I am choreographing a piece for 8-10 year olds at a summer intensive that I'm teaching at and need some song suggestions.
I'd like an upbeat classical piece that's around 2 or 2.5 minutes.
Any suggestions would be incredibly helpful!!

Thanks!

Most of the 52 numbers in "Romeo and Juliet" (by Prokofiev) are about that length and probably half of them are quite upbeat. The same is true of the same composer's "Cinderella." Both are widely available in recordings and video's...probably most can be seen on You Tube. Being ballets, both were composed with dancing in mind.

The Bach violin partitas and cello suites are to a large extent based upon old dance motifs and most movements are about that length. Many have been adapted for dancing (see the You Tube video of Alessandra Ferri dancing to the prelude to the Bach first Cello Suite as played on Guitar by Sting for an example.)

Dominico Scarlatti wrote something like 500 harpsichord sonatas (now often played on piano), most are fast and many are based on old dance forms.

Check DDN's forum of instrumental music as I just answered a similar question a week ago and other also contributed to that.

Jon

Thanks for the response.
I looked at lots of random music on itunes and decided on "Country Gardens" by Percy Grainger.

Beethoven's "For Elise"

Anything from Schumann's "Scenes from Childhood" or "Album for the Young"

"The Aquarium" is short and very upbeat and kids love the music
"End Credits" from the Coraline soundtrack is a great piece of music but it would be really different