“Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free.”
– Rumi
Dance education serves as a powerful medium for expression, allowing students to communicate ideas and experiences through movement. The physical benefits are also substantial, offering improved flexibility, balance, and overall health. The collaborative nature of dance builds teamwork and empathy among participants, creating a supportive environment for personal and collective expression.
Beyond its physical and emotional advantages, dance enriches cognitive and cultural understanding. It sharpens intellectual abilities like memory, spatial awareness, and creative thinking, which are integral to both the artistic and academic aspects of learning. Dance provides insight into different traditions, promotes inclusivity and broadens learners’ perspectives on global cultures. Dance and movement education serves as a potent instrument, enabling students to delve into self-expression and discover their unique voices through the art of non-verbal communications.
Join us as we explore how our local teaching artists incorporate dance and movement in the classroom:
Moving Through Stories, Science, Math & More
Jessica McHugh, Teaching Artist
We are physical beings. We have bodies; and these bodies move us around. Our bodies can also communicate messages and stories to others. We know there are multiple modalities of learning- and in Sarasota County, teaching artists provide pathways for students to tap into kinesthetic expression!
Creative movement allows students to communicate and deepen comprehension of core content beyond paper and pencil tasks. Teaching artists can guide students to create movement sequences to demonstrate their understanding of key details of literary, expository and biographical texts as well as math and science concepts.
Students begin by explore vocabulary through an improvisational movement experience, and then learn a process to collaboratively create movement sequences that help the students construct and demonstrate their understandings. Then they practice the creative process using powerful grade level texts as their inspiration.
Not only is this process highly engaging and fun, it’s also an incredible assessment tool for teachers and a great way to build relationships in the classroom!
Click here to learn more about the dance programs offered by our top professional dance companies and local arts and cultural organizations!
English
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Chinese (Traditional)
French
German
Japanese
Korean
Kurdish (Kurmanji)
Spanish
Vietnamese