

UPDATE: Congratulations to Liz Vacco, the winner of our Shape Song Swingalong giveaway! Liz is a performer, choreographer, and dance educator in Los Angeles who will be using the book with some of her students soon. We look forward to hearing how it goes! 

Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring

I meant to blog about Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring a while back, but I changed my mind because so many other people were writing about it. Well, they are still writing about, so I changed my mind again and decided to join in on the buzz that is swirling around this book.

I first found out about the book at the American Library Association (ALA) conference in June, in Washington, DC. I was browsing at the Roaring Brook Press booth and nearly jumped for joy when I saw the cover and realized that a book about modern dance (plus so much more) was about to be published.

I gathered up the courage to ask for an advance reader copy (which, for those of you who aren't familiar with that term, is basically a bound copy of galley proofs) and was delighted to be able to take one home with me. However, I'm still kicking myself that I didn't have illustrator Brian Floca, who was also attending the conference, sign it for me.

In brief, the book is about the amazing collaboration among choreographer Martha Graham, composer Aaron Copland, and artist Isamu Noguchi to create the masterpiece Appalachian Spring. I won't go into detail here because so many other bloggers have written such compelling reviews of the book already. Here are a few of my favorites:

• A Fuse #8 Production published a phenomenal review of the book, which includes images from the book and even a YouTube video showing Martha herself performing Appalachian Spring.

• Carol Rasco at Rasco from RIF blogged about the book a few weeks ago. She mentions the Fuse #8 review but adds her own comments and gives a nice summary of the book.

Janet Eilber, artistic director of the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, says "The dancers all read the advance copy of Ballet for Martha and were charmed, thrilled, blown away, delighted, etc, etc. We all love it!" The center went through some difficult times a few years back but seems to be flourishing now. You can check out its website for more information about Martha Graham's legacy and the dance company that still bears her name.

One thing that helped convince me to blog about this book today is that I found out that the St. Louis Symphony is performing Appalachian Spring tonight and again on Sunday afternoon. Music Director David Robertson apparently had some input into the book, and authors Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan, illustrator Brian Floca, and editor Neal Porter are all flying in for the performance. You can learn more about the connection between the book and the symphony in the St. Louis Dispatch.

The book's authors, illustrator, and editor are also appearing tomorrow morning at the St. Louis Public Library to talk about and sign copies of the book. For any of you who live in or near St. Louis, I hope you can make it. I know I wish I could be there!

Shapes + Dancers = Creative Fun

I stopped by the children's section of our local library a few days ago and found the picture book Shape Space, written and illustrated by Cathryn Falwell, prominently displayed there. I noticed what looked like a dancer on the cover and so picked up the book to probe further. To my delight, I found that the girl on the cover really was a dancer--and in fact was a choreographer as well.

The book begins with the young girl peeking under the lid of a large red box. Inside she finds a huge collection of rectangles, triangles, semicircles, circles, and squares in a variety of sizes and bright bold colors. The rest of the book is devoted to her creative process--thinking about what to do with the shapes and then using them to build sets, to make costumes, and to toss, hop, tilt, swing (plus a whole lot more) as she choreographs her own special dance. At times, I had trouble finding the rhythm of the book, as it seems to change from time to time and the text rhymes in some places but not in others. But then again, if you think about this book as a "dance" itself, what dance would be exciting if the music and choreography were the same the whole way through, right?

When I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area a few years ago, I once performed a playful modern dance piece called "Off Your Rocker" (photo to the right by Andy Mogg), as part of the Natasha Carlitz Dance Ensemble. With the vibrant colors of the costumes and props, and with choreography that was actually inspired by children, the piece immediately came to mind when I read Shape Space. Isn't it fun when you read a book and it reminds you so much of your own life experience? So I just had to share!