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In this activity, children will go outside and participate in an act of deep listening/ meditation. They will close their eyes and remain silent so they can enhance their hearing. This listening will go for 5 minutes. They will feel a sense of peace and relaxation as the goal is not to think too much, just listen. After the 5 minutes is over, everyone will get a turn to tell the class what they’ve heard. They will be promoted with questions on the sounds. For example, if a child has heard birds I will ask ‘how do you think the birds felt through the sounds they made?’ This will give the child an opportunity to explain what they heard and how they heard the sounds come across. Other children may feel differently and share their thoughts. This activity is a great way to promote silent listening and picking up cues not only in animals but also people.

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This activity requires students to become their own garden dragon. Inspiration taken from my creative response of the dragon snaps provided by the dragon king, this activity requires the movement and behaviour of a dragon that helps out somehow in the garden/outdoor environment. They must create their own story similar to the Parallaxis, and explain what kind of dragon they are, what they do and demonstrate their creativity through movement and dance. This particular participant stated they are a dragon that trains chickens who will soon evolve into dragons since they are both hatched from eggs. This dragon communicates with chickens and will hopefully one day teach them to fly.

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This activity is a game of charades where students must observe the garden then perform/ imitate one of the artefacts they come across. This participant demonstrates many options in which you can choose from such as a lemon tree, leaves blowing, the chickens and larger trees. This game was created for children to express themselves with the help of artefacts to guide them. Also to observe and acknowledge things they might come across in the garden but never noticed before. This is to help connect them to place and establish respect for the environment.

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This experience is connected to my on country visit as I visited my own backyard to immerse myself in my garden. This experience was led in an outdoor setting as well, connecting the participant to their own backyard and exploring their garden. In my on country experience, I used the idea of deep listening to understand my surroundings and find more meaning behind the noises. I connected with the sound of the birds as I felt their singing was calming but also insightful to the world I sometimes ignore. For this activity, I had the participant immerse themselves in deep listening as well, closing their eyes and meditating to the sounds of their garden.

This experience is connected to indigenous perspectives in the way it reflects on the spiritual gift of dadirri. The participants of this activity will immerse themselves in ‘inner, deep listening and quiet, still awareness’(Ungunmerr- Baumann 2002). Dadirri allows Aboriginal peoples to feel renewed and feel peace all without reflecting or thinking too much, just by being aware (Ungunmerr- Baumann 2002).

I was influenced to come up with this activity through the idea that closing one sense, heightens another. Meditation helped me come up with this idea as you must close your eyes and open up your ears to all the sounds around you, finding out what to focus on. For this activity in particular, the deep listening allows someone to connect to their own world and find meaning from within. The ideas in class that influenced me include the activities we participated in such as listening to sounds in the classroom and noticing where sounds come from. For example, the constant sound of the air flowing out, the rain falling down the pipe, the sound of the projector. Even when we participated in writing on padlets I remember I listened deeply to what was going around in the classroom such as the pencil case zippers opening and closing, the chairs, keys and other sounds. I normally would have ignored these unless I really tried to hear everything around me through deep focusing and concentrating.

The resources that support my ideas include Listen by Murray Schaffer. Schaefer’s video explored the deeper meaning behind listening and explained that when you truly listen, ‘life becomes enhanced’(R. Murray Schafer: Listen 2017).

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This experience is connected to my on country visit due to the link between my garden and the dragon snap flowers.

In AT2, I used my creative response to depict a painting of the colourful dragon snaps. I did this as a way to convey the magical message that there is more than meets the eye behind these flowers. As the participants of this activity explore the outdoor setting, they are asked to become a nature dragon and explain what they do for the garden through movement. This participant explained that they are a dragon that trains chickens and teaches them how to become chicken dragons as both dragons and chickens are hatched from eggs. The reason I decided on this activity is because it opens up the Parallaxis in the participants eyes and allows them to enter a world where they play along with others.

I thought about how nature is right outside everyone’s door and so accessible. I thought about how my Parallaxis and creative response focused on the dragon snaps that were given by the dragon king whose tear drops created the immortality that existed inside the flower. This all led me to come up with this movement/dance activity.

The activities in class that influenced me included the time where everyone had to come up with a Parallaxis game inside the classroom and told the class their findings. For example, a classmate had said that there is a portal peaking through the crack in the ceiling vent, or perhaps someone from inside has been watching us. This gave me confidence in my activity as I knew the Parallaxis had no limit.

