Workshops

The course offerings are for boys and girls alike, and no special dance training is needed at all. Participants need only arrive with active imaginations and dressed in clothes that they can move around in (loose pants or shorts)! Please contact me for pricing. Also, I am happy to help find grant sources for groups with little funding.

* For Arts Middle Schools- Please see the High School and Beyond offerings, as well. If your school offers a dance program, the high school workshops can be adapted for middle school dancers.

Kinetic Kids I
This is a one-hour creative movement experience for children aged five to eight. Through dance games, the children learn about basic dance concepts such as body parts and tempo. Most importantly, we explore the joy of moving our bodies through space to music! The children have an opportunity to assert their own creativity and make their own dances within a larger structure. For this class, I use world music created specifically for children. I introduce the various countries that the music comes from and give age-appropriate facts about those countries. If Kinetic Kids I is linked to the No Business Like Show Business! option (explained below), we create a short scarf dance to be performed for the young movers’ friends and family. Twenty children may participate in each session, with the supervision of their teachers.

Kinetic Kids II
Also a creative movement experience, this ninety-minute class is geared to nine- through twelve-year-olds. While the main focus of Kinetic Kids II is still to celebrate the joy of moving, we explore more advanced dance concepts such as effort and shape. More emphasis is placed on the children’s creativity and problem-solving skills with basic dance composition games. I use music from all over the world to accompany this class, as well, and integrate information about the music into the class. Twenty children may participate in each session, with the supervision of their teachers.

What’s Your Story?
This unique creative experience combines dance and creative writing for a minimum of three sessions (preferably ninety minutes each) with fourth- and fifth-graders, or grades six and up. After some ice-breaker movement games, the participants will explore the two art forms as creative and appropriate outlets for self-expression. Through structured creative writing exercises around themes such as “A time I felt empowered,” or “The best me,” they will create at least two writing samples. Then, we experiment with “physicalizing” their work. These sessions greatly emphasize each participant’s unique voice. Because of the comprehensive nature of What’s Your Story?, at least three sessions are required, with no more than fifteen participants. This offering works especially well with the No Business Like Show Business! option because the students perform work by and about themselves and their peers.

No Business Like Show Business!
Young people love the chance to show what they have learned and helped create.
Any of the above offerings can culminate in a performance-ready work that the children can show friends and family at a large event or in a small setting. To have a piece to perform at the end, simply commit to at least five sessions of one course with the same group of students. Within the five sessions, we will fully investigate the theme of the particular course as well as work on a final product to show off!