Behind the Curtain Blog

By Daniel Levi-Sanchez, a Dancer/Educator living with Myasthenia Gravis ~~ When I taught dance to the 5th graders at The Paul Robeson School in Brooklyn, my objective was less about teaching them how to dance and more about teaching them how to solve problems as a group. I did this .......

By Ann Rodiger, Founder and Director of Balance Arts Center~~ As a former loosey-goosey bendy dancer, who has since had two hip replacements, I want to spread the word about how to be alert to and work with dancers with hypermobility. While teaching ...

By Kendall Baab, MSc., Personal Dance Trainer and Dance Scientist, BodyKinect: The Synergy of Science and Dance ~~ Do you ever have a dancer that you just can't figure out how to teach? They can't increase their turnout, they can't lift their leg higher, and they can’t stay on a high relevé. No matter how ....

By Tamara Irving, Educator, Atlanta Public Schools; Consultant, TMI Design & Consulting ~~ Have you ever reflected on these questions when thinking about your students? Are there many students in my class who actually don’t love to ‘dance’? How many dancers would rather ....

By Yi An, PhD Student, University of Hawaii at Mānoa ~~ Passing through a series of competitive selections, I began my full-time professional dance training in Beijing at the age of 12. The actual reason I attended the professional dance school was simply because...

By Connie Bergstein Dow, Dance Educator and Author ~~ Over my long career as a dance educator, I have especially enjoyed teaching creative dance to young children. I love inspiring their enormous and fertile imaginations to explore ideas.....

By Terrel, Author/Publisher at OnceUponADance.com ~~ As the U.S. slowly opens up again, creative movement teachers will crave activities that keep each little dancer in their own separate space. Here are some ideas....

By Nikki Allred Boyd, Dance Teacher and Musical Theatre Director, Pine Crest School ~~ But what about the academic side of things? What can dance do for the mind and how does that translate academically.....

By Lindsay Daniels, Dance Teacher with the Durham District School Board ~~ Earlier in my career, I used to get this question often from parents. Although I knew the transformative and meaningful impact dance education can have, the masses just didn’t get it. From parents, to colleagues, students that were ....

By Anabella Lenzu, Dancer, Choreographer, Writer and Teacher ~~ The period of my greatest creative and technical growth as a dancer came over the course of four years (1995-1999) in my home city of Bahia Blanca, Argentina, where I directed my own school, “L’Atelier” Centro Creativo de Danza. Every morning I would teach...

By MaryAnne Fernandez Herding, Chair of Dance, Xavier College Prep and Director/Founder, Movement Source Dance Company  - The onset of Covid-19 in our world limited a lot of the things I was used to doing. Being an active dance teacher, running a non-profit dance company, and being very social with a full calendar, in mid-March of 2020 my life shifted quite a bit, as did many of our lives. I found myself delving into things I had put on a back burner. I had time to think about, “What can I do t...

By Dr. Meredith Sims, Associate Professor of Dance, Coker University - Just like most, I am ready to “get back to normal.” Although, I’m not sure what this means anymore. What was normal? Will it ever be that again? Should it be? The disparity among our students was highlighted by the pandemic - unreliable wifi, unsafe living situations, lack of support, mental health concerns - all impacted student learning. Educators have been exhaustingly navigating the changing landscape with ingenuity, e...

By Lindsay Herring, Director of Middle and High School Fine Arts/Dance Instructor, Brooks County High School. Like many other dance educators nationwide, I find myself teaching a unit on choreography to intermediate and advanced dancers each year. These dancers are mastering their craft and honing their skills in real ways, yet I find myself wondering: Are they utilizing their emotions and creativity to start the process? Are these students, new to the craft of choreography, actually using their...

By Kathleen Kingsley Baez, Executive Artistic Director, MoveWest Center for Movement Exploration. Those of us who teach dance are able to observe evidence of student personal growth that may not be as obvious in other areas of study. How one moves through space offers unique insights into personality, intent, sense of self, and evidence of how one accepts challenges. With that in mind, I would like to tell you about two Syrian students I have had the privilege to teach, Farah al Haddad and Abdul...

Karen Forss Hogan, Director, Galliope Creative Movement. It's cringeworthy how seriously I took my job when I first started teaching early childhood dance twenty-five years ago. I was a try-hard with a catastrophic fear of falling short of my own expectations. You’d think two to five year olds were a population that wouldn’t stress me out, but like everything else, they did. When asked to teach a series of classes in a small rural preschool north of town, as customary, I over-prepared. I h...