In the spirit of Valentine's Day, we send you a note of love:
Dear Dance Educators,
Seeing you continuing to dance with your students gives us hope! Thank you for finding ways to dance through all the challenges. Thank you for cultivating joy. Thank you for sparking the creative flame, and opening possibility. We see you and believe in you!
Love, Luna
However you celebrate this month, we hope to see you at one of our upcoming community conversations or workshops!
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Join us for Ask a Fellow LIVE! |
We're launching our Ask a Fellow project with a live Zoom panel!
Ask a Fellow is an open, informal exchange where Luna’s teaching artist fellows practice sharing their experience, inquiry, and expertise and the larger community of practitioners has a place to ask questions small and large. Everything you wanted to know about teaching dance but were afraid to ask!
Do you have a question about family dance, inclusive teaching practice, responsive teaching, or any other aspect of dance teaching? Are you curious about something in dance education, but don’t have a fully formed question? That’s okay! Bring your questions to Ask a Fellow LIVE! and our fellows - Alisa Rasera, Rossana Alves and Samad Raheem Guerra - will address your inquiries. Or submit questions in advance, below. After the panel, fellows will respond to questions in audio, video, and written formats, so keep them coming.
Monday, February 14
4-5pm
Free via Zoom
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Practitioner Exchange: Re-Launching In-Person Teaching 2.0 |
How can I re-launch in-person teaching without just going back to the way things were? And how can I make it creative and sustainable for me? How can I incorporate and build on what we learned from distance learning, and what can I let go of? How can I make space to listen and be responsive and adaptive? Join dance teaching artists Shona Mitchell and Maura Whelehan and other dance ed colleagues as we ask these questions and collaborate to generate solutions. Bring your own questions and ideas to add to the mix!
Tuesday, February 15
4:30-6pm Pacific
via Zoom
$15-40, free for PL Users
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Got questions about how to address the needs of your students? Or about how to advocate for your job while things feel uncertain? Need a pep-talk or moral support as you create curriculum and consider the residual impact of last year combined with the uncertainly of this year? Luna's here for you!
Sign up for one of our free phone consults this summer and talk to a Luna faculty member for individualized support!
Tuesday, February 22
3:30-6pm Pacific
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Save the date: Dance & the Preschool Learning Foundations - Math |
Join us for a creative and embodied day exploring the integration of dance and The Preschool Learning Foundations in math - take one workshop or both! For all those who work with young children.
Integrating Dance & Math (Part One)
9:30-11:15am Pacific
How does a child’s kinesphere and relationship to self and others relate to Geometry and Measurement? This interactive learning experience will explore the developmental neuro-patterns, and spatial awareness through dance.
Integrating Dance & Math (Part Two)
1-2:45pm Pacific
What does Number Sense and Pre-Algebra look like through the embodied movement of the young child? This interactive learning experience will explore play-based dance activities that support sorting, classifying, adding together/taking away, and patterning through the lens of culturally relevant teaching practice.
This workshop filled quickly last year - register now to ensure your spot!
Saturday, April 23
via Zoom
$90 for one, $150 for both
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Announcing Summer Institute 2022 |
Our yearlong professional development experience returns this summer! Apply to join a cohort of dance teaching artists, classroom teachers, and practitioners to cultivate your practice. This year the Summer Institute is in hybrid form and includes a 5-day July workshop intensive, a January midyear meeting, Zoom workshops and coaching sessions throughout the year, and a final closing meeting in May or June.
Give yourself the time and space to energize your craft! Discover more about dates, details and applications here.
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Listen: The Dance Inquiry Podcast |
Sink into our first two episodes of The Dance Inquiry Podcast, elevating the stories of dance educators in special ed and inclusion. Episode 1 features teaching artist Alisa Rasera and educational therapist Cindy Miner Kapelke as they reflect on dance and disability teaching during COVID. Episode 2 welcomes dance educator Aiano Nakagawa and classroom teacher Jessica Kershner as they talk about their collaboration in building an inclusive ECE dance program. Tune in while making dinner, or on your commute.
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Body, Mind & Spirit in Action book sale |
To give you a break from your screens, we are offering our popular paperback, Body, Mind & Spirit in Action: a teacher's guide to creative dance (2nd ed.) at the same price of our ebook to the first 25 customers! Written by Luna's founder Patricia Reedy, this handbook includes reflection prompts, lesson ideas, theoretical rationale, and expanded sections on human development, Laban movement principles, and Universal Design for Learning. Perfect for dreaming up new approaches to your teaching and for reconnecting with your teaching values.
$34 plus tax & shipping/handling
just a few copies left at this price
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Perfect/Imperfect Lesson Video Series -
new videos released!
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We're excited to offer two new lesson videos in our Perfect/Imperfect Lesson Video Series! Curious about how a creative dance class you've experienced in a Luna workshop might play out with kids? Or what a dance educator does when something doesn't go to plan? Watch a Luna teaching artist lead a class through exploration, improvisation, composition, performance, and response, and hear her reflect on the process as she sparks the creative rigor of these choreographers-in-the-making. Follow along with the accompanying lesson plan. Check out lessons on:
Energy Vocabulary
Directional Scales
Rivers & Stones - 2 versions new!
High & Low in ECE new!
Each 20-30 minute video is under $2 for a 1-week viewing.
Discover all four lesson videos here.
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Celebrating Luna's 30th -
seeking social committee members
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Luna turns 30 on March 8, 2022! We'll be celebrating all spring with three special events: an online Game Night in March, a cocktail Soirée in April, and a Community Picnic in May. More details to come.
Can you join our social committee? Help us create a buzz, build community around these events and invite new people to Luna!
The social committee will meet twice via Zoom to strategize to connect, talk about the events, exchange ideas and strategize. First meeting is Thursday, February 10, 7-8pm Pacific. Come join the fun!
Can't make it but still want to support? Email Jochelle!
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Luna founder Patricia Reedy celebrating our 10th anniversary |
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Advocacy: Speak out for Oakland schools |
Along with 14 other schools in Oakland Unified School District, our partner school Grass Valley Elementary is threatened with closure by the school board. This is a majority Black school with 1/3 of the student population in Special Ed. Luna has been collaborating with Grass Valley to build a dance program over the past 8 years, and it's one of only two Oakland schools in which ALL children K-5 receive weekly dance classes, all year, every year.
There is a lot to this story - secret school board meetings to create a closure list, only one board member advocating to communicate with the Oakland community, creating a timeline so that it would be difficult for people to take action, citing low enrollment as a reason for closure during a pandemic. Schools are communities, and when communities are broken up it has an impact on children and their sense of belonging, trust and confidence.
The school board votes February 8. There is still time to spread the word and get involved to stop school closures. Please visit here for community and individual action plans.
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Watch for details about the closure. Choreography and performance by Grass Valley Elementary students. |
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See you at the CA Dance Education Association Conference! |
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Resource: Zaretta Hammond & "Culturally Responsive Teaching" |
We've shared several of Zaretta Hammond's resources before, but with the threats of Oakland school closures, it feels timely to share her 2018 Culturally Responsive Teaching presentation at the SF Public Library now. Hammond is a former Oakland classroom teacher, and in this lecture she speaks to the importance of belonging and community, and how inquiry is the great cognitive equalizer. Her points are still relevant. What do they bring up for you? View here.
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Support the longevity of dance educators. Donate here.
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