Social dances through time  (Page 4/5)

Memorandum

ACTIVITY 1

• In this module we shall be looking at how social dances reflect their time. The educator must guide the learners through the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, and reflect and compare the dance styles, music and fashion and how these aspects have changed through the decades.

Exercise 1: the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s

• Divide the class up into groups.
• Assign different decades to the groups.
• Have the groups research and deliver a presentation of their assigned era to the class.
• Their presentation should include a demonstration of the dance style, pictures, oral presentation, video, music, fashion, etc.

The 50’s

Background

History

• General Eisenhower becomes the American President.
• A fish is caught off the coast of Madagascar and identified as a prehistoric coelacanth.
• Stalin dies in Russia in the same year as the Russians explode the hydrogen bomb.
• Edmund Hillary from New Zealand climbed to the top of Mount Everest.
• Disneyland opened in California.
• The computer entered the workplace for the first time.
• The Warsaw Pact forms all Eastern Block nations into a military alliance.
• Roll on deodorants are introduced in America.
• Laika, a dog from Russia, was the first Earth creature to live – and die – in space.

Entertainment

• Movie Stars of the 50’s

• Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Frank Sinatra, James Dean, Grace Kelly, Elvis Presley, Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Bing Crosby, Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Marlon Brando,

• Movies

• All About Eve, An American in Paris, From Here to Eternity, On The Waterfront, East of Eden, Rebel without a Cause, Oklahoma!, Giant, The King and I, The Bridge Over the River Kwai, Gigi, Ben Hur, Some Like It Hot, Pillow Talk,

• Rock ‘n Roll Stars

• Elvis Presley, Everly Brothers, Cliff Richard, Bill Haley and the Comets, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Platters, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Pat Boone

• Rock ‘n Roll Hits

• Good Golly Miss Molly, Let’s Twist Again, If I had A Hammer, Rock Around the Clock, Great Balls of Fire, Louie Louie, Tutti Frutti, Be Bop a Lula, La Bamba, Jailhouse Rock, That’s All Right Mama, Speedy Gonzales

• Fashion

• T-shirts, jeans, drainpipe trousers, bootlace ties, mid-calf wide skirts, bobby-socks

• Dances

• Rock ‘n Roll, Jive

The 60’s

History

• Russia shoots down an American U2 plane violating its air space.
• The first man in space is a Russian, Yuri Gagarin (1961).
• John F Kennedy is elected as the youngest American President.
• 200 people were injured during the Sharpville Massacre in Johannesburg.
• Marilyn Monroe dies.
• President Kennedy of America is assassinated in 1963.
• Martin Luther King delivers his “I have a dream ” speech.
• Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life imprisonment.
• Malcolm X, a black activist, is assassinated.
• Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, is stabbed to death.
• Dr Christiaan Barnard does the first heart transplant.
• The “Six-Day War” breaks out in Jordan and 100 000 lives are lost.
• The War in Vietnam breaks out.
• The first man walks on the moon in 1969.

Entertainment

• Movie Stars of the 60’s

• Catherine Deneuve, Anthony Perkins, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Clint Eastwood, Al Pacino, Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman, Steve McQueen, Ryan O’Neal, Ali MacGraw, Barbra Streisand, Warren Beatty, John Wayne.