Ruth Torres is the Arts Integration Specialist for Local District South in Los Angeles Unified School District. She oversees the arts professional development of generalists and arts teachers for over 140 schools grades K – 12. Ruth was a classroom teacher for five years and an itinerant dance teacher for ten years throughout LAUSD elementary schools branch. During her time as a dance teacher she founded a Family Dance program at Cesar Chavez Elementary School in El Sereno, California. The program’s goal was to build community and bring parents and families to the school site.  Ruth is originally from Sinaloa, Mexico where dancing was part of the school curriculum and the culture of the community.  She joined the state performing arts school DIFOCUR and danced throughout Mexico and Europe for fourteen years bringing the dances of Mexico to other countries. Ruth also danced for Oscar Chavez at the Escuela de Arte Jose Limon in Culiacan. She has researched the dances, music and traditions of the Mayo-Yoreme indigenous group in Sinaloa and other ethnic groups of Mexico. Ruth strongly believes that dance is the most powerful form of expression and connection to the self, to others and to the world and that it should be an integral part of the curriculum in every child’s education. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Communications, a Master of Arts in Education, a Multiple Subject Teaching Credential, a Dance and Spanish Teaching Credential, and Administrative Services Credential. She has taken workshops in dance and movement therapy, creative dance, authentic movement and Bartenieff Fundamentals.

LEADERSHIP GOAL: to develop the skills needed to pursue district support for initiating a dance program for students, parents and their families that is provided through the school district because there is a need to create community at the school sites.

Rebecca Prather is a Speech-Language Pathologist and Arts Integration Coach with the Larkspur Corte-Madera School District.  She received her M.S. in Communication Disorders (2012) and an M.A. in Women and Gender Studies (2009) from San Francisco State University. As an undergraduate at UC Santa Barbara, Rebecca danced with the Middle Eastern Ensemble. Rebecca lived in Seville, Spain for three years where she studied flamenco and spent time in Cairo, Egypt where she studied folkloric and cabaret styles of Raks Sharqi.  She wrote her thesis for Women and Gender Studies on the representational politics of American Belly dance, “The Neo-Imperial Harem: Race, Gender, and Nation in American Belly Dance.”  Rebecca is passionate about the body as a cultural text and an agent of social interruption.

Over the past four years with LCMSD, Rebecca has taught arts professional development programs focusing on creative dance as a method of disability inclusion practices, movement and dance to support sensory and social self-regulation, autobiography and performance, community oral histories, and creative dance for narrative building.  She is a member of the Marin County Integrated Learning Specialist Program Advisory Board and the Alameda County ILSP Planning and Implementation Committee.  As a Communication Therapist, Rebecca specializes in Autism Spectrum Disorders and Alternative Augmentative Communication. Her commitment to using the arts is deepened by her experience raising a child on the autism spectrum and witnessing the transformative power of play.

LEADERSHIP GOAL:  to develop leadership and advocacy skills for dance within the arts integration movement by articulating and providing evidence for the uses of dance to support language development, abstract conceptual thinking, and social-emotional reciprocity practices.

Jennifer Oliver holds a B.A. in dance from University of California, Irvine, and a M.A. in Expressive Arts Therapy from the European Graduate School. Jennifer has choreographed and performed both locally and internationally receiving a Sator Arts Grant for her performance series Artful Happenings Abound!  As an educator and therapist Jennifer has provided creative dance education and artful practices for students and adults for the past 18 years. From 2005 – 2015 Jennifer served as the Associate Director for Young Audiences of San Diego where she co-founded and directed the Arts Education Resource Organization (AERO) and the Teaching Artist Institute of San Diego. Jennifer is the San Diego representative for the statewide initiative, Teaching Artist Support Collaborative and serves on the National Arts Education Council for Americans for the Arts.

LEADERSHIP GOALS: As I create a ten-year comprehensive dance and youth development curriculum for low-income students in North County San Diego,  I hope to receive critical feedback and support from my peers to help solidify my work, write and publish my thinking online and conduct workshops in support of dance in youth development for the local community.

Rosemary Hannon is a performer, choreographer and dance teacher. Since 1996, she has taught a variety of dance forms, improvisation and composition throughout the San Francisco Bay Area at dance studios and schools and for non-profit arts organizations. Rosemary has also been teaching Contact Improvisation since her first collaboration with Vitali Kononov in 2004 at the American Dance Festival including at the West Coast Contact Improvisation Festival and Jam, CounterPULSE, ODC School, Eighth Street Studios, Finnish Hall, Sierra Contact Festival and the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation. In 2004, Rosemary completed her MA in arts-integrated teaching from University of San Francisco. From 1996-2005 she taught music and dance in public elementary schools for Young Imaginations, an arts education non-profit and from 2005-2007 she was on the faculty of Luna Dance Institute and managed their studio dance program. Since 2007, Rosemary has been teaching dance at Cragmont Elementary in Berkeley Unified School District. She teaches stand alone, standards-based dance for all grades and works with classroom teachers at Cragmont to integrate dance into other core subject areas.

