This post is not about dance education. I still teach dance, write lessons every day of the school year, spend summers reworking curriculum in my head… But on the other hand, my hours, my life, my thoughts are recently consumed with watching my mother live in the moment and die by degrees. Recently and increasingly, […]
Entries Tagged as 'Uncategorized'
Round pegs & square holes
April 24th, 2012 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
The post also appears at Teaching Artist Journal’s ALT/Space. Creating a permanent place for the arts in public education requires some adjustment between the two in order to create a fit — a whittling process that usually affects the art more than the public institution within which it’s finding a home. Given the current trends […]
Kindling the Spark
March 6th, 2012 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
This entry was written for ALT/space, online forum of the Teaching Artists Journal. I’ve been honored to be a contributor to the TAJ online exchange of ideas since last August, even as I’ve felt sort of odd-man-outish. Being a certified dance specialist, located in one school for the past fifteen years, my context is quite […]
Tags:curriculum·standards·teaching
Merida
March 4th, 2012 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
… a place where the best dancing is the everyday stuff… on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays, Sundays & a few days in between…
Warmth in winter: Carnaval in Merida
March 4th, 2012 · Comments Off · Uncategorized
We’ve been back to Merida, a place where dance seems synonymous with everyday life. This time we happened to arrive in the midst of Carnaval. The parade we saw (one of 6 throughout Carnaval week) was fun, although it’s definitely not the best dance we saw this week! We tried for some other parades, but […]
Too much to ask: dance without music, revisited
February 4th, 2012 · Comments Off · Uncategorized
I posted my article “Too much to ask: dance without music” (about religious restrictions on music in a dance classroom) to a forum of fellow dance educators, and their responses were very helpful – thoughtful and well-considered! They did research and sent me links, they referenced their own context and made suggestions, they commiserated and […]
Why Dance Matters: photos by Jordan Matter
February 3rd, 2012 · Comments Off · Uncategorized
Because dancers have more fun… express themselves fiercely… embody how everyone else is feeling… capture the essence of an interaction… I’ve seen one or two of these photos before, but what a collection!
Tags:why dance matters
Choreographers can be inspired by poetry!
January 19th, 2012 · 6 Comments · Uncategorized
Here’s a lesson I’ve used with 5th graders over the years. Often I integrate this lesson with other lessons on Martin Luke King Jr. and Alvin Ailey, since they were contemporaries — all alive & working toward change during the civil rights movement.* I’m posting this lesson just now in response to a Read & […]
Tags:African American·choreography·curriculum·literature·teaching
Dance Program: The Video
January 15th, 2012 · 5 Comments · Uncategorized
I have parents who aren’t too sure what this dancing business is all about. They don’t necessarily speak English, many don’t have time to come to school and talk about it, most come from a different culture or world view. So I made a video and put it on the website. Truth be told, it […]
Too much to ask: dance without music
January 2nd, 2012 · 4 Comments · Uncategorized
Alimah and Farihah are my students. They’re both cheerful, attentive, kind, lively, quick, and participatory. Alimah, a 1st grader, is shy, but she’s a great partner for anyone in the class. Any student, boy or girl, calm or wildly off-task, gets their work done when paired with her, because she can be on-task and have […]