New Highland Academy is the first public elementary school in the state of California to have articulated, year-long, standards-based dance curriculum for EVERY child. Learn more about this Oakland Unified School District dance miracle!
Luna’s special needs inquiry team asked “what does creativity look like for children with autism and other special needs?” Five years at Tilden Elementary, a designated inclusion school in Oakland, California, revealed a great deal about bringing standards-based dance to children with and without special needs.
As a national leader in arts education, Luna has been sharing the most current practices of teaching dance to children of all abilities, as well as Universal Design for Learning principles, to teachers and dance educators for more than a decade. Currently, under a contract with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, we are bringing these best practices to the forefront of our work through comprehensive professional development. Our PL services and Model programs work in tandem to generate thoughtful approaches to classroom techniques and teaching strategies to improve student performance. Teaching artists, classroom teachers and para-professionals partner together to support student learning in advanced dance concepts using an inquiry approach that continues to “push the envelope” of what creativity might look like in inclusive dance settings. This year we are working with ten classrooms at Grass Valley Elementary School, Oakland Unified School District and with inclusion early childhood classes at Acorn-Woodland. The classroom teachers and para-professionals receive active coaching to keep dance alive in the school setting, as well as integrate arts curriculum as makes sense in the classroom. What we learn from our practice supports the theory and approaches shared in our PL offerings–workshops, lesson studies, and consultations. In fall of this year we held the 5th annual Dance & Disability panel of local professionals who continue to expand access to dance. Read about the questions & issues they are asking today. Read MORE about Luna’s work with children with special needs in the Tilden Case Study.
Rossana Alves is known for her warm smile and generous welcome, ideal qualities for a teacher of young children. A dancer, performer and movement educator, Rossana has been part of the Luna community since 2006, as an active Professional Learning participant, Summer Institute alum, and intern with MPACT: Moving Parents and Children Together. It is through her work with MPACT, as well as her life-long practice of Contact Improv, that Rossana experienced the relationship-strengthening capacity of dance and movement play. Her certification in Somatic Movement and Infant Developmental Movement with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen at the School for Body-Mind Centering® reaffirmed her sense of the importance of movement for young children, and she loves communicating the value of creativity, play, relationships, and dance with parents.
Now, as a teacher at Lotus Bloom’s Room to Bloom, a Family Resource Center in Oakland, Rossana interacts daily with children ages 0-5 and their parents. She watches kids explore in developmentally-appropriate ways and observes that parents struggle with the very natural phases of pushing, not sharing, and temper tantrums. By weaving dance into her playgroup facilitation she has noticed that she’s able to support parents in discovering new ways to navigate challenging moments through movement play, observation and reflection. She enjoys cultivating “moments of expression” when children, who may not yet be able to communicate with words, can “express all they feel”. Desiring to offer dance more regularly, Rossana has launched a monthly family dance class at Room to Bloom – Families Moving Together.
A native of Brazil, Rossana finds herself occasionally moving back and forth between the Bay Area and her home state of Bahia, but dancing and teaching dance remains a constant. A familiar face at Contact Improv jams in both countries, she is a beloved teacher of creative and family dance binationally. Watch the excitement of her classes here.
Meg Glaser Terán has always loved her teachers. Both in childhood and in adulthood, learning and connecting with a mentor have thrilled her. So it is no surprise that she pursued a career in education. Beginning by teaching and advising young women about health, wellness, community and feminist issues, she eventually became a bilingual 2nd grade teacher and joyfully committed herself to the classroom for eight years.
Having grown up dancing at the Wooden Floor in Santa Ana, and as a college student through UCLA’s World Arts & Culture program, it felt natural to share movement and creativity with her students. But she had a sense that there was more to teaching dance than the activities she was offering, so she sought a way to coalesce all that she knew about education with all that she knew about dance to become the best dance educator she could be. She joined Luna’s Summer Institute in 2008, and through coaching crafted her art of teaching dance in her classroom.
The next few years were full of excitement and challenges for Meg: the birth of her twins, an extended maternity leave, family loss. She made the difficult decision to step away from something she loved – teaching in the classroom – and focus on her family. With all the changes in her life, something else shifted, and gave her the freedom to step into dance teaching outside of school.
