No Child Left Dance-less
Teaching dance in public schools can be filled with joy—but not all the time. The endeavor has to have the support of school principals as well as access to excellent teachers. This month New York area folks will be able to see PS DANCE! a documentary that gives five examples where those two ingredients line up and every kid gets to dance.
Five master teachers in NYC schools—Catherine Gallant, Ana Nery Fragoso, Michael Kerr, Ani Udovicki, Pat Dye—reveal how they use contagious energy to instill the love of dance in their students. All the kids jump in willingly—the shy, the loud, the nerds, the jocks—and they move without fear or inhibition and they speak on camera about how dance stimulates the imagination.
Nel Shelby directed this film with an eye to the innocence of the children and generosity of the teachers. Jody Gottfried Arnhold, initiator of NYC’s blueprint for dance education (her motto has always been #danceforeverychild), was the mastermind behind the film, and Joan Finkelstein, former director of dance for that NYC Department of Education, was advisor.
For any dancer interested in teaching, this film is valuable and uplifting.
Tune it to where PS DANCE! will be shown:
• Friday, May 15 on Channel Thirteen at 10:30 pm,
• Sunday May 17 on WLIW21 at 3:30 pm and 10:00 pm
• Tuesday, May 26, at NJTV at 10:00 pm.
For more info and to view the trailer, click here.
More than once, when I'm sporting my faded, well-loved ballet hoodie, some slight variation of this conversation ensues:
"Is your daughter the dancer?"
"Actually," I say, "I am."
"Wow!" they enthuse. "Who do you dance with? Or have you retired...?"
"I don't dance with a company. I'm not a professional. I just take classes."
Insert mic drop/record scratch/quizzical looks.
You nominated your favorite dance moments so far in 2019, and we narrowed them down to this list. Now it's time to cast your vote to help decide who will be deemed our Readers' Choice picks for the year!
Voting is open until September 17th. Only one vote per person will be counted.
Just four years ago, the University of Southern California's Glorya Kaufman School of Dance welcomed its first class of BFA students. The program—which boasts world-class faculty and a revolutionary approach to training focused on collaboration and hybridity—immediately established itself as one of the country's most prestigious and most innovative.
Now, the first graduating class is entering the dance field. Here, six of the 33 graduates share what they're doing post-grad, what made their experience at USC Kaufman so meaningful and how it prepared them for their next steps:
The 2019–20 season is here, and with it more performances than any one person could reasonably catch. But fear not: We polled our writers and editors and selected the 31 most promising tickets, adding up to one endlessly intriguing year of dance.
