Can you copyright a dance move?

Is it really possibly to copyright dance moves? Well avant garde Belgian choreographer De Keermaeker believes Beyonce has ... and I have just used a couple of articles from The Guardian to create a great copyright, patent, trademark (revision) lesson today.

Some news stories are quite simply a gift and this is one of them. Beyonce vs De Keermaeker is like a hollywood movie trailer in itself.

I used two articles from The Guardian as the basis for the following lesson and hope your students enjoy it as much as my Lower 6th did today.

My lesson was after break, so while everybody was coming in I made use of YouTube and put on a flash-dance clip of Beyonce’s Single Ladies to get them discussing the use of music videos or dance moves. They have no idea about the lesson at this point. Once it’s over, I put the terms copyright, patent and trademark on the board. We defined them, gave examples and discuss how they could be used in reality. Are they practical, do they work?

I then handed out two articles, the first from the Theatre Blog of the Guardian and the second from within the newspaper itself. Students were asked to read them and highlight any key terms they think are relevant for the topic we are covering in the lesson. After discussing the articles, we went through key terms and my homemade oatmeal and sultana cookies made an appearance to encourage correct explanations. As a class we found around 7.

Next came the two videos (there is a link within the Guardian theatre blog article) but I first passed around my magic bag and students picked a card which stated for or against. I must warn you that De Keersmaeker’s clip is over 8 minutes and we did forward the middle section. Once the videos were over (and the can we watch Beyonce again please were squashed) I split the class in two - for and against - and gave groups 15 mins to prepare their case based on the evidence they’d seen. I created a mini courtroom and we had a super debate.

Beyonce - Countdown: