Skip to content

A NSW Government website

Welcome to the NSW Curriculum website

NSW Curriculum
NSW Education Standards Authority

7–10Dance 7–10 Syllabus

Record of changes
Implementation from 2026
Expand for detailed implementation advice

Content

Stage 4

Composition
Context
  • The ethics and conventions of dance composition practice

  • The protocols and responsibilities of working safely and respectfully with others including valuing opinions and gaining, giving and/or denying consent

  • The language of dance composition in context, including stimulus, idea, intent, elements of dance and generating and structuring movement

  • Context shapes an idea and intent, movement generation and structure

  • Personal context can shape the dance composer’s choices, ideas and intent

  • Compose and structure movements to communicate an intent based on an idea within the context of dance as an art form

The dancing body
  • Understand that the dancing body is the medium of the creation and expression of ideas in dance

  • Explore how ideas in dance develop into an intent

  • Build a personalised movement vocabulary to communicate an intent

  • Improvise and explore the movement possibilities of the body

  • Devise movements and build sequences in response to a stimulus to communicate an intent

  • Understand that symbolic movement is fundamental to dance as an art form

  • Create symbolic shapes and movements

  • Collaborate with other dancers to compose new movement

  • Document the process of dance composition through reflective responses

Elements of dance
  • Understand that the elements of dance are space, time and dynamics and that they are the tools used to compose movement in dance

  • Evaluate how the elements of dance are used to create dance movement(s) to communicate a choreographer’s idea and intent

  • Generate movement by exploring the components of space including shape, level, direction, dimension, pathways, floor patterns and stage space

  • Generate movement by exploring the components of time including metre, rhythm, accent, tempo, duration and stillness

  • Generate movement by exploring dynamics

  • Combine the elements of dance together to create movements and structure them into combinations to communicate an intent

  • Revise and refine movements and combinations of movements to communicate the idea and intent

  • Reflect on own use of the elements of dance when creating movement to communicate an idea and intent

Related files