Finger Tutting

 Are you old enough to remember the TV show, The A Team? The character of Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith, played by actor George Peppard, used to say frequently, "I love it when a plan comes together". Well, this week, a plan came together and it felt so good!

Remember my batons? I had to collect them from the students. What could we do, virtually, for dance class for the rest of the year? There are a lot of factors to consider when deciding - do students have enough room or space to move? Do students have privacy to attempt move sequences without ridicule? Do students have the skills needed? Will they warm up adequately so they won't get injured? 

Enter finger tutting. I first saw finger tutting on a Taylor Swift video in 2015. I did a bit of research and found enough tutorial videos online that I was able to create a small resource bank on my Google Classroom for reference. We used Zoom breakout rooms to provide a comfortable place where students in small groups could turn on their cameras to compare their actions and give each other feedback. As with any subject, some students became proficient quickly. They started to give me pointers on how to loosen my fingers and do certain actions. (Below are a couple of the YouTube tutorials we used.)

Some of our students became so skilled that we scored an invitation to the Grade 7-8 class to give them a live introductory lesson on finger tutting. I was extremely impressed with the two Grade 5 students who were brave and confident enough to come along with me to do the actual teaching. Can you imagine being 10 years old and instructing 13 year olds in school? T and L did an amazing job.

I broached the idea of having a Finger Tutting Demonstration event online with the class. We agreed that we needed to have at least a third of the class participate for it to be worthwhile, but we also wanted students to volunteer to perform. We had 8/19 students offer to share. A pair of other students offered to be the "media team" and craft invitations and explanation emails. The rest of the students provided moral and emotional support to their friends, watching them practice and encouraging them. Everyone had a role.

We just had our event and it was even better than I expected. I worried that the finger tutting sequences created and executed by the students were too short to warrant an exclusive show. No need to worry - it went well. Our performers tutted with style and super moves and our guests made it memorable. The students chose the guest list and I sent out the student-generated messages. We were so lucky to have our principal, our SERT teacher, our music teacher, our Grade 7-8 teacher, our former OISE student-teacher, my daughter (and class guest speaker), a Grade 8 friend of the class, our recently retired Grade 6-7 teacher, and at least three parents attend. This meant so much to everyone. I introduced the special guests at the beginning, and gave time for the guests to give their verbal appreciations at the end. Our music teacher pointed out that the online venue was actually perfect for this dance form, as it provided the audience a close look at the intricate movements of the fingers that an in-person performance would lack. I never thought of that!

I don't have any photos or videos of the show, because I wanted to preserve the privacy of our performers. (We did record the performances in advance on FlipGrid in case we had any technical difficulties, but that link will be accessible only to families and students.) I'll have to rely on this written account of the event to save and savor it in my memory. Big thanks to everyone who made it a positive memory related to online learning.

PS My principal sent a follow-up thank-you email that said that the performances reminded him of Madonna's Vogue video. (My principal and I are both old enough to know that reference!) That inspired me to do some more research. In case you were wondering ... (thanks http://www.b2dstudios.co.za/hip-hop-terms for the explanation)

Voguing is a highly stylized, modern house dance that evolved out of the Harlem ballroom scene in the 1980s. It gained mainstream exposure when it was featured in Madonna's song and video "Vogue" (1990). Inspired by Vogue magazine, voguing is characterized by model-like poses integrated with angular, linear, and rigid arm, leg, and body movements. This style of dance arose from Harlem ballrooms by African Americans and Latino Americans in the early 1960s. It was originally called "presentation" and later "performance". Over the years, the dance evolved into the more intricate and illusory form that is now called "vogue".

Tutting an upper body dance that uses the arms, hands, and wrists to form right angles and create geometric box-like shapes. Tutting can be done primarily with the fingers rather than the arms. This method is called finger tutting. In both variations the movements are intricate, linear, and form 90° or 45° angles. In practice, tutting looks like the characters on the art of ancient Egypt, hence the name - a reference to King Tut.