Since then Meg has taught dance throughout Southern California, with Fullerton School District’s All the Arts for All the Kids, VSA California, and the Equitable Science Curriculum through the Arts in Public Education program through Orange County Department of Education. She co-teaches Dance for Parkinsons classes weekly, and is a curriculum consultant and teacher in the Segerstrom Center’s School of Dance and Music for Children with Disabilities. In 2010 Meg was named Elementary Dance Educator of the Year by Orange County Music and Arts Administrators.
Meg is most known for her work in developing family dance programs in Southern California. In partnership with Luna’s Building Cultures of Dance Initiative, she collaborated with the Migrant Education Program of Anaheim City School District, Active Learning, and The Wooden Floor (TWF) – where she first began dancing as a child – to pilot, and at TWF, build, family dance programs.
Right now the questions that drive her teaching and shape her inquiry are: 1) Do the children really feel like they’re dancing, and what does that look like, feel like? And 2) What is access to empathy, connection, confidence, joy, expression, and freedom, and can I as a dance teaching artist help children access this?
Meg’s own love of learning continues. Besides returning regularly to Luna for professional development, this past summer she rekindled her own artistry in a two-week apprenticeship with Bread & Puppet Theater in Vermont. “It’s really good to get away,” she says, “to return refreshed and feel inspired.”
Tamara Irving has an enthusiasm for dance and learning that is contagious. Her bio reads that you might find her dancing in the halls of schools or grocery store aisles. Certainly her dancing has taken her all over the world, as a premiere cast member of Disney’s The Lion King and as a performer with The Atlanta Opera. But she now lays roots in Atlanta, and is dedicated to shaping the dance education scene there. The Dance Director of her alma mater, North Atlanta High School (NAHS), Tamara has the goal of developing the department to be as strong as it was in the ‘90s, when the NAHS was an arts magnet school. She helped launch the school’s International Baccalaureate Dance program, a chapter of the National Honor Society for Dance Arts, and a parents’ Dance Fans group within the first few years of her teaching. But as a new educator, she was thirsty for more professional learning for herself to help her achieve all that she envisioned.
It was at this time, at a workshop with Patricia, Luna’s Director of Teaching & Learning, that Tamara was first introduced to creative dance, and it sent her mind whirling – she immediately imagined integrating creative dance into her curriculum. Inspired and encouraged by Patricia, she applied to the Summer Institute, and joined the 2013 cohort. Here she found the professional learning environment she was seeking, and a forum for learning more about teaching with a creative lens. As she experimented with exploration, improvisation and composition concepts, Tamara discovered that her students loved making dances, and their engagement level increased 100%. She also found that with curriculum more focused on developing students’ individual artistic voices, rather than what might be right or wrong, her classes were more welcoming to all students, particularly those with special needs. Her dedication to the dance department, her students, and her own inquiry into creative dance led her school to honor Tamara with Teacher of the Year 2014-15.
Now Tamara is balancing teaching, dancing professionally, parenting 3 children, and graduate school as she pursues a Masters of Dance Education at University of North Carolina – Greensboro. She is developing a full four-year scope and sequence of high school dance curriculum that includes composition and reflection. Her student dance concerts have shifted from featuring her choreography, to focusing on dance pieces only by the students, and she’s found that students are taking more ownership of the process. “Seeing beginning students rise to the occasion when I allow them to compose – I’m always excited by this.”
Tamara’s vision for dance in Atlanta continues to grow: “I wish that dancers would be able to train here and be offered the same classes offered in other cities. We should be able to work here and support ourselves as working dancers.” With her passion, perseverance, commitment to personal inquiry, and her cultivation of aspiring young dance artists, we have no doubt that Tamara will lead the way in putting Atlanta’s dance scene on the map.
You can read more about Tamara’s work at www.tamarairving.wordpress.com.
From Emily Blossom to Jakey Toor, our past Professional Learning colleagues are collectively and cumulatively teaching tens of thousands of children. We’re sharing their stories, about how they continue to positively impact the dance education field, the future, the world.
