583 Dance Workshop with Bahay Maria

Written by Board Member, Ren dela Cruz
Dance Workshop with Bahay Maria
Whenever we go to our volunteer events, one of the basic things we need to remember is to bring a sound system and a ready list of child-friendly dance tunes. Not only is music a great way to get the children excited, but hearing their favorite beats make them dance and feel more confident and less shy with the volunteers! That is why one of our favorite workshops to do with children is teaching them to dance.
Last September 12, we went to Bahay Maria in Makati to do just that, with 25 little ladies and a handful of our volunteers. To start off the event, we first got our volunteers to introduce themselves by spelling out their names with body movements, in the spirit of the dance workshop. The kids were giggling at the activity and by the time we grouped the kids and volunteers into five teams, they were happily comfortable with each other.
For getting-to-know, we asked them to tell their names, job for volunteers and what they dream of becoming for the children, and favorite dance moves. After a few minutes of talking, we asked them to demonstrate their dance moves as well since we were going to use it for that day! Once they were done, we interviewed some volunteers and kids to see if they were really paying attention, which we found out they were! Next up was our game, which is Dance Showdown. We played several songs which the teams had to dance to, with each team winning a point if they danced the best for that round. After several songs and funny moves, Team Never Give Up emerged victorious.
We then got to our dance workshop, wherein I prepared choreography for the song ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ by One Direction. Before that though, we started with a warm up and foundations to get the everyone pumped up. It was really fun teaching the steps to the group, as the children were really intent on getting the steps. After repeating the entire routine with everyone, I left them to their teams to prepare for a dance-off, where the teams would dance the choreography plus a few minutes of freestyle by themselves. It was very exciting and the teams were quite competitive! The judges chose the team Girls Generation, stating that though it was hard to choose, they liked that this team even incorporated stunts to their performance.
After quite an energized afternoon, we served merienda so everyone could relax and continue bonding. Once done with eating, we then proceeded to do a group photo, and handed the kids storybooks as giveaways. To cap off the day, the kids lovingly hugged their ates and kuyas as a ‘Thank You’ for spending the day with them.

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