The resources from the unit that supported me included Mutton Bird by the Bangarra Dance Theatre. Within this resource, I noticed how the performers turn themselves into the Mutton bird through Dance. This is exactly like my activity where the participant must use movement and dance to transform themselves into a dragon. Both resource and activity have the performers use their body to move in a certain way that resembles a creature. A creature with significance. The Mutton bird is a source of food for Aboriginal people, it connects to land and sky. The dragon symbolises respect, wisdom and power. In my Parallaxis it holds royalty and immortality that also connects with land and sky. Not only does the Mutton Bird dance support my ideas, it also connects to indigenous perspectives through the way they feel spiritually connected to this animal and respect what it does for their community.

The resources outside the unit that inspired and supported my ideas are that of the fantasy and magical worlds I’ve grown up loving. Overall, without my passion for the fantasy world of imagination and magic, I wouldn’t have been able to come up with an activity that has also guided me in my Parallaxis.

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This experience connects to my on country visit as I did a lot of observing in my garden. I observed the way plants moved, birds sung, leaves rattled in the wind, pebbles moved when I walked. I wanted to tie all this into my last activity of Drama. The game of garden charades. I decided to do this as a way for the participant to not only acknowledge, but appreciate the artefacts outdoors.

I believe this experience connects to indigenous perspectives as from all the content I’ve seen, Aboriginal people are spiritually connected and respect the land to a much deeper and meaningful extent that we must all acknowledge and appreciate. Going back to the Tanderrum video, we hear from Dr. Lou Bennett, the Tanderrum musical director, that  ‘the living culture that’s underneath and within the energy of this earth, is what connects us to this place’ ( Tanderrum with the Dja Dja Wurrung2017).

The activity from class that influenced my idea was when we all stood up out of our chairs and had to act out the movement of a small seed, crouching down and then sprouting leaves into a tree. This activity reminds me of my own as I wanted to convey the same movements through the garden charades as both activities involve performing as a natural creation you’d find in your garden.

I would have to say for drama, all resources I’ve come across support this activity as it is a combination of listening and movement. The deeper listening and still awareness like dadirri, the slow and focused movements like Mutton Bird. They both connect to this activity as it is a combination that ultimately creates some sort of dramatic play.

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In my experience so far, I believe music is a way to escape reality. I often find myself singing and humming random tunes when I’m focusing, making songs up in my head. I find it to be such a stress reliever just humming notes together to make music but also just silence. Music and listening are both the same in my opinion. Silence also falls into listening. As I’m writing this right now, I’m in silence. However...now that I think of it, I’m listening to the music of my room. The air conditioner blowing, the wind whooshing around my windows and at this very moment, the singular drops of rain that hit my windows. All together, sounding like little droplets of music that will soon turn into a loud ruckus noise once the rain falls heavily. If I didn’t do this unit, I don’t think I would’ve acknowledged any of these sounds the way I’m experiencing them now. But now, I’m so aware of all the little things and I believe Murray Schaffer was right when he said that your life becomes enhanced when you start silencing yourself to just listen.

As a child, I felt like music was a way to test my knowledge. I grew up learning how to play the keyboard but I only learnt through my father. He taught me how to play by ear and learn each note. So now as an adult, I still test myself and end up playing correct notes to songs I wanted to play. But as a child, I would test myself in more ways than just learning songs on the keyboard. I would play games with my family that involved me humming the theme songs to my favourite shows and challenge them to guess. I always loved guessing the song and making others guess so we could all have heightened awareness when it came to certain songs and correct notes, tones and tunes. I’m not really sure why I did this but even to this day I still enjoy challenging myself to guess the theme song/ movie score or soundtrack. I believe it came from my obsession with the Harry Potter series and the beautiful soundtrack behind the music. I feel as though I’ve memorised every scene and every song that goes with it. This memory of my musical obsession was forgotten till I studied this unit. I can’t believe the impact of learning about music in early childhood and how much I needed this. It really opened up my mind again and made me grateful for all the musical experiences I’ve had, but also all the times I’ve gotten to relax and be still. To just be silent and aware like dadirri.

