The state of Colorado has set forth six content standards for dance education in its public schools: (1) students will understand and demonstrate dance skills; (2) students will understand and apply the principles of choreography; (3) students will create, communicate, and problem solve through dance; (4) students will understand and relate the…

Describes the history of the Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) Dance Company, known as PHILADANCO, founded in the early 1970s by Joan Myers Brown at her Philadelphia School of Dance. PHILADANCO has sought to discover and train a corps of local Black dancers to build a strong dance company and important cultural institution. (AF)

A history of the outstanding K-12 dance program in Vancouver, Washington, is provided, including various strategies used to promote its growth from a few pilot elementary schools through middle schools to an arts magnet high school. Numerous changes have been weathered by the professional dance staff, including certification challenges instigated…

This article evaluates strengths and limitations of some studio training. It focuses on values that private studio students bring to the public school setting. One teacher uses this as an opportunity to reflect on and claim her own values and desire to develop students as artists.

This critical analysis focuses on the movement vocabulary and interaction of dancers in selected sections of the filmed version of "White Man Sleeps" (1988) by Siobhan Davies. The choreography is divided into five distinct parts, in accordance with divisions in the musical accompaniment from which the piece takes its name, a suite of…

For female students and professional dancers, dance imposes a low body-weight image. Despite high energy needs, many female dancers consume fewer nutrients than recommended when they perceive themselves as overweight. These abnormal behaviors can lead to malnutrition, dehydration, and vitamin deficiencies, or even to medical problems such as…

Creative dance improvisation involves both the movement of the body with awareness and the awakening of the creative spirit. The basic elements of creative dance improvisation--force, time, and space--are examined with a view toward how this approach to dance can be a means for growth in the general education of anyone throughout their lives.…

Suggestions for teaching improvisational dance in a nonthreatening way are offered. (DF)

This document outlines the performance standards for dance in North Dakota public schools, grades K-12. Four levels of performance are provided for each benchmark by North Dakota educators for K-4, 5-8, and 9-12 grade levels. Level 4 describes advanced proficiency; Level 3, proficiency; Level 2, partial proficiency; and Level 1, novice. Each grade…

Dance should be seen as an authentic avenue for allowing students to learn kinesthetically by using movement that is essential to brain development. Ideally students would be exposed to dance forms and patterns in other art forms like music and drama as well as units within physical education classes. These North Dakota standards may be taught…

Five articles discuss the use of computers in dance and dance education. They describe: (1) a computerized behavioral profile of a dance teacher; (2) computer-based dance notation; (3) elementary school computer-assisted dance instruction; (4) quantified analysis of dance criticism; and (5) computerized simulation of human body movements in a…

Questions who decides what a culturally literate person needs to know and its social implications. Comments on the lack of dance references in E. D. Hirsch's book, "Cultural Literacy." Discusses what a person needs to know about dance. Analyzes dance as art in the context of cultural literacy's requirements. (KM)

Physical education teachers enjoy the special privilege of guiding children to discover unique ways for expressing and communicating ideas, attitudes, thoughts, and emotions through movement. Creative dance lets children explore movement possibilities limited only by one's imagination. Individually and collectively, creative dance encourages…

This essay discusses issues of cultural difference in dance studies and presents specific pedagogical strategies for engaging the students' embodied knowledge as a research tool in both historical and cross-cultural investigations. (Contains 2 notes.)

UK Higher Education Institutions are being required to reflect on the balance between academic and vocational aspects of their course provision and to identify more clearly how they are preparing their students for employment. This is not a simple matter. The UK arts and cultural sector is highly complex, with the characteristic features of a…