Artist Toolbox: The Runway

Favourite warm up activity- ‘The Runway’

One of my favourite activities for igniting fun and energy in a group is called ‘The Runway. It’s basically a repeat-after-me dancing exercise but it puts students in the driving seat and is especially good for younger groups. 

It works like this:

First, define a 2m wide ‘Runway’ space from one corner of the room to the opposite one. Students should get into pairs and line up beside their partner at the start of the runway. The first pair will present (/invent) a dance move, not Gangham style or Nightfever but something original and interesting, maybe including physical contact or thinking about the use of different levels.

Then you drop some funky electronic music to kick things off. Tracks like Pop Culture by Madeon, D.A.N.C.E. by Justice or A Little Less Conversation by Elvis vs JXL work really well. The first pair head down the runway doing their dance move, the next pair wait for a second and then join them copying that move and so on, so that everyone goes down the runway doing that move. At the end, the pairs split up and head opposite ways around the room back to the start of the runway. The next pair then do their dance move and everyone copies that.

Here’s the slightly tricky part though. In order to make it work, the pair who have just done their move at the start of the line then need to do it again, at the back of the line, to leave the front open to the next pair. So the rule for a pair is- you always do your own dance move two times, once at the front and once at the back.