LEADERSHIP GOAL: Working with this cohort will help me to articulate dance goals (for both in-person advocacy and for writing articles and grants) at the school, district and larger dance education community level in order to help create a more comprehensive district-wide dance program in Berkeley Unified.

Through dance, movement, music and T’ai Chi Ch’uan, Greacian Goeke has been inciting the abundant creativity of older adults and younger collaborators for the past 25 years. She states that she is inspired every day to see creative expression awaken the whole person. In 2008 Greacian founded Impromptu No Tutu, an improvisational ensemble ages 50 – 90. Their “dance as you are” mission is to nurture creative aging through dance in community and to bring the joy of participatory dance and music to all ages. At Mills College Children’s School, Greacian teaches music and movement to 2- to 5-year-olds and directs an Orff Schulwerk program for classroom teachers and graduate students to strengthen music and movement skills across the curriculum. For nine months in 1996, she donned a hard hat as theater and music Artist in Residence at the San Francisco “dump” through the Make Art Not Landfill program, and collaborated with 15 elementary schools. The spirit of ingenious re-use continues to permeate her work. Greacian performs with Dance Generators, the University of San Francisco’s intergenerational outreach ensemble based in the Department of Performing Arts and Social Justice. She holds an M.F.A. from California College of Arts, a B.A. from Cornell University and a Level III Certificate in Orff Schulwerk, Greacian has trained in modern dance, percussion, improvisation and choral singing, with additional training in Dalcroze Eurythmics at Carnegie Mellon University. She is past president of the Northern California American Orff-Schulwerk Association.

LEADERSHIP GOAL: To develop skills and create a business structure that will best guide me to a new level: reaching more elders and working with allied programs in creative aging, quality of life care and intergenerational community building through dance.

Yukie Fujimoto was Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance at Mills College, Oakland from 2009 to 2014. She taught all levels of ballet and modern, Hawaiian Hula ‘Auana and Costume Design for Dancers. As the Artistic Director of Mills Repertory Dance Company (MRDC) she produced and rehearsed works by Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Brenda Way, Mo Fenley, Katie Faulkner, Sean Curran and Wanjiru Kamuyu. Her choreography has been featured in MRDC and selected for the 2013 ACDFA West Regional Gala Concert. She was a senior company member with ODC/Dance from 1999-2005 and assisted in restructuring the ballet program for ODC School. Yukie has performed works by Sonya Delwaide, David Allan, Ulysses Dove, Barak Marshall, and Sue Li Jue and performed in companies including Colorado Ballet, Chinese Performing Artists of America and Hula Halau o’ Ku’uleinani. She was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Performance by an Individual in 2002 and Outstanding Achievement in Performance by an Ensemble in 2010 for her performance in works by Delwaide. Yukie graduated summa cum laude from UC Berkeley in English and completed her graduate fellowship at UC Irvine with an MFA in dance choreography. She received her certification in Costume Design from Cañada College. Currently, she is a mother of three and her interests include choreography, somatic practices, dance education and child development.

LEADERSHIP GOAL: Implement a new sustainable dance program for underserved children in Oakland, California and to expand her skills as an effective leader who makes an impact.

Rebecca Weisser Cervantes has been teaching dance to kids and adults all over San Francisco since 1994. She started at the Mission YWCA teaching Hip Hop to Mission Girls, worked with adults at Rhythm & Motion, parents and their toddlers at the LGBT Center, and now teaches at schools throughout the districtand at The Marsh Youth Theater(MYT). She is the Executive Director of Moving Beyond Productions (MBP), a non-profit 501(c)3 that is devoted to bringing Dance and other art forms to underserved, economically disadvantaged kids throughout San Francisco.  Rebecca has a B.A. from UC Santa Cruz in Politics and studied Modern Dance throughout college. She studied African-Haitian at City College San Francisco, San Francisco State University and at studios in New York. She performs diverse forms of dance, including Hip Hop, Salsa, Hula, Modern, Kathak, and Jazz.  As co-director of Mixtiso Latin Hip Hop from 2002-2010, Rebecca performed and choreographed pieces for many diverse shows and venues. She choreographs, directs and sometimes performs with her advanced students from Moving Beyond Productions(MBP) at various events throughout San Francisco, and annually for Dia de los Muertos and Carnaval.

