I’m admittedly not great at thinking through adaptions like my friend Melissa Fuller Flores (@melodiesandmoves). Zach VanderGraaff and I have chatted about trying to be better at incorporating modern music with folk dances. During the summer, Zach and his wife Chelsea teach band camps and this year he got exposed to K-Pop Demon Hunters so he found a fun adaptation you may want to include this year! – Melissa S.

One evening during band camp, we do a “fun night” where the high schoolers get popcorn, play board games, and pick a movie to watch. Usually, there are only a handful of teenagers that watch the movie. This year, they picked KPop Demon Hunters.

Very few kids did anything other than watch the movie. 

If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. It’s got a nice story, a lot of humor, a stellar animation style, and a soundtrack that’s total fire (as the kids say…they still say that, right?). Whenever something gets so popular that’s school-appropriate, one of my first thoughts is: How can I use this in my elementary classroom?

Folk Dancing With A Simple Twist

My mind was drawn to a session where I saw Melissa Fuller Flores present at the Michigan Music Conference. She used a commonly taught folk dance and then (slightly) altered it to fit a Kelly Clarkson song. (Note from Melissa S – this is literally something I think about at least once a week.) Of course, it was a lot of fun, and I could see how some kids would love this connection. 

Using popular music with common folk dances isn’t a new idea. I’ve done it before and even suggested it to others, but for some reason, I’d forgotten it for a while. Many thanks for Melissa for re-inspiring me! 

As I was driving down to co-present to music teachers in Detroit (with a different Melissa, this time of the Stouffer variety), I doing double duty: going over what I was going to teach AND listening to the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack. 

It’s no surprise that on some level I was looking for how one of my activities and how it could fit with some of those pop songs. Lo and behold, I discovered that “Noble Duke Of York” and “Soda Pop” fit perfectly. 

I used the teachers at Detroit Public Schools as guinea pigs, and it was a blast! With only one very minor adjustment, it rocked! 

KPop Noble Duke Of York, Oh A Demon Hunting We Will Go…

Let’s start by looking at the song and simple folk dance “Noble Duke of York.” First the song: 

Despite how “complex” the song seems rhythmically and melodically, I use this with my K-1 kids. It’s not hard to sing at all, and the dance is real easy. It lends itself to the melody naturally, which is exactly what you want! 

Now, let’s look at the moves. I’ve done this in both a simple circle and as a longways set. For now, let’s put our students in two lines facing a partner (longways set). 

Directions: 

1. In 3. Clap partner’s hands. Out 3. Clap partner’s hands. 
2. Spin 7 in place. Clap own hands. 
3. Repeat 1 & 2. 
4. Head partners take hands and skip down to the end of the set. Everyone else claps hands and steps up. Then, new head partners go down. Repeat until the end of the phrase.

Finally, let’s take a look at how it’ll fit with the KPop Demon Hunter’s song, “Soda Pop.” This is a crazy catchy tune, and like many pop songs, it uses 8 or 16 bar phrases. Identical to the Duke. 

Here it is the link on YouTube, please consider buying your own digital copy of the song and supporting the innumerable artists who worked on the movie:

Adapting To Fit The Song: There’s really not much to do to fit the song to the dance. Just feel the phrasing using your expertise to align when you restart the in and out. Oh, and don’t worry about singing the words of the kid’s song. Just enjoy or sing along with “Soda Pop.”

One thing I found that DID raise the level of fun was changing the “hunting we will go” part or step 4 on the list. Instead of a sashay down, we danced it out in partners down the alley. And I let everyone go down and dance it out, so we ended up in the same order we started in.

Download a sheet with the directions and folk dance formation from Melissa Stouffer here:

Look For Other Songs To Use In Your Classroom

Trust me, give this song a listen, and you’ll find how easy it is to just free dance. The teachers seemed to really enjoy it, and I can’t wait to try this out with my kids in a couple of weeks when I start my 15th year teaching. 

Yes, an old dog can learn new tricks and make music more relevant and meaningful to kids! I encourage you to do the same. Whether it’s finding a song to do a folk dance to, ostinati with a different one, or even rhythms and pitches that your students can read, it’s important to show them that the music you teach them applies to the music they know. 

If you find any good options, drop a comment and let’s improve our content together! 

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