“Three years later I landed the job that people told me I would never have—public school dance teacher.” – M.K. Victorson

M.K. Victorson’s experience as a dancer-performer to public school dance teacher reflects the skills of tenacity and relationship forming necessary to survive in this career. She is proud to say that she has maintained a career in dance education since the ‘90s. Living in Chicago and working in the public schools since 1998, M.K.started as a teaching artist for Hubbard Street Dance, then pursued education to become a certified elementary school teacher, and finally landed a hard-to-procure job as a public school dance/drama teacher. Presently, she teaches dance full-time to grades K-8 as a Chicago Public Schools teacher at Franklin Fine Arts Magnet Center.

For over 10 years, M.K. worked as a teaching artist at Hubbard Street Dance’s Education and Youth programs in Chicago. Wanting to pursue public education she returned to school to become a certified elementary teacher. At first she imagined, “ I would teach 4th grade and be an interesting, creative, wacky teacher of math and reading and everything.” There were a handful of people teaching dance in public schools but people told her she would never get those jobs because there were so few positions. However, while still in her graduate program and working as a teaching artist, M.K participated in Luna’s 2005 Summer Institute in hopes of shedding light on her next steps.

M.K. came with important questions about education and the arts: “How do I make my dance classes more democratic? I was in school and thinking and questioning all of the traditional constructs of school and wondering how I would challenge them in my own classroom.” This is an area of inquiry she still has today. “I will always have it. As I continue to teach in public school, I think reflecting and critiquing my practice in regards to how I engage all the learners in the room is an ongoing dialogue.”

While at Summer Institute, M.K.came to appreciate a developmentally-appropriate approach to dance education. At that point in her career, M.K. had been teaching early childhood dance classes for years. Her lessons focused on the importance of creative dance, coming up with fun ideas. M.K wasn’t in the practice, at the time, of paying attention to the developmental stages of children and using that awareness to guide her dance classes. By doing so, it helped her formulate an initial scope and sequence for her dance curriculum. “Today, I always return to Body, Mind & Spirit in Action by Patricia Reedy and the emphasis on educating young dancers from a child development perspective. When I find myself struggling with a group of students, I go back to reading about what children are learning, doing and interested in at age 5, at age 8, at 13 and so one.”

The Summer Institute put the pieces of curriculum writing and dance education together, allowing her to bridge dance content knowledge with education. The impact of that summer would shift how she thought about her career and dance education. “I returned thinking about dance as a core subject in elementary education. I no longer saw dance education as an extra but as a vital part of learning. I began to see myself as having a future as a dance educator.” Three years after her graduate program she would land the job that previously seemed inaccessible: public school dance teacher.

In the 20 years of living in Chicago, M.K. has formed relationships as a dance teacher and artist and learned that she is a great connector. In addition, she has leveraged her relationship building skills to connect dance artists with public school students.

“My professional relationships have allowed me to bring quality programming to my school from dance companies, arts organizations, and high schools. Though I am a quiet, introverted person at heart, my ability to connect has given me the confidence to say “you should come to my school and dance on our stage! We would love to have you!””

Seeing this area of strength in herself has helped her to grow beyond what she originally thought were her limitations. Her personal growth has contributed to her growth as a professional, pushing her to explore, learn and be a better teacher, collaborator, and arts advocate.

“Chicago Public School dance teachers are a small and tight knit community. We value our time together to share ideas and ask questions in a safe space.The dance teachers of Chicago will gladly come in on a Saturday to meet with their peers and share ideas or attend a workshop. I was very fortunate to have that at Luna for 10 days and I always treasure when I get those moments here.”  

“I am proud to be working in and advocating for quality arts education and public schools in this uncertain age.”

Erica Rose Jeffrey holds a powerful vision of dance. With degrees in both Ballet and Mediation & Conflict Resolution, she believes that dance can effect positive social change, and has dedicated her career to exploring and articulating the connection between movement, empathy and peace. Well-known in the Bay Area as a dance educator, Erica has taught for SF Ballet’s Schools and Communities program, Luna’s MPACT: Moving Parents and Children Together program, has directed Marin Dance Theater’s Let’s All Dance! Outreach program, and was instrumental in launching Marin’s Parkinson’s Dance Project. Her community dance work now takes her across the globe as the first professional dancer to be selected as a Rotary World Peace Fellow.

