Dance
Classical Indian Dance Company
“completely accessible…it showed you could take this wonderful ancient tradition of Indian dance drama and make it absolutely relevant for today’s audiences.”
— DANCE IN REVIEW BY PAULA CITRON
Wise Monkey, Foolish Crocodile
Grades:
K-7
Audience Maximum:
300
Price per performance:
$840 + gst
Wise Monkey, Foolish Crocodile is a timeless classic from the Panchatantra tales and was created in 1979 for the International Year of the Child, Dance and the Child Conference. It is a children’s dance drama based upon creative dance movements that illustrate several classical and folk Indian dance styles. This delightful tale begins with a husband crocodile that is put in a situation where he is forced to be loyal to his wife or loyal to the monkey. However, the wife’s loyalty is based on greed (the wrong choice) and the monkey’s loyalty is based on genuine friendship (the right choice). The husband crocodile makes the wrong decision, and chooses greed over friendship. In the end, he loses his friend the monkey and upsets his wife.
Curriculum Focus & Expectations
Themes:
- True friendship, learning from fables
Character Education:
- Honesty, integrity, kindness & caring, respect, responsibility
Expectations:
- Learn about storytelling, non-verbal communication, folktales and fables from different cultures
- Identify themes and subjects found in drama and dance works, and make links between these and their own experiences
- Explain the use of symbolism in dance works (e.g. gestures, eye and head movement in Classical Indian dance)
Tour Availability:
- Limited availability March-May 2009
Technical Requirements:
- Clean wooden or tile floor (25' x 30')
- Minimum room temperature 25°c
- Request for gymnasium to be heated night before performance