Dance, anyone?

Hi all, we're the ones who started Gabriella Charter School. The genesis of the school came from our successful after-school dance program. Here's a short video on both programs. Thanks for all the positive comments on the value of dance in children's lives. Liza Bercovici

http://www.youtube.com/user/everybodydanceLA#p/a/u/0/Wq675hQODkY

Hi everyone, I would like to share a link with you. I had the extreme pleasure of witnessing first hand the dancing that comes out of the fabulous “Dancing Classrooms” program. The fifth graders at my school in Jamaica Estates, Queens participated in this program and have emerged more confident, graceful and with improved communication skills. Of course, their ability to dance socially brings them pure joy!!. If you are interested in bringing dance to your school check out http://www.americanballroomtheater.com/.

This program was founded by Pierre Dulaine and Yvonne Marceau. Their work was the subject of the movies Mad Hot Ballroom and Take the Lead.

It's wonderful to know you're interested in the National Standards, and to know the news is spreading! To follow developments in the re-conceptualization of the National Standards, you may want to visit http://seadae.org. SEADAE is stewarding the work with NDEO, MENC, NAEA, and EdTA, along with many other partners, and will be looking for broad-based input from across the nation as the work proceeds.

Is anyone familiar with Dancing Classrooms of NYC? Now in hundreds of 5th grade classrooms. It uses ballroom dancing as a means of teaching social development and respect skills. The effects have been felt in all subjects. Now 18 more cities are modeling after the original NYC program.

Yes Lorenzo, thanks for highlighting this fabulous program. There is also a film about it entitled Mad Hot Ballroom. The fifth graders in my school in Queens, New York have benefited from it on many levels. I can also tell you that I do ballroom dancing with my second grade students and my older enrichment groups. My program is called the Kids for Coltrane Project. I do not have a budget, so I find creative ways to bring the arts to my kids. I took dance lessons and shared what I learned with the kids. The most amazing things started to happen. The children helped me choreograph dances. They were incredible. At one point the PTA donated funds to bring in a dance teacher. When the lessons ran out the teacher volunteered his time to keep the lessons going! There are many ways to bring dance to the children. We must be creative and never give up. Dancing is wonderful for the children. The Dancing Classrooms program is successful and beautiful to behold. I am so glad to hear how it is growing!

Hello Dancers,

I have a new Blog at http://phineas8888.blogspot.com
that will explain some of my background and interest in Art and Music and Dance; and will specifically explain how and why I made the following new video at youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2AtGu1PsIo

It is very brief at 2 1/2 minutes... but I hope you enjoy it and find ways to adapt it, to create your own videos, or student videos, etc.

Movement is Life and is born from Stillness...

Allen / phineas8888

I'm thrilled to hear from a teacher implementing Dancing Classrooms. One of the challenges we've had in getting it adopted in AZ is the absence of SBR to support a program we absolutely know works. I know Pierre and his team are currently doing to the research that so many schools require for adoption and I'll be thrilled when there is more of it.

Another great resource for dance is the movement and music curriculum available through High Scope. High Scope has a long history of developing curricula that meets SBR requirements so its quite easy to get districts to adopt and for those who are perhaps not dance savvy the resources are easy to use with strong theoretical background.

http://www.highscope.org/Content.asp?ContentId=15

I've worked in both community and school settings with kids in poverty and know how crucial the arts (dance, drama, visual, music) have been in helping them to grow in confidence and envision the life they want. Our arts programs have helped a number of youth become the first in their families to graduate from high school and go to college. I sit in school improvement meetings and want to scream. The focus is on test scores not the goal of having children love to read or develop the 21st century skills I read are most valued: critical thinking, problem solving,...things intrinsic to the arts. One of these days I will let out a primal scream and startle everyone because my art focus is mime.

Hi Everyone -

I'm really excited to see how lively this conversation is. I tweeted about this conversation and an organization responded with an interesting educational game that fuses dance and drama (for the early years). You can check it out here: http://drama-in-ecce.com/2010/11/07/movement-games-drama-for-early-years/ (Source: http://drama-in-ecce.com/).

On a personal note, I'd like to say that as a student dance helped me tremendously in my studies. I minored in dance in college and it was then that something clicked with me. My dance teacher used to say "Dance is its own language" and as I danced more and more, the more I found that statement to be true. I don't know how to explain it but realizing that statement made me appreciate and look at my studies in languages and cultures in a completely different lens. Some things are just not not translatable and that alone inspired me to use movement when I couldn't fully express what I wanted to say.

Anyone else or your students have a similar experience?

I want to thank Karen Bradley for starting this 'dance' of postings, I am new to Edutopia.org but I find this community inspirational...
Being a retired classroom-teacher, (but still a teacher...and totally new to South Florida) I do not have an affiliation with a school or dance studio yet...), but I can contribute 2 small resources to continue this choreography of educators:

1. http://www.ewertheimer.com/inventory.html

Esther Wertheimer is a contemporary sculptor world famous for her large bronze celebrations of human movement and human affection/connection...
Unfortunately there is not a single book of her sculpture (partly because she is still very much alive and partly for 'other'reasons...)
I am fortunate to have a wonderful museum catalogue of her work, published years ago by the Canadian Embassy in Japan, but it is not available online and is obviously out-of-print. However, I did find the website link enclosed here, that is her Florida Art Gallery and they
Do Have about 30 photographs of her sculptures... Many of which express the Primal "Mother and Child" Connection and the Human-Human Connection among children and among adults. Her bronze sculptures evoke Dance, very powerful and very graceful dance... You could share these images with your students for art projects, writng projects, dance projects etc.

2. I come from a background in Tai Chi and yoga, so that is where I have developed much of my Physical Education... Because I have recently moved, I have very few books, and mostly have relied on library books, but I did a quick amazon.com search for "Tai Chi for Beginners" and found Paul Crompton's paperback book of the same title...available very inexpensively as "very good condition" used books (at least a dozen or so copies) for less than $10...)

If you are interested in learning and/or teaching tai chi to your students in school, I would suggest going to your local bookshops and browse the many books available to see which one(s) you like...

There a thousands of youtube videos as well, but I cannot recommend any single one or product in video or DVD format ....

Tai Chi is a soft martial art form that can be very appealing to both girls and boys, men and women... It is definitely dance, but a very slow 'dance', which of course can be speeded-up to 'martial' speed, which is obviously then "very fast"... :-)

Hope this helps your dance perspective...

Allen