Currently living in Australia, Erica completed a Masters in International Relations Peace and Conflict Studies at Queensland University, with a focus on the role of arts in peacebuilding work, and is continuing her research as a PhD candidate, investigating the potential role of dance in youth peacebuilding initiatives in the Asia-Pacific. Partnering with the Peace and Conflict Studies Institute Australia, she has facilitated community dialogue and reconciliation projects throughout Brisbane and Papua New Guinea. To all of her community work Erica brings her unique Peace Moves workshops that focus on developing kinesthetic empathy and communication channels through movement and creative response. She speaks about the transformative capacity of dance in conflict resolution in her 2013 TEDTalk and shares this story about her peacebuilding work:

As part of my research I was involved in teaching creative dance workshops in combination with peacebuilding programs in the Philippines and Fiji. In one of them a young man ended up being partnered with a young woman for a mirroring activity. This program had a number of elements outside of the dance workshops which addressed gender equality and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. After the whole workshop week he shared with me that he had a changed perspective on the role of women, that he understood them more as equals, rather than just the ones serving food and looking after the homes. He said that the catalyst for his change in perspective was the mirroring activity in the dance workshop. For me, these moments of learning of exchange and of development are inspiring, even if it is just small pockets of dance.

Erica also remains committed to Dance for Parkinson’s and has, over the last four years, established Dance for Parkinson’s Australia, which is affiliated with the Dance for PD program in the US. Working in collaboration across communities and industries they have been able to start community-based dance classes for people living with Parkinson’s, their carers and family members throughout Australia.

Ever-curious, Erica asks these questions as a dancer, educator, researcher and peacebuiling facilitator, and challenges us all to rise to the potential of dance and the dance community: How can we continue to create inclusive environments for dance across community? How do we build the larger dance ‘community’ that transcends style or discipline and gives us greater political power as a group, and a louder voice in the arts and health debates and policy creation?

“Planting the seeds of a dance education is pivotal for the next generation’s development of competencies and creative skills in all areas of life.” -Tom Mayock

Making dance an integral part of an educational community takes time, persistence, commitment, structure, and creativity. And it is exactly what Tom Mayock is so excited about. For the past 7 years as a dance specialist (grades K-5) Tom has brought dance to children at schools in South San Francisco and Marin County, through the San Francisco Arts Education Project. “I find the work of a teaching artist singularly gratifying. The knowledge that I’ve influenced entire communities to embrace the dance arts and that everyone can dance, boys included, is essential [to] my well-being, and I believe theirs.” Tom’s childhood and youth were spent with the original people of the Pacific Northwest on a reservation in Washington State. Drum circles, sweat lodges, and men and boys groups profoundly impacted him and helped him foster an inner awareness of self. He draws upon his personal experience when learning and sharing various dance forms (non-Western & Western), and in providing creative space for boys to flourish. He noticed within three years some of the challenges that his boys’ faced dissolved due to sustained effort of his good intentions. He consciously integrates music and movement that he feels is “boy friendly” into his dance syllabus. As a male dancer and teacher he provides opportunities for them to see themselves as dancers.

What is the role of set choreography and creative dance in curriculum? How and when can they support each other? How do they support student confidence, creativity, and expression? These questions reflect Tom’s personal journey to discover how his strong background in choreography and performance can be supported by a creative dance approach in teaching and student learning. Tom has been developing his teaching syllabus for over 7 years, using a combination of creative dance and stylized dance forms to provide creative opportunities for his students. Influenced by students, teachers and music, he adjusts to meet the needs and interests of the students yearly. However, he didn’t always work this way. In 2012, with the encouragement of a fellow dance colleague and Summer Institute alum, Tom participated in Luna’s Summer Institute where he investigated how a creative dance model could be integrated with a set choreography and performance approach. He discovered how dance elements and dance vocabulary can be utilized to explore and express choreographic intent. For example when teaching choreography he might say, “punch the sky, stomp the ground” as visual metaphor to evoke a certain quality necessary for a dance.

Tom is most proud of his ability to get a community excited about dancing. He appreciates the many opportunities he has had to interact with so many students and their families. The role of set choreography in building community has been successful for him. Currently, he is excited about the possibilities of choreographic inspiration in this modern age with video game dance. Using accessible choreography from Wii Workouts and Just Dance has become part of his teaching approach that is exciting to the communities of students he works with. “Being well rehearsed does that, like when you know a dance role so well that you can call upon the inner and higher self to instinctively respond to the conditions of the music, stage and artistic intention of the dance.”

