Practitioner Exchange:

Curriculum Brainstorm & Share

What new ideas can we experiment with to allow for connection, trust, and relationship-strengthening? How can creative movement support co-regulation and communication as families dance together? How can we continue involving families in dance, even when they can’t join us in the studio/classroom? How can relationship-based dance support the social-emotional learning and community building that is so important right now? Join family dance educators Julie Lebel & Rossana Alves as they ask these questions and more in this peer-to-peer conversation. Bring your questions too! 

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

Thursday, November 17

4:30-6pm Pacific via Zoom

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

free for PL Users - RSVP to jperena@lunadanceinstitute.org

Details here

Registration open:

Early Childhood Dance & Math

How does a child’s kinesphere and relationship to self and others relate to Geometry and Measurement? What do Number Sense and Pre-Algebra look like through the embodied movement of the young child? Join us for an interactive workshop exploring play-based dance activities that support spatial awareness, sorting, classifying, adding together/taking away, and patterning through the lens of culturally relevant teaching practice. For all who work with young children.

Saturday, December 3

1-4pm Pacific 

via Zoom 

$175

Details & registration

Stay tuned for details on spring early childhood workshops Dance & Science and Dance & SEL!

Save the Date: Teacher as Creative Practitioner-Scholar: Action Research course

We're excited to bring back Teacher as Creative Practitioner-Scholar: Action Research after piloting it two years ago! Join us to address the pedagogical underpinnings that support creative and conscious teaching – reflective practice, motivation, observation, documentation, assessment, advocacy, cognition, cultural-responsiveness/anti-bias work, and more. Use action research to investigate and align your teaching practice with your values. Through a seminar platform, collaborate and connect with your creative peers. Discover ways to rekindle the curiosity and artistry at the heart of your teaching.

January 21 - April 1

10 Saturdays, 9am-12pm Pacific

via Zoom

$575

Details & registration

Professional development funding resources

Did you know that Luna has a list of professional development funding resources that can support you as you invest in your own growth? Check it out here. We also encourage you to ask your employer for financial support as your time and effort in professional development nurtures their programs. Need help with a grant or talking to administrators? Sign up for a free consult!

Practitioner Exchanges in the Journal of Dance Education

"Dance educators need gatherings like these, where they can engage with other dance educators in a live, embodied way, and build a collegial community that understands their needs."

Have you been to one of our Practitioner Exchanges, or maybe another informal professional learning community? For many they have been a "lifeline" or "nourishment", especially during pandemic teaching. Director of Programs Jochelle Pereña investigates the power of Practitioner Exchanges in her recent Journal of Dance Education article, "Through the Lens of Improvisation: Dance Educators Find Voice and Agency through Transformative Conversations". Read it here.

What's moving us: Arts Educators Save the World Podcast

For a reaffirming reminder of the impact of arts educators, check out this new podcast that welcomes successful working artists to converse with the mentors who changed their lives. And this special episode, that discusses the representation of arts educators on television, from Fame! to Glee to Abbott Elementary, reflecting the changing landscape of arts in schools. How would you like teaching artists to be portrayed in the media? Listen here.

Resource: Centering Student Voices to Transform Educational Systems report

Students are the ones most impacted by policy decisions regarding the arts in schools. Art Education Partnership's new report (published August 2022) centers student voices in the conversation about how we can transform educational systems, and discusses flexible learning environments, funding injustices, sharing power, relevant teaching and learning, and more. Read the report here. What conversations can it inspire with your students, your colleagues, your administrators?

In the community:

National Guild Community Spaces

Calling all teaching artists! Do you know about the National Guild for Community Arts Education? It is the sole national service organization for providers of community arts education. As part of their Portal of Transformation, they are visiting communities across the country to build new relationships, deepen old ones, and learn about new possibilities for the Guild to support you. These Community Spaces will be fun and informal, and will allow space for collectively dreaming the future of community arts education.

The Guild is eager to hear from teaching artists! Join the free, in-person conversations in San Francisco, November 9 and Oakland, November 10 (where you'll catch Luna Director and National Guild Board Member Nancy Ng). More details here.

Opportunity: CDEA Conference presentation proposals

CA dance educators, it's time to share what you are learning through teaching! The California Dance Education Association's statewide conference is scheduled for January 14-15 at CSU Fullerton, with the theme "Finding Common Ground: in Movement, Policy, and the Creative Process". CDEA is developing its conference sessions in collaboration with those who propose topic presentations. What should dance educators be talking about now? Help shape the conversation! Proposals due November 11. Discover more here.

Advocacy spotlight: Prop 28

Arts education is on the CA ballot tomorrow! With 89% of CA schools not providing state-mandated arts education, we have the opportunity to vote for arts equity for all students. Prop 28 would dedicate1% of CA's budget to arts education, without raising taxes. How will you vote tomorrow? Discover more about Prop 28 here and go out and vote!