When your opinions don’t hold sway with your students, consider using Heather’s approach and have your dancers listen their way in to the work of famous choreographers.
K-12
“I Hate Dance;” Finding Common Ground
The discovery of movement is a glorious thing. But what about students who don’t have an innate love for dance? Heather rethinks how she presents improvisation based on what we all have in common — bodies and the need to communicate.
Working the Numbers: Math Problem-Solving in Dance
K-12 dance educator, Heather Vaughan Southard shares two very different ways she incorporates math and problem-solving into her dance education classes: dancing fractions and budgeting for a production.
Creating Classroom Choreography with Purpose
There are three major strands through which we experience dance: Create, Perform, and Respond. Heather describes how she’s been addressing these with her K-12 dance elective students to create a window into their depth of knowledge and to cultivate expression.
Graphs and Charts in the Studio Classroom
Are you using visual aids like graphs and charts to reinforce concepts in your dance classes? After all, dancers are often visual learners. Here are five traditional academic aids which can be put to good use in the studio.
Blurred Lines: New Trends in Dance Training
It’s harder than ever to classify dance performance neatly into genres. As a result, our training methods deserve a new approach. Here is how educator, Heather Vaughan-Southard is rethinking tradition and empowering her students.