At this point in his career he appreciates the stability he has in teaching. “Now, with stable contracts and a robust teaching syllabus I can have a life.” He has worked over the years to have strong committed relationships with his partner schools by having a strong syllabus, showing excellence in teaching and mentoring, staging shows, and working in the field for a long period of time. This has provided him with the much desired balance between work and personal life, which is so important for the sustainability of dance teaching artists. “What keeps me intrigued with this profession are the sneak peeks I get into a student’s experience, or a parent who shares with me a positive reflection about my class and their kid, or a knowing look of understanding and camaraderie from a classroom teacher.”

A veteran dance teacher with 20+ years of experience, Valerie has taught pre-k to elementary at several schools in Berkeley. Currently, the Dance Teaching Artist at John Muir Elementary, she is committed to ensuring all students in Berkeley Unified School System have access to the arts and specifically to dance.

Her dedication and advocacy for dance education has manifested in tiers. The first is the engaging and well-articulated dance programs she has provided elementary students. She shares that over the years, “they have become strong and sustained parts of the school community.” Also she works to ignite the creative fire in her students to continue dancing beyond the classroom. “My students end up in dance production class at Berkeley High School. They end up taking dance at different high schools and private studios, and pre-professional programs across the Bay Area. My sporty boys take classes and bring their friends.” Having the dance program throughout the grades K-5 for over 9 years at John Muir, students now assume dance is a part of school, and dance becomes part of their play. Valerie has been inspired by how students are dancing on the yard and found ways to connect it to learning in the classroom; students take what they learn in class and show it to their peers on the yard. Her participation in 2003 Summer Institute provided opportunities for her to unpack what it means to use a constructivist approach to build student knowledge around dance content and language they were already familiar with, expand their physical literacy with other kinds of literacy, and learn structures of inquiry around creative work. Through dance the expectation that students can think and move creatively is woven into the fabric of John Muir’s school community.

The second tier Valerie has had impact is at the collegial level. Teachers at her school site take dance learning into their classrooms. Sometimes that looks like bringing social dances back into their classes or both teachers integrating dance with math, science, and language arts. In addition to collaborating with classroom teachers Valerie invites parents to participate in students’ dance learning. Some of her parents have a background in traditional dance forms (i.e. Cueca from Chile, Moroccan dance, and Senegalese dance) and they will teach them directly to the students. In this way parents and classroom teachers become an additional dance resource for the school community. Where possible, Valerie likes to provide compensation to value their expertise and artistry. Along with involving parents, bringing in community dance groups is a top priority for Valerie. She first began this arts community-dance community link when she worked at Cragmont elementary because at that time the school had a large budget. Due to funding decreases across the district for arts, she now writes grants to bring community arts groups to her students.

The third tier of Valerie’s influence that has had momentum is in working with the professional dance teaching community in Berkeley. “I feel like I have been working on that for a long time – it started when I was leaving Cragmont 10 years ago.” She remembers having to participate in district-mandated professional learning days, but there was never anything for the dance teachers to do. She was very frustrated. When she moved to John Muir, her kids were older and she had more spaciousness and time to begin thinking about and advocating for dance teachers coming together for professional development. She has noticed an evolution in this area and most recently, when she took a sabbatical from 2015-2016 to investigate what dance looks like district-wide, it has developed more. Her research showed the inconsistencies in arts programming. The district over the years has VAPA coordinators interested in programming for all four disciplines, but limited in their capacity when their budget is only for music and there’s no budget for dance, drama, or art. During her sabbatical she went and observed five of the 7 other BUSD dance teachers. This was an opportunity to get to know each other, listen, learn and think about next steps. “The upshot of all of this was that the 8 of us, we’ve come up with advocacy strategies. We are using each other’s work for inspiration. Places where the district can grow its education, we are joining with community organizations like Berkeley Arts Education Steering Committee (BAESC) and Berkeley School Funds to help make dance programs comprehensive and better for students. We are also working to articulate dance from elementary to high school, [while] looking at how to address how Berkeley can grow as a school district that supports dance as one of the pillars of a rounded education for all students.”

Photo by Mike Melnyk