Hosting Dork Dancing: Warmup & Ending
WARMUP
Script: This is more or less what I say to break the ice & set the stage/ context. Your warmup does not need to follow this word for word, but it does need to cover the main ideas, which are bulleted & highlighted in bold!
Hello everyone, thanks so much for making the decision to join us here at Dork Dancing today. We so much appreciate this decision & want to congratulate you that the hardest part of this process is already over, just showing up.
Thank dorks for coming out, inform them that showing up is the hardest part & they already achieved that
As a reminder, we are not only sharing a dance together, but sharing a journey of mental health advocacy. Your decision to simply show up is helping forward a larger mental health cause & purpose – so thank you so much for your decision to be here.
Remind dorks right away of the purpose of our gathering. It’s not just a dance. We are doing this for mental health!
I want to acknowledge that dancing out in public, with strangers, is not a normal or typical thing to do. So if you are feeling any type of anxiety, social discomfort, or awkwardness, then know that’s a normal feeling and that’s actually how dorks often feel. So, if you are feeling uncomfortable inside, then you are already feeling & doing the right thing.
Acknowledge the strangeness of this activity & how normal it is to feel awkward & anxious inside, thats how dorks feel! They are in the right place.
So, to get started we always begin with a little warm up to help us understand how to dork dance. It’s our intuition that you already know how to dork dance, you may be familiar with the idea of dancing alone in your room, in the kitchen, or in your car, simply letting loose to the music. Basically, there’s no right or wrong way to dork dance, you can move anything and you are already dork dancing. But we will go through this thing together to get a better idea of what this all looks like.
Introduce the idea of the warmup. As a group, we will share a warmup to remind us & help us get loose. Point out they likely already know how to Dork Dance.
To start, I will introduce myself and a dorky move. After I show my dorky move, you all will copy my move. Once I am done, we are going to pass it on to the person next to me, going this way. After introducing 3 or 4 moves, we will start over from the beginning and repeat so that we can more easily memorize the moves that we are learning. Once we go around the whole circle, we will have a strong sense of how to dork dance. So if there’s no questions, I am going to turn on the music and we can get started! (if group is 6 or less, go around twice to learn more moves)
Describe how the warmup will actually work. Name, dorky move, copy — then move onto the next person. Repeat from beginning after a few people go.
Amazing! Well congratulations everyone, you all just learned ___ number of dorky moves. You now know how to Dork Dance and are official dork dancers! If at any time you don’t know what to do, you can simply think back to this warmup and try one of the different moves that you learned. If you want, you can even do this one move the entire time. It really doesn’t matter! But also, now we are going to open the floor and make an invitation for you to explore & try to discover your inner dork. As a reminder, you can move however you want, so enjoy moving freely.
Congratulate everyone on becoming official dork dancers! Remind them that they can use any of the moves they just learned, and simply repeat those moves. Then, invite them to move freely, however they would like!
Also, we take song requests, it’s something nice to get a mix of music, so if you have any songs that you would like to hear, just let me know and we will try to add it to the playlist.
Inform the group that we take song requests! Encourage them to ask.
From time to time, I will be taking some photos & videos to capture what we are doing, this is something helpful for our mental health advocacy, so if this is something you are uncomfortable with just let me know and I will work to avoid capturing you, but this is all something helpful for the advocacy so we hope you can allow us to share this joy! And please, feel free to take photos & videos, it’s something fun for us to share.
Give them a heads up about the photos/ videos. Allow dorks to request to not be recorded. And encourage other dorks to feel free to record as well!
Now we’re all free, hope you enjoy!
ENDING
This is the “Final Song.” This is always the last song that we play at all of our Dork Dancing events. It is a soothing, relaxing, and fun song to wind down. Dorks also enjoy the message: don’t let this be our final song. The consistency of this serves us well.
Script: This is more or less what I say to summarize things. Your conclusion does not need to follow this word for word, but it does need to cover the main ideas, which are bulleted & highlighted in bold!
Wooohoooo! Well, thanks everyone for coming out and joining us here today. As a reminder, your decision to share a dance with us is helping forward a mental health cause, so thank you for your decision.
Thank folks for joining, remind them that their decision is helping the cause
The biggest way to give back to the campaign & community is to come again! If you had a good time, please invite friends, family, coworkers. The more you come and the more people we can encourage to join us out here for a dork dance, the more good energy and the stronger we are able to forward the mental health cause & campaign. It’s something fun when we are able to see you again and get more people!
Ask/ encourage people to show up again and to invite others! This is the biggest way to give back, makes us happy to see them again, and hopefully others too!
Our events are always free and open to the public, but if you are interested to donate and support on the money side of things, you can leave a donation in the Dork Donations box over there. As a reminder, we organize our events every ________ at _________.
Mention that dorks are able to donate. And remind them of the time/ location of the event for next time.
Also, if you want to keep in touch and subscribe to announcements, we have a special phone number for our community, where you will be able to reach out to us and ask any questions you may have. This is a texting service, so you will need to text us and fill out a form so we are able to keep in touch.
Inform them about our phone number (and any other online group you may have set up & would like them to join!)
You may have noticed/ seen some dorks wearing headbands, if you come to 5 of our events, you are given one of these headbands as a way for us to say thank you for your mental health advocacy. It’s something really helpful & fun to continue showing up.
Explain the headbands. Also, now is the time to publicly reward the headband to any dork who has joined at least 5 times!
If you took any photos/ videos, please tag us on social media @dorkdancing // @dorkdancingnameoflocalchapter on Instagram. It’s something very helpful for us to share so we can invite more people in!
Encourage dorks to post/ share on social media
It’s our hope that you feel a bit better now at the end of the session than you did at the beginning. We also like to remind folks that the Dork Dancing energy does not need to stop here, it is something that you carry with you. If at any time you are not feeling well during the week, remember you can simply turn on the music and dance. Hopefully the simplicity of dancing like a dork is something that can help with our mental health. Thank you and hope to see you again soon – that’s all, be free!
Remind dorks they can dork dance anywhere at anytime. Encourage them to keep dancing!