Life as a Modern Dancer

Category: Blog Series: Becoming a Teaching Artist

  • The View from ADF: With Anne Green Gilbert

    At the age of 69, this is my first experience at ADF! Summer has always been my busiest season – raising children and directing the Creative Dance Center, Kaleidoscope Dance Company, and Summer Dance Institute for Teachers in Seattle, Washington. This summer, I was very honored to receive the Balasaraswati/Joy Ann Dewey Beinecke Chair For…

  • The 2nd Annual On/Line Teen Dance Film Festival, Presented by The Hamlin School in San Francisco

    Work with teens? Check out these "dance for the camera" projects made by middle school and high school students this school year.  How can we blend dance and technology? How do screendance films offer new perspectives, choreographic tools and options, and opportunities for bravery and risk-taking? Check out films by teens at: The Hamlin School…

  • Speaking as a Teaching Artist: Amy Chavasse, Gerri Houlihan, Rogelio Lopez, Samsam Yung, and Michelle Boule

    Today we share ideas from teaching artists living in four different regions of the country. Click on any artist's name to read his/her full artist profile. Samsam Yung From Amy Chavasse (Ann Arbor, MI) Restlessness and curiosity remain incentives for my practice as an educator, dance maker, performer and improviser. My practice, training, research and embrace…

  • The Playlist Project: More Music for Middle School Dance Classes

      From Blog Director Jill Randall: As I wrap up the school year in San Francisco, teaching 135 students in grades 6th-8th, here are some songs we have been using lately. I usually play a lot of current music, but it has been fun playing some music from a few years back, as well as…

  • Speaking as a Teaching Artist: Banning Bouldin, Jo Kreiter, Elisa Monte, and Pamela Quinn

    Pamela Quinn teaching a PD Movement Lab Banning Bouldin (Nashville, TN) What do you love about teaching? What challenges you?  A few months ago, I decided to step back from teaching to investigate more deeply what distinguishes my teaching process from my choreographic process. I find it’s the sharing and empowering of dancers to teach…

  • Speaking as a Teaching Artist: Jodi Melnick, Tiffany Mills, Kathleen Wessel, and Liz Lerman

    Tiffany Mills                                   Photo: Julie Lemberger 2015, at NYU Tisch School of the Arts   What is the interplay between teaching and choreographing for you?   What does the term “teaching artist” mean to you?   Jodi Melnick (New…

  • Speaking as a Teaching Artist: Gwen Welliver, Joan Woodbury, Rashaun Mitchell, and Susan Marshall

    Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Reiner Today we read inspiring quotes from four artists who have shared their stories on the blog during the past year. Click on any name below to read the full artist profile. From Gwen Welliver (New York, NY and Tallahassee, FL) The role of teaching in your career and what the term…

  • Building a Dance Company: On The Topic of Educational Programming

    http://alexandrabellerdances.org/summer-intensive/ Master classes, workshops, or weekly classes? Adults, kids, or teens? They are many ideas and options when it comes to developing an educational program with your dance company. The value of an educational component – under the umbrella of your company’s name – builds connections, relationships, visibility, audience members, and future dancers in your…

  • Becoming a Teaching Artist: Liz Lerman’s Online Toolbox

    As stated on its website, The D|Lab is an interactive online portal to Dance Exchange tools and methods for creativity, choreography, and collaboration. Created by Dance Exchange in association with Liz Lerman, this intersection of dance and digital media seeks to educate, engage, and illuminate.  If you have ever studied with Liz Lerman or the…

  • For College Students and Recent Grads: Now Next Dance This Summer

    On Tuesdays we dance in and through Support, including the simple and powerful counterbalance. Photo by Alison Waldman. By Ashley Thorndike-Youssef, PhD Think SUMMER! Seven years ago, I decided I wanted to make a contribution to dance summer study and I thought to myself: What’s the point of summer study? What do dancers need? What…