Warm Up

8 minutes

Welcome

• Hello! Begin seated in a circle. Introduce yourself, welcome each dancer, begin to learn each participants’ name and use them throughout the activity.

Scripture – Luke 17:32 and Genesis 19 (v. 17, 24, 26)

• “Remember Lot’s wife.”
  • “Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.”
  • “Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven”
  • “But his wife looked back from behind him and she became a pillar of salt.”
• Think about these scriptures as we dance today and we’ll talk about it more after we move a bit.

Locomote, Listen, and Look

• Instruct dancers to walk around the room for about 10-15 seconds. Then do a series of three drum beats (or loud claps if a drum is not available) in which dancers freeze in place and change focus around the room. On the first beat, dancers look at an object in the room, like a clock on the wall. On the second beat, dancers look at another dancer. On the third beat, dancers look at the drummer.
• Repeat with different locomotion and make drum beats closer together as the dancers remember where to look. Actions might include: run, slide, gallop, jump, hop, skip, or roll.
• To help with less experienced movers, dancers can travel from one side of the room to the other with each locomotor action. Be sure to change the timing of the drum beats to ensure dancers listen, stop, and focus. 

Discuss – How did using direct and indirect focus help with this warm up?

Explore Concept

20 minutes

Changing Leaders

• Begin in a large circle. Call out a dancer’s name for all to copy how they move. Continue calling out names every 15-20 seconds, giving each dancer the opportunity to lead (or about ten dancers for a larger group). 
• Have the dancers scatter throughout the space, breaking the circle. Repeat the activity with this new spacing. Challenge dancers to focus on the leader quickly (or to begin leading movement quickly).

Discuss – Did they prefer focusing on someone else to follow or being focused on to lead? What was challenging about each?

Focus Charades Game

• Divide the dancers into two groups. Each group takes a turn randomly choosing a Focus Challenge Card (included at the end of the lesson) and moving with that focus challenge. Dancers move without talking and try to get the audience to guess what their challenge is. When the audience has guessed it, switch roles so each group has a turn to move and watch. Continue alternating until challenge cards have all been done or ten minutes whichever comes first.

Discuss – What did you focus on as an audience member trying to guess the challenge? Why?

Create

5 minutes

Direct and Indirect ABA Dance

• Dancers create their own ABA dance with a scarf (or other bandana-like fabric) by A focusing directly on the scarf, B changing to indirect focus away from the scarf, A returning focus to the scarf as they dance.
• Perform dances for each other one at a time or several simultaneously. 

Added challenge for experienced dancers (+15 minutes)

• Learn a choreography phrase. Then individually or in small groups, change the focus throughout the phrase. 
• Perform for each other and notice how it might change or make new meaning to the phrase.

Cool Down

7 minutes

Stretch and Discuss Connections

• Gather and sit in a circle. Encourage dancers to stretch while discussing the questions or lead them in a stretch while discussing together. Here are some question ideas:

• How did moving today relate to the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
• What new insights did exploring focus bring?
• Reread the scripture – Luke 17:32
  • “Remember Lot’s wife.”
• Read from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s Speech “Remember Lot’s Wife”:
  • “Apparently what was wrong with Lot’s wife was that she wasn’t just looking back; in her heart she wanted to go back. It would appear that even before they were past the city limits, she was already missing what Sodom and Gomorrah had offered her.”
  • “It is possible that Lot’s wife looked back with resentment toward the Lord for what He was asking her to leave behind. … So it isn’t just that she looked back; she looked back longingly. In short, her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future. That, apparently, was at least part of her sin.”
  • “Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives. So a more theological way to talk about Lot’s wife is to say that she did not have faith. She doubted the Lord’s ability to give her something better than she already had. Apparently she thought—fatally, as it turned out—that nothing that lay ahead could possibly be as good as those moments she was leaving behind.”
• What is challenging about focusing on Christ today? How can we overcome those challenges and stay true to Him?