Luna introduced me to the educational potential of dance and allowed me to see the power and impact of dance education.
Cindy Chan has been a dancer for most of her adult life, but her work as a creative dance teacher grew out of her experience from participating in Luna’s Professional Learning (PL) workshops in 2006. Some people say things come to us when we are ready. Cindy reflects on how even though she had been living in Oakland for 7 years prior she had not known about the work of Luna. It wasn’t until she was looking for a music class for her then 3 year old daughter that she saw promotional material for Luna’s Summer Institute (SI). Back then, she wondered if she was the right candidate for Luna because she was brand new to teaching dance. But this didn’t stop her – she contacted Luna and was connected to the PL department.
When asked what she learned from Luna’s PL workshops that she still uses today she shared:
The list is endless. It ranges from high-level knowledge like the inquiry-based and constructivist approach to teaching, to hands-on skills such as how to work with a parachute. Also, the lesson structure/flow that I learned from Luna still forms the basic skeleton for my lesson plan today. Most importantly, I learned to become a reflective teacher and learner. I really believe the training I got from Luna has made me a more reflective person, or brought out the reflective part of me, both in my professional life and personal life. Even when I was outside the US, Luna continued to be my most trusted source of advice when it comes to lesson planning.
For two years she continued her professional development with Luna, which inspired her to return to Hong Kong to pursue an MFA in dance education. She notes that: Without the teaching experience in California which was only made possible by the training, encouragement and consultation I got from Luna, there would not be a reason for me to get a MFA and gain a deeper and broader understanding of the arts of dance and dance teaching.
Now, a decade later, she has taught creative dance to children in Hong Kong, California and presently Oregon. In Hong Kong, Cindy worked with different arts organizations to bring dance to K-3 students in school settings, with a focus on integrating dance with curriculum subjects. In 2015 she presented her research on artist-teacher collaboration in integrating dance into the classroom at the National Dance Education Conference in Arizona (you can read her paper here). Currently, in Eugene, Oregon she serves as a dance specialist in a K-8 Montessori school and as a guest presenter at her local library leading “story-dancing in Chinese” for families. Cindy has bridged her dance experience, training & education, and creative based approach to dance education from one continent to another.
From my first interaction with Luna until today, whenever I think of Luna, I think of this unique quality: conscientiousness. It seems to be the common trait of every core member I interacted with at Luna. I will always look up to that.
From Emily Blossom to Jakey Toor, our past Professional Learning colleagues are collectively and cumulatively teaching tens of thousands of children. We’re sharing their stories, about how they continue to positively impact the dance education field, the future, the world.
All children deserve high quality arts education, but did you know that only 39% of CA students take an arts class? Who has access? Who doesn’t? This is the kind of data that can help teaching artists & organizations as we outreach & work with school districts, but where can we get it? Create CA’s Arts Education Data Project is our resource to show us where and how arts education is offered across the state, and gives us access to all kinds of statistics. Listen to leaders of arts ed organizations – including Luna’s Director of Community Engagement Nancy Ng! – as they share how they use the Arts Ed Data Project to collaborate with schools & districts, and find funding.
Supported by the Declaration of Student Rights to Equity in Arts Education, arts organizations, arts councils and teaching artists are expanding and adjusting their programming to match the goals and priorities of their school district partners. This webinar highlights the capacity of these tools to empower all sectors to collaborate strategically.
Presenters representing statewide partners include Josy Miller, Arts Education Program Specialist, California Arts Council; Sibyl O’Malley, Senior Director of Advocacy and Communications, California Alliance for Arts Education; and Pat Wayne, Program Director of Create CA. California Arts Council grantees who will share their compelling arts education programs and strategic partnerships include Nancy Ng, Executive Director of the Luna Dance Institute, Eve McEneaney, Executive Director of Arts For The Schools (Placer County) and Meghan O’Keefe, Executive Director of AmadorArts.
Webinar:
Collaborating with School Districts in the Age of Data
Recorded July 18, 2018.
Courage. Luna taught me about courage, and the importance of having a space in which courage can develop. Every bit of choreography, and every bit of relationship -building, is risk taking.
