Pick a warm-up exercise!
Here is a free collection of exciting and engaging movement warm-ups. Each warm-up has a different focus, so choose an activity according to the needs of your learners and the aims of your lesson.
The activities in this collection have been adapted, developed and inspired by movement practices, games and exercises encountered throughout our teaching, facilitation and training experiences, including dance training at Elmhurst Ballet School (Lower School programme) and Middlesex University (undergraduate programme of study), teacher training at Kingston University, training programmes with Tap Attack and a dance teaching assistant internship with The Royal Opera and Ballet. Our practice has also been informed by published works including Lynne Anne Blom and L. Tarin Chaplin's The Intimate Act of Choreography and Viola Spolin's Theater Games for the Classroom.
Great for: challenging proscenium-arch habits and circular movement patterns, developing simple movement patterns, and encouraging learners to move away from predictable responses to musical phrasing
Great for: developing non-verbal communication, building trust and collaborative skills, engaging learners in imaginative play, creative problem solving
​Great for: activating working memory, practising observational skills, building movement patterns, developing awareness of different parts of the body.
Great for: building rhythmic awareness, activating listening skills, introducing improvisational practice, building movement patterns, breaking movement habits, developing spatial awareness
Great for: developing spatial awareness and movement patterns, introducing decision-making, leadership and autonomy, encouraging independence, practising observational skills