Just like the springtime buds about to bloom, we are getting closer and closer to opening our new studios! You can see some of the progress on our Leap, Land, Soar page, and we look forward to inviting community to various soft-opening events and workshops in our space over the spring and summer (see below), and our grand opening and ribbon cutting on August 24. Many more details to come! In the meantime, our virtual learning space is still thriving - join us for conversations, consultations and workshops.

Celebrating the life and legacy of Bay Area dance leader Jess Curtis, who expanded dance freedom, access, and inclusion, and who passed away March 11.

Practitioner Exchange:

Tapping into Cultural Capital as a Creative Dance Teacher

How do you define cultural wealth as a Creative Dance teacher? How does cultural wealth inform your work? How do you integrate cultural forms, practices, or concepts in your work? Are there any problematic cultural biases that you face as a Creative Dance teacher in the school communities you serve? How do you work through them? Join LAUSD teaching artists Peggy Hongduc Nguyen and Meg Glaser Teran as they dive into these questions and more in this informal conversation amongst dance teaching peers.

Wednesday, April 24

4:30-6pm Pacific via Zoom

$15-40, or $28 for unlimited Exchanges for 12 months

Free for PL Users - RSVP to Jochelle Pereña

Details here

Dance educators, Practitioner Exchanges are a place for you! We hold these collaborative community roundtables each month around different inquiry topics. Bring your questions, your reflections, your experience to these conversations. All welcome.

Last chance to apply:

Summer Institute 2024

"Through Luna, I have received one of the most valuable gifts a teaching artist could ever receive, a toolbox with unlimited resources and potential to activate the artist in every child that enters our classroom."

~ Summer Institute alum



Apply by April 15 for Luna's Summer Institute, a yearlong professional development experience that includes intensive workshops, individualized coaching, and collegial support, all focused on the art of teaching dance. A cohort of 12 teaching artists and classroom practitioners are selected to participate each year in this tuition-free transformative experience.

Discover more and request your application here.

Register today:

Early Childhood Dance & Science workshops

Dance and science are connected. These interactive workshops investigate play-based dance activities that engage children’s curiosity and sense of discovery and support young learners as they ask questions and figure things out. References will be made to the Preschool Learning Foundations in Science and Creative Curriculum concepts. For all who work with young children. Take either workshop or both for deeper learning.

Part I: How do the skills of basic scientific inquiry – observing, comparing and contrasting, and experimenting – relate to dance? Discover and collaborate with colleagues to develop dance activities that explore life sciences (biology), body mechanics, animals and plants, lifecycles and metamorphosis. Learn strategies to extend children’s curiosity through creative movement that embraces their ideas. 

Part II: Children investigate physical sciences (physics) and earth sciences through embodied play. Experience playful creative dance activities and lessons that explore the changing properties and motion of objects, earth materials, planets and weather that you can bring back and build upon in your teaching setting.  

Part I: Saturday, April 20

1-4pm Pacific via Zoom

Part II: Saturday, April 27

1-4pm Pacific via Zoom

$190 for one, $350 for both

Details here

Free for OUSD, BUSD and MCOE early childhood teachers. Email jperena@lunadancecreativity.org to register.

Learning & Teaching Series II - CRAFTING

What used to be known as DIDC-B, the next-level course for Summer Institute and DIDC-A alums, has a new name: CRAFTING!

Deepen your understanding of engineering dance lessons and units for maximum creativity and student autonomy. Course content includes backward design theory adapting it to a flexible approach to creativity; learning to teach phrasing, motif development, principles of design, and choreographic solos and duets; establishing learning goals and ways to assess through observation and reflection; and cognition and motivation theories. All workshop levels include teacher reflection, situated learning theory, and inclusive practices.

CRAFTING is the second course in Luna’s three-part Learning & Teaching Series that charts the course of dance teaching proficiency from a reflective, critical theory perspective.

July 15-19, full days

in-person at our new studio, Berkeley

$850 (early bird price until May 1)

Details here

RSVP:

Summer Institute Reunion Party

Calling all Summer Institute alumni! Save the date for one of the first events we'll hold in our new home at 931 Ashby Ave - an evening reunion celebration May 25, 4-6pm. Stay tuned for more details coming to your inbox, but you can RSVP now to Jochelle.

More celebrations for families and our larger community are being planned for the spring and fall. We can't wait to welcome you to our new community dance hub. There's a place for you here!

Join the Professional Learning team!

Luna seeks to hire a Professional Learning (PL) Manager to oversee the various activities of our PL Department. Since 1994, Luna’s PL services have convened teaching artists, classroom teachers, community workers, clinicians, and specialists to co-construct new understandings of what is possible in dance education. Our course catalog is broad and deep. The PL Manager will work with Luna’s Pedagogy & Evaluation Director to maintain high-quality program delivery. This position also coordinates Luna’s Summer Institute and facilitates or co-facilitates workshops.

Discover more here.

What's moving us: What children can teach us about creativity

"We don't have to make children learn, we have to let them learn."

- Alison Gopnik

Cognitive scientist Dr. Maya Shankar interviews developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik on her podcast, A Slight Change of Plans. This episode dives into "What children can teach us about creativity", and reminds us that children are designed to be curious, explore, take risks, and make discoveries - all skills in creative thinking. Listen here.