<p>This year the theme is Communication in History. For those of you who haven't done one before, go to the national history day website to find more information on it.
Anyway, I was planning to do a performance on interpretive dancing with my friend and I. She would dance and I would explain her movements and the history.
Anyone have any ideas to get the history on the subject or a better idea for a performance invovling two people with this category? Thanks for any thing!!</p>
<p>Hey!
History day is a lot of fun. This is my 4th year competing. I actually placed 3rd at nationals last year, but in the documentary category, not performances. However, I can give you some general ideas.</p>
<p>I don't personally know, well, anything about your topic. What is the time period? Is it a pre-modern dance thing? If the development of interpretative dancing was a movement, it might be better to focus on one person or event, just because the more narrow of a topic you do, the easy it is to squash it into 10 minutes. </p>
<p>But anyway...research. A good place to start is just a few google searches. I find I don't use the internet very much in my history day research (except to locate historical societies or contact people) just because it's not always reliable and often won't have much depth. But it does make a good place to just get a very general idea of a topic. Once you find some information, you can use this to propell you into more detailed research. Go to your local library (a large library is best, if there isn't one around you- maybe a college library?) and just start looking through books on the subject. Even if you can only find a few, this is really important. Why? Books on history almost always have notes/a bibliography at the end. If someone spent the time to write a book on your topic, they probably did a lot a lot of research, and the sum of their research is what's in that bibliography. You'll find names of other books, periodicals, government documents, etc. Also, you'll be able to see how they conducted interviews with. Another big thing is that the authors themselves can be great sources. Interviews with historians are very informative for your project and also look wonderful in your bibliography. </p>
<p>However, all this said, it is important to do plenty of secondary research before you go off searching for primary sources. You really want to have a solid background in the subject before you start trying to interpret and analyze it in your own way. some other good secondary sources to explore include radio programs (National public radio's website- npr.org, has all their own programming archived, and they have tons of stuff about SO many subjects), newspaper/magazine articles, documentaries, speeches/lectures, and dissertations. </p>
<p>I can give you plenty of more detailed advice about the research process, if you have any specific questions. Feel free to post here or email me at any time about it (<a href="mailto:rbrown_nhd10th@yahoo.com">rbrown_nhd10th@yahoo.com</a> is my history day email). </p>
<p>The other thing I wanted to address was the way you're planning on presenting this. Your idea sounds interesting, and it has the potential to work, but you have to consider this- the judges watch play after play after play at competitions. They want to see unique and interesting presentations. The way i'm envisioning what you're planning on doing, it would just involve a narrator and a dancer. I think it would be interesting if the two of you portrayed actual figures in history and acted out scenes from their perspective. For instance, you (because I'm assuming you're not a dancer- since it was your friend who was planning to do that) could be a theater owner, a reporter, or maybe even an anti-dancing religious fanatic (or maybe all three) and she could portray different dancers from the period. You could have scenes like a dancer being interviewed by a newspaper reporter on their interpretative dancing. That would get across facts on your subject and still be exciting to watch. </p>
<p>A couple other general things to consider that i think are very important:
-Balance- when you start a history day project you'll generally have a position on the topic, a bias that's already built into you. all historians have this. But it's important to make sure you look at ALL the viewpoints. Say you're doing something on civil rights. Obviously you'd cover the perspective of the activists- but what about those who opposed it? Segregationists, the KKK, in some cases the federal government, all those groups would need to be represented fairly in your project.</p>
<p>-don't forget about the theme. even if you think your topic's relation to the theme is so incredibly obvious, hit the judges over the head with it. Say it all the freaking time. Don't make it sound really unnatural or anything, but really pound it in. I used the three theme words last year (exploration, encounter, and exchange) about 30 times in ten minutes. </p>
<p>-Do plenty of research, but please don't fill your bibliography with sources you didn't use just to make it longer. The judges sometimes ask questions about the bib and I've seen people lose because they couldn't answer them.</p>
<p>I think your topic could be really cool, but if you want other ideas, give me an idea of your interests and I can give you some. </p>
<p>Good luck! I hoped this helped :-)</p>
<p>OMG!!!!!!!!! I love you. This has helped me so much. It really shows that you have the power and knowldge to go to the National level. Thanks so much. If I have any questions on the research paper, Ill email you. Thank you so much!</p>
<p>hee hee</p>
<p>Bump</p>