by Zoe Huey, Luna Teaching Artist

My first 90 days with Luna Dance & Creativity has been one of learning. As a teaching artist, I have deepened my understanding of how teaching dance is a creative practice of improvisation. In a room full of kids, my senses are wide open and far reaching. I am constantly attuning to the energetic environment of the classroom and tracking what curriculum emerges as students move freely through space. Teaching feels akin to being present and receptive in a creative process; both evolve from a place of inquiry in which arrival and discovery are on-going. Even with tasks that involve concrete and finished products, I feel encouraged to take a process-oriented approach. Observation and reflection are core to all aspects of my work with the organization. 

Working with preschoolers and transitional-kindergarteners, I commit to keeping playfulness alive in myself. As I get to know three, four, and five year olds, I simultaneously tend to my relationship with my kid-self. I learn to uproot and deconstruct expectations (including my own) around what “good” and “bad” behaviors look like in a dancing classroom. Luna makes space for what appears as chaos to be better understood as complexity and helps me adjust the lens I’m using to assess my students. The free body is a moving body, Luna always says. Dance is any and every movement big or small, ranging from breath, to eyes looking side to side, to moving a leg up and down to spinning through space. 

At Luna, my  learning process as a teacher is valued. I have access to resources, including mentorship and professional learning, that grow my identity and practice as a dance educator. I remember Patricia telling me, during my 45-day review, that the world doesn’t need teachers who are perfect, but who are strong learners. Rather than be overwhelmed by everything I don’t yet know, I can embrace my newness as a generative source of inquiry. I recently sat across from Patricia at Cafe Tomate for my 90-day review, and shared that I am more confident as a teacher than I was just three months ago. I feel more deeply how inquiry, authenticity, and the rigor of creativity (the three pillars of Luna’s Theory of Change) are daily and lifelong practices of leadership. 

I was recently hired as an improviser for a dance piece showing in San Francisco. Throughout the process I found myself exploring moves I’d seen students do. In my head I heard a voiceover of prompts that I gave students. I challenged myself to find new ways to follow the score given to me by the director, similar to the ways I encourage students to find another, and another, and another way to make big and small shapes. By teaching students that all movements can be dance movements, I create more space for possibility inside myself and quiet the voice of my self-critic. Everything I teach to others I must also teach to myself. 

While my relationship with Luna Dance & Creativity is still fresh, I have felt cared for, respected, and trusted in my role as Teaching Artist. My favorite part of the job is building relationships with the students, from whom I learn an imaginative and honest love of the world around me.

by Moriah Costa, Luna Teaching Artist

My Luna Journey began in the summer of 2023 right before the start of the current school year. I had previously been working as a dance teaching artist for the past five years as well as working as a freelance performer, and choreographer. However, my first exposure to Luna was through several artists who had previously worked for Luna when I was a student in the dance department at Mills College. I was immediately intrigued by the emphasis on exploration and creativity and how even the youngest and smallest of voices were heard and their ideas explored. For me, dance has always been more than a technique or craft. To me dance is a perspective, or a lens through which to observe life. 

Several years later, an opportunity to work as a dancing teaching artist at Luna arose and I leaped at the opportunity. Here was a chance to work with children outside of the studio, and in their own classrooms. The idea of being able to share the beauty of dance with students who may not be able to enroll in a studio class, or to reach kids who only think of dance as a tutu and ballet flats was exhilarating (even though yes, I will always love a great tutu). 

Even the hiring process at Luna reinforced in me the idea that this is where I wanted to be. The questions that I was asked about both children, dance, and education were filled with room for reflection, examination, and built for the inquisitive mind. After being hired, I began observing everything — other teaching artists at Luna, teachers in the school district, the children, etc. This allowed me to be able to build an appropriate curriculum that was guided by all of the wonderful minds at Luna. What I came to realize however, was that one of the most important qualities to be a successful teacher was adaptability. I had to find my flow, and get really comfortable with different aspects of improvisation. As an artist and just as a person in general I have never wanted to stay still very long, both literally and figuratively, and at Luna you have the opportunity to constantly grow as a teacher, and as an artist.

I could tell many classroom stories about my time with Luna, but the one I want to share today is about magic. I started working with a 3 year old student in a Special Ed classroom in January. I was “warned” from the beginning that this student was particularly challenging as he was incredibly resistant to anything new in the classroom environment. To the teaching staff, he was seen as a problem as he would often hinder the rest of the class’s ability to join certain activities. He wanted there to be “NO MUSIC”, “NO DANCE”, “NO MOVEMENT”. This became challenging, but I fully believed that there was a way for dance to touch the hearts of everyone in that classroom. 

It was dance class where this student became a leader. Over a period of about three months this student became the class motivator when it came to dance. On a particularly challenging day for his teachers, his mother was called to take him home as his teachers felt that his resistance began to disturb the class. However, his mom arrived during dance time and everything changed. She was called about a “disturbance” but when she arrived she witnessed her child smiling ear to ear and not only moving around the space, but naming every single movement. “I want to bounce”, “I’m going to melt to the ground”, “I want to reach with my arms”. The teachers, and his mother were amazed as they were not used to this level of communication from him. The principal then joined to speak to the mother about the disturbance, and what she found was a room full of laughing and dancing students, teachers, and the same parent who she wanted to speak with. “Mommy, burst with me!” He said as they both exploded in the air — both mother and son dancing together. The principal watched in amazement. Smiling, she told me, “I just witnessed magic.” While their joy and surprise was exhilarating I was not surprised that day. I wasn’t surprised, because I have the joy of watching magic* happen all of the time in both the smallest and biggest of examples at Luna. In less than a year my love and passion for dance education has grown in ways I didn’t even believe possible. To see children be recognized for their unique and individual creativity is simply priceless. 

*Magic: A term used to describe a breakthrough moment in Arts education that is thought of , planned, researched, tested, and carefully crafted. However, to a new observer it often is described as a magical moment.