LEARNING IN LEADERSHIP

“I acknowledge my spheres of influence and am expanding them. I realized that I have the right and the responsibility to demand better teaching situations.”

I changed my focus from a singular project to an overall view of expanding my non-profit. Through Luna’s coaching guidance, my small project of trying to help Moscone Elementary School become more of a dance school to a deeper change in my way of doing business with the schools as a dance teaching artist. I become more empowered to use MOVING BEYOND productions (MBP) as my dance teaching business, rather than letting schools decide how to employ me. As a result of that shift, I am using MBP to help schools get funding for their programs. It is a win-win situation with the schools and my non-profit.

Meg Glaser Terán is a dance-teaching artist currently working with The Wooden Floor (TWF), All the Ars for All the Kids, and VSA California.  She uses the Create, Perform and Respond framework, developing awareness of each student’s unique contribution to the class community.  Meg worked with Luna’s Building Cultures of Dance Initiative to develop three family dance programs in collaboration with TWF, the Migrant Education program of Anaheim City School District, and Active Learning.  As a dancer, Meg has worked with choreographers Beth Burns, Gina Angelique, Shyamala Moorty, heather Gillette, Belinda Cheng, Cheryl Banks-Smith, Victoria Marks, MelanieRios Glaser and Sarah Swenson.  A bilingual educator, she previously taught second and third grade for eight years.  In 2010, Meg was awarded Elementary Dance Educator of the Year from the Orange County Music and Arts Administrators.  She holds a BA in World Arts and Cultures from UCLA and an MA in Education from Chapman University.

LESSONS OF LEADERSHIP

“Success and failure are both fleeting and the work of our lives is not defined by either one.” 

Last year at this time, I contemplated leaving the field of dance education because I was not earning enough to support the family. This year, I am working 5-6 days each week teaching dance without a perception of scarcity any more. At each place I work I feel respected and fairly compensated, something I want every woman to experience in her work. When we met with Vicky LaBoskey at the 3-day summit, she [helped us see] the journey of becoming the educator/leader/artist that we envision; and that we don’t have to get off the road because we can’t be that educator/leader/artist right exactly now. It was enlightening to see that all of those years in the classroom and all of the dance learning of my students were essential to the journey toward providing the education that I believe all students deserve. I’m not there yet, but while before I was ashamed to be so far from my vision; now I am proud to be working, sweating, dreaming, reflecting urging myself and my students to keep going as I find my way on the path.

Avilee Goodwin has taught dance to a wide range of students for many years. She taught for over two decades at a small neighborhood dance studio in San Francisco, but has focused most of her career on bringing dance into public schools. She initiated a dance program at Hercules Middle School, then created and directed the dance program at East Oakland School of the Arts (EOSA), a small, arts-focused public high school for disadvantaged youth in the inner city. During EOSA’s seven-year span, dance studentsthere participated in adjudicated dance festivals and helped present dance education
workshops to teachers in the district as well as statewide and nationally. Ms. Goodwin’s focus on guiding young artists to develop their creative voices bore fruit as EOSA students were able to create effective and moving dance works expressing their life experiences. Since EOSA lost its arts programs, she now teaches at United For Success Academy, a public middle school in Oakland.  Mrs. Goodwin also has presented workshops at state and national conferences, serves as the Northern California coordinator for the National Honor Society for Dance Arts, and recently spearheaded a PLC meeting group for K12 dance teachers in the East Bay and Marin. In her non-teaching dance life, she has performed with Ruth Botchan’s Hawkins-based modern dance company and a hula halau, as well as 20 years with Westwind Folk Ensemble. Currently she studies Duncan dance with Lois Flood with an eye toward passing on Isadora’s dance legacy.

LEADERSHIP LESSONS

“In many ways I have come full circle–but along the way I have gained so many insights and so much more faith in myself as a leader and advocate that I am in no way the same person I imagined I would be when I finally got here.”

One of the biggest areas of learning for me may have been how many forms advocacy can take–from talking about the value of dance education to specific school administrators, to beginning a long conversation among dance educators regarding our common frustrations with advocacy, to something as simple as responding to an article in the teachers’ union magazine (when the author neglected dance in the typical “art and music” formulation). Another huge area of learning for me was that I can still be a dance education leader and advocate, even at a time when my students were so difficult that I [lost confidence] as a teacher.  Avilee joined the leadership cohort after three frustrating years of trying to convince yet another school administrator to begin a dance program–a battle she had been fighting her entire career. She created exemplary programs only to have the district close the schools or shift priorities. As the leadership process came to a close, Avilee landed her dream job, once again growing a dance program at an urban high school, but this time with district support.