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Recommended Reading: Books on Choreography and Creative Practice
Igniting your creative spark As choreographers, it can be easy to feel burnout or bored...
Four Habits for Dance Studio Owners to Start in the First Six Weeks of Class
The importance of establishing good habits at the start of the dance season The beginning...
Four Habits for Dance Studio Owners to Start in the First Six Weeks of Class
This blog post highlights four habits for dance studio owners to start at the beginning of the dance season. Implementing them will not only help dance studio owners get their season off to a great start, but they will also make studio life much easier during the entire year. It is important as dance studio owners that we set healthy boundaries, lay out expectations, and develop good relationships with our students, families, and teachers. When these become habits – especially habits established at the beginning of the season – they become second nature for us and our students.
Dancers’ Wisdom: Respond with More Grace Than Necessary (Especially to Yourself)
Somehow, we've made it to 2022. And unfortunately, we're somehow still ... here. In whatever this is. I think we all know, all too well, the myriad problems in the world right now - no need to elaborate, is there? But what we don't always seem to know is how to...
Simple Ways to Improve Your Dance Improvisation Skills
In this blog post, you’ll find 10 strategies for improving your dance improvisation skills. These strategies will help beginning dancers overcome anxiety or fear related to improvisation, and allow experienced improvisers to find more depth, specificity, and originality in their improvisation. Help your improvisation stand out by using these 10 strategies for improving your dance improv skills.
10 Choreography Adventures that Explore Social Justice Themes
This set of social justice themed Choreography Adventures are designed to help dancers deepen their understanding of some of the terms, themes, and concepts related to social justice issues, while also encouraging their creative growth and personal expression. These choreography prompts are great to incorporate into your personal creative practice as a choreographer, but you can also use with your students in dance composition, choreography, improvisation, or dance technique classes. The Choreography Adventures can be used as prompts for student informal choreography assignments, formal projects, or as dance improvisation prompts.
Simple Ways to Celebrate Fall in Your Dance Classes
Fall is, for sure, my favorite season – and I know I’m not the only one! Even here in Southern Arizona, there is a special magic to the fall season. The air becomes crisper, the nights cooler, and an overall feeling of coziness prevails…despite temperatures that still reach the high 80s on the regular! Our dance students pick up on the fall vibes, too. You can feel their excitement grow stronger and stronger as we slip into October. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hanukkah, and winter break start looming large in their minds. Planning some special fall dance activities in your classes is a great way to tap into their excitement and focus their energy, keeping them engaged and learning through the season.
8 Easy Ways to Make the Most of Back-to-Dance Season
The start of a new dance season is one of my favorite things in the world. The energy is electric and the possibilities feel endless. I love the potential that a fresh start holds: the potential for my students to meet their individual goals, for my class to come together as a community, and for myself to establish good habits that can preserve my work-like balance and reduce burnout later in the year. In celebration of the potential that the season holds, here are 8 of my favorite ways to make the most of back-to-dance season, along with tips and resources for implementing each in your dance classes.
Dancers’ Wisdom: The World Needs More You
One of my favorite things about being a dance teacher is helping my students develop their own creative expression through improvisation and choreography. My entire relationship to dance changed when I discovered these two artistic avenues, and I know first hand how...
My Favorite Team-Building Games for Dance Classes
Team-building dance games help students develop collaboration, communication, and creative skills as they work together to meet a shared challenge. Not only are these skills important in the dance studio, but they will also serve our students well in their lives outside the studio. When students tap into these skills sets and learn to be part of a community, they grow as artists and individuals. Making time for team-building dance games is an important way that we can set our students up for success in their art and in their lives. In this blog post, you’ll find 3 of my favorite team-building dance games that will help you create a strong and supportive community in your dance classes, as well as other resources that will make your back-to-dance season a success!
Your Ultimate Guide to Dance Lesson Planning
In this blog post, you’ll find essential things to remember when creating dance lesson plans, as well as some tips for making the lesson planning process easier for dance teachers of all ages, skill levels, and dance genres. By following the tips in the post, you’ll be able to design more effective dance lesson plans that keep your students engaged in their training and improving their skills!
Dancers’ Wisdom: Saying No as a Sign of Wisdom, Not Weakness
It's been a while since my last #MonthlyMessage post - over three months, to be exact. March, April, and May passed in a blur, busy with commitments including choreographing my first full-length musical, teaching my regular workload, assisting with the staging of La...
8 Things Your Dance Students Need to Hear From You Right Now
The way we speak to our students can make a big difference in how they think about themselves. They internalize our words, and it can often become part of their own inner monologue. That self-talk becomes extremely important, as it helps them define who they are and their relationship to dance. Choosing the right things to say – about our students’ bodies, appearance, and dancing – can be crucial to their overall feel-being. In this blog post, I will share 8 phrases that should become part of how you talk to your dance students at this point in time, or whenever they are facing challenges in their dance training or personal life. These phrases can have a big impact on your students’ well-being, especially when combined with a conscious approach to our language overall.
4 Creative Ways to Use Dance Improvisation in Technique Class
In a perfect world, all students would have a stand alone dance improvisation class every week. Of course, that is not always possible, as much as I might wish it was! Most students are introduced to improvisation during their dance technique classes. In this blog post, I’ll show you 4 creative ways to integrate improvisation into your dance technique classes, to help students develop their improvisational prowess alongside their technique skills.
Dancers’ Wisdom: Service is Love in Action
I did something that felt a little bit radical back in January: I bought a day planner. Yes, even in the midst of the continued uncertainty of these "pandemic times," I stepped out in faith and spent $25 on a fancy calendar. Things are returning to normal-ish here in...
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