Dance Educators Forum

Connecticut Dance Alliance offers comprehensive educational professional development opportunities for dance educators, dance professionals and K-12 teachers to enhance their skill sets in the area of dance and movement techniques, dance pedagogy, and lesson planning. The Connecticut Dance Alliance is a statewide organization which offers educational and networking events to promote dance education incorporating the most current practices and pedagogies.

Tools for a Moving Classroom proved to be an amazing event for all who attended in 2019! We look forward to holding future Dance Educators’ Forums!

Here’s a clip of this year’s event (presenter’s bios are listed below)

Cheryl Wirth Santulli, who serves on the dance faculty at the Waterbury Arts Magnet School, will lead a workshop on the Simonson Technique in the K-12 Classroom. This workshop will guide teachers through the main principles of Simonson technique – an organic approach to movement that prepares the body to dance in a way that is anatomically intelligent and somatically aware – and also touch upon ways to integrate these principles into their classroom.

Merly De La Hoz-Cookson, a Colombian-born dance instructor and choreographer who has performed in over 400 local, regional, national and international dance showcases, will present Afro-Colombian Dance: Immerse in a Cultural Excursion. Participants in this workshop will have the opportunity to acknowledge cultural diversity through traditional Colombian dance and explore its meaning and transcendency throughout history while learning teaching methods to make the dance experience relevant. 

Diana Dart Harris, an adjunct professor of dance at the University of New Haven and Naugatuck Valley Community College, will lead a workshop on nutrition for dancers. Harris, author of  the college textbook Beginning Musical Theatre Dance  and The Healthy Dancer blog, will present information on balanced eating; nutrition for optimal health before, during and after exercise; the effects of sugar on the body; and proper hydration. Suggestions for helping students develop healthy relationships with food will also be provided, as will information about eating disorders and the role of the educator when an eating disorder is suspected.