Watching the film may stimulate lots of discussion about properties
of triangles, symmetry and rotation.
If you want to watch it directly from the National Film Board of
Canada's website, go
here
You could ask students to watch it twice, then talk about what they
saw in pairs before having a whole group discussion. Students might
notice the different ways in which the initial triangle is split
during the film and it might be handy to have some large copies of
the triangle available so that they can demonstrate what they saw
in the film.
This initial discussion offers a good opportunity for you to draw
out well articulated descriptions.
Choose a section of the film and ask students to describe what
happens there.
eg 1 - 34 seconds and 35 - 45 seconds may be two natural chunks for
students to start to focus on.
What mathematical properties remain constant throughout the
clip?
Students can recreate short sequences using cut-out
triangles. Here is
a sheet of triangles that can be printed off and cut out.
Ask students to consider if a section of the dance can be performed
by a different shape.
If the triangle is replaced with a kite, or a rhombus, or an
arrowhead, or ...
can the new shape be bisected into
congruent halves?
can the new shape be trisected into
equal thirds?
can dissections be carried out in
different ways?
Which shapes will allow the same range of movements and
symmetries?