Wise Monkey, Foolish Crocodile
Grades: K-6
Audience Maximum: 300

Wise Monkey, Foolish Crocodile – Available as Day-Long School Residency or Performance only for Festivals and Family programming

This spectacular performance brings young audiences the music, the movement and the colourful, compelling storytelling of East Indian folk and classical dance. Menaka Thakkar and her company of Canada's finest dancers offer a program that illustrates the diversity and richness of India's ancient cultures while guiding young audiences to see its power as a contemporary art form.
     Wise Monkey, Foolish Crocodile is a timeless story from the classic Panchatantra tales. It is a children's dance drama based upon creative dance movements that illustrate several dance styles. In conjunction with the company dancers, the students become part of an imaginary animal kingdom.

Day Long School Residency

This fully interactive day-long program is conducted in three parts:

Before Morning Recess
The performers of the Menaka Thakkar Dance Company will guide a select number of students in the mannerisms and choreography of classical East Indian dance and movement. This fully interactive workshop will illustrate the varied complexities and symbolism within folk and classical dance.

After Morning Recess
Students will return after recess to work on costuming, wardrobe, choreography, movement and characterization. These newly developed skills will be put to work as the students get the rare and exciting opportunity to perform with the Menaka Thakkar Dance Company in the afternoon performance.

After Lunch
The whole school is invited to watch the company performers and students from their own school perform together in the vibrant and colourful Wise Monkey, Foolish Crocodile. The company will begin the performance with a brief demonstration from their repertoire and conclude with the lively tale of a husband and wife crocodile and their relationship with their friend the monkey. The husband crocodile 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

• Loyalty and friendship
• Making the right choice
• Cultural diversity in dance, and
• Storytelling

Expectations

• Learn about storytelling, non-verbal communication, folktales and fables from different cultures
• Describe aspects of dance from a variety of cultures (e.g. style, costume, music, forms, steps, positions)
• Identify themes and subjects found in drama and drama 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

• March, 2007, Ontario – School Programs. For bookings contact: Prologue for Performing Arts, (416) 591-9092 or 1 888 591-9092 (toll-free)
• April, 2007, British Columbia – School Programs. For bookings contact: ArtStarts in Schools
  (604)-878-7144 or 1-888-878-7144(toll-free)
• June, 2007, Children’s Festivals - Performance only. Contact 905-763-6083, ext.22 for information

Technical Requirements:

• Clean wooden or tile floor (25' x 30')
• Minimum room temperature 25°C
• Request for gymnasium to be heated night before performance and made available all day.
   

View a Video Describing This Programme
[Length of Video: about 42 minutes]