Today's post comes from Valerie Gutwirth, a master teaching artist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Valerie currently teaches in the Berkeley Unified School District.

I am tinkering with the progression of my dance classes, trying to streamline transitions in an effort to have More Time More Dancing (the ultimate goal, always). Starting with a Yoga Pose of the Week (with a picture on the board as inspiration) that students try independently as they get to their warmup spots (Can you hold the pose for six breaths? Try this pose at different levels? Combine it with other poses we’ve done?). Going across the floor to end class rather than just after the warm up, using National Dance Institute’s way of having dancers run down the aisles of a performance space, go onstage, do a big leap crossing center stage, and then coming down the other side (or stay onstage for a performance dance). I envision getting good enough at that last one to have two dancers at a time go onstage from opposite sides and leap across each other. There’s a Big Performance Idea of having all 60 fourth grade students do this as the beginning of a performance piece to Prince’s "Gonna Be A Beautiful Night." We’ll see what arises!

To read more about Valerie:

Valerie Gutwirth's artist profile

My Dance Week: Valerie Gutwirth

Book: Dance Education Essentials (By Valerie Gutwirth and Jill Randall)

——-

Related posts:

Ten Resources for Teaching Artists As We Prepare for the New School Year

——————