As a future educator, I now see music as a way to involve all children to explore various sounds as a means of learning. To learn the rhythms of a beat, to understand why music has different tones and emotions, how music can be made, why music is made and how music is all around us. I would want these students to believe in the power of listening and becoming connected to the world we all live in by appreciating natures music as well. The chirping birds and sounds of cars, bells, machines, all these things we take for granted when we should be feeling grateful to experience a world of wonderful sounds our ears can pick up on. If we just challenged our senses and used them to their full ability, we could all be capable of so much thanks to the power of listening.

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My experience with movement and dance comes from my childhood. I took dance lessons when I was younger and entered a dance competition through school for ballroom waltzing and paired partner dances. I remember how fun it was learning these ballroom dances as I’ve always wished to dance like one of the Disney princesses I looked up to. I also took mini lessons here and there for other styles like ballet and hip-hop but I never really went all in. When I was older my experience with movement came from my karate class that I took. I learnt a lot about how to use your body strength to move slowly and strongly into certain stances and poses. It was a very disciplined class and you had to show you were worthy of learning as it took a lot of determination to reach the level of flexibility needed.

As an adult, I have had less experience with dance however I wish I could explore it more. That being said, as a future educator I plan on implementing many opportunities for children to explore dance as a creative way to express themselves or an idea. I hope to show them the benefits that dance and movement have for all kinds of people. How it helps you emotionally, physically and health wise.

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My experience with drama comes from all the great movies and performances I’ve watched over the course of my life. I believed drama was a great way to combine music and movement in one big performance. I had experience performing throughout my life as well. I was a child party entertainer and showed up dressed as different characters, mainly princess Jasmine. I would put on a show and include musical games, glitter tattoos, balloon twisting and magic tricks for the children. It was very out of my comfort zone but it gave me more confidence once I heard all the positive feedback from the families and my manager. I love performing and love broadway musicals. Everything about drama excites and inspires me. As a future educator, I want children to know that performing in-front of others may be nerve wracking, but it will be worth it. I want students to feel confident, comfortable and that no one is judging them. As Victor Wooten was mentioning in his speech, once you tell a child they’re not very good at something, it completely puts them off and they most likely won’t try again. That is the biggest insight into the mind if a child for me. I know as an educator I would never diminish a child’s chance at becoming a performer by telling them all the things they can’t do. I plan on encouraging them to keep practicing, in a supportive and positive way.

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The resource that resonated the most with me would have to be Murray Schafer’s video ‘Listen’. I have watched this video a lot and it really opened up my eyes to all the sounds I’ve been missing out on because inside my own head it’s too loud. I also connected to dadirribecause of how much silence, awareness and relaxation is promoted. It is a spiritual connection to the world, just like Schafer’s video which highlights the way your life becomes enhanced if you simply listen. Therefore, your life becomes more meaningful and you create a spiritual, mental connection once you sit back and take a minute to just hear.

Overall, my thinking about music, movement and drama has changed from engaging with each of the assessment tasks. This is due to the fact that you can never stop learning, being inspired or limit yourself to just one way of thinking. The assessment tasks have opened my eyes more as it asks you to do more than just talk about the benefits of music, movement and drama. It asks you to delve deeper into your imagination and create more meaningful ways to experience these sensations. To feel as though you’re learning something new every time you immerse yourself into a creative field.

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Archivist Media, Tanderrum with the Dja Dja Wurrung, 2017, vimeo, June 28, viewed 20 November 2022 <https://vimeo.com/223399804>.

Bangarra Education Resources Mutton Bird, 2015, Bangarra dance theatre, Youtube, 20 May, viewed 20 November 2022 <https://youtu.be/o-PV98Oshkc>.

NFB 2017, R. Murray Schafer: Listen, Youtube, 5 April, viewed 13 November 2021, <https://youtu.be/rOlxuXHWfHw>.

Ungunmerr-Baumann, MR 2002, Dadirri: inner deep listening and quiet still awareness, Emmaus Productions, pp. 1–4, accessed from http://www.dadirri.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Dadirri-Inner-Deep-Listening-M-R-Ungunmerr-Bauman-Refl1.pdf.

Wooten, V. (2013) Music as a language: Victor Wooten at tedxgabriolaisland, Music as a language: Victor Wooten. TEDx Talks. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zvjW9arAZ0 (Accessed: November 20 2022).