I first met Luna: a dance world, when I met Patricia at UC Berkeley in 1991. Luna, and all its possibilities and breath, spilled out of Patricia, and out of Luna’s first home on Park Blvd, that day and every day thereafter.
Patricia introduced me to modern and creative dance, and to all the freedom, connection, and strength that grows from this ever self-reflective and community-building dance world. I had the opportunity to dance in Patricia’s company, to be inspired by the many professional women who took evening classes after their long days at work, and the many, many children and families that walked through Luna’s doors every week to dance. It welcomed the dancer within me in such stark contrast to the world of ballet from which I had come.
Luna taught me about the development of choreography – how we graft our exploration, initiation, choices, emotions, history, dreams, and communication to form our dance. As a new dance teacher, I had the opportunity to sit around a dining room table with the Luna Kids Dance founders, with recently printed dance flyers and Luna sandwich board signs at our sides, and bear witness to the deconstruction of generally accepted dance curriculum. In true Luna form, we challenged every assumption, questioned the role and delivery of technique when developing young choreographers, and rebuilt Luna’s studio lab and professional learning curriculum to honor the child and child expression. Luna’s early teacher development programs taught me more than any legal training I have had about the child as participant, in relationships, as witness, and communicator; these trainings strengthened my resolve to continue serving children through our legal system and to continue challenging my own dancing into my adult life.
For children and families living within our foster care system, one might think that physical self-expression – dancing as individuals, learning about others through watching their dances, and dancing together – would be a luxury not to be brought to these families separated due to abuse or neglect. Patricia and Nancy challenged me to further my query about whether Luna’s parent/child dance classes could be brought to these families, families I was working with as a dependency attorney. Over the past 17 years, MPACT (Moving Parents and Children Together) has also provided its children and families a safe space to find their courage to witness each other, to look each other in the eyes, to create together, to dance together, and to find the courage to learn about their self-expression, and relating to their child or parent, while others are watching. Through my work with MPACT I learned more about Luna – how the spiral of query, exploration, patience, and reflection builds relationships and dance, shifting them out of day-dreams and into reality. At the same time, Luna supported my personal query of whether I could live in both the dance and legal worlds as an adult and as a mother. A truer gift I could never have received.
Over the past nine years on Luna’s Board, I learned even more about Luna’s commitment to its values as a feminist and social justice organization. Luna continuously challenges itself to dispel myths about the role a dance organization can play — Luna is a local, statewide, and national leader in dance and parent/child dance education. Luna is committed to providing its dance teaching artists with competitive salaries and benefits, has established itself as a major advocate towards teacher credentialing; and is constantly bringing dance to all children and all children to dance.
Dancing with children and diving deep with them into concepts of space, force, and time continues to feed me individually, as a parent, and attorney. My time dancing with my sons, Dominic and Leed, has made us happy, brought us laughter, and deep understanding of each other. Leed was born on Luna’s birthday and International Women’s Day and Patricia was at his birth. Patricia’s connection to time, body, need, and breath, as well as how she leads others to bring themselves and what they want to offer forward, made that birthing experience a forever life changing event in so many ways.
Luna continues to influence my parenting every day – when I make eye contact, mirror, and shadow dance with my sons; it has helped me to make space for, and welcome, their rolling and tumbling; to appreciate their own self-query when they move smoothly and contrast it with sharp jabs; when they move over and under each other. Just the other day, after a difficult day, I saw Leed, my four-year-old, begin to dance in the living room. It was subtle – he did a mild roll, placed one hand and foot on the ground and lifted his other leg high and over, till he was sitting. He was dancing. I joined him – we did some over and under, some connected shoulders and heads, and crawled and slid; Dominic, my almost nine-year old joined. I lifted him, our arms crossed, we danced low – and then I spun him – my young boy, now 4’ 6” and 60 lbs, wanted to be spun and held by his mom — the vestibular, one of Dominic’s favorites – and the trust and security, we can find when dancing with someone. His joy and comfort and release was immense.
Board member & professional learning client Heidi Opheim Sawicki with son and modern dance composition student Schuyler, share their story with a dance!
