DANCE ARTS EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN’S CHARACTER BUILDING

Abstract

The dance arts as a creation of human expressions in addition having its beauty value and ethicsinstillation, it also contains a useful meaning for the audience, actors, or observers. Dance arts evolvewith the changing times, so that the function of dance arts is no longer as entertainment or spectaclebut develops towards the direction of the educational activity. Function of dance arts education inearly childhood contributes to build the children’s character. Children’s character building should beestablished at an early age to avoid new human moral crisis trends in developing countries. Thismoral crisis is a proof that the aspect of sense, character, and spiritual have not been built in thecommunity. The phenomenon of moral crisis is characterized by the attitude of indifference towardothers, selfishness, aggressive behavior, or high destructive behavior in a human. Dance artseducation as a form of works of beauty, is assumed to be able to overcome the problems associatedwith the crisis of moral and civilized nations and the establishment of the nation’s character. Byintroducing the dance arts education at early age to adulthood, an individual will be trained to besensitive to the unity, harmony, refinement of manners, and taste. Dance activities will be built whensomeone is introduced either through formal and informal education. The dance arts education thatwas introduced starting from the path of early childhood through college, can grow even enhance theappreciation of aesthetic and ethic. From the appreciative activities it can apply character educationin children. The results of the study are grounded on the concept of dance education that is the artseducation that is based on the character that involves aspects of knowledge (cognitive), feeling, andaction. Implementation of dance education in building the character of children is through the fourway consisting of: (1) guidance as a basis for building the character of the child, (2) educationalmaterial, (3) implementation of the method, and (4) implementation of the evaluation. Based onThomas Lickona, without these three aspects, character education will be not effective and itsimplementation must be done systematically and sustainably. With character education, a child willbe aesthetically and emotionally intelligent. Aesthetic and emotional intelligence is an importantprovision in preparing children to meet a bright future. The impact of aesthetic and moralintelligence is a person will be successful in dealing with all sorts of challenges, including academic,moral, people, even the global world challenges.