How the "Sparkplug Dance Lady" spent her summer vacation:
This summer, I attended a weeklong institute at the Creative Dance Center in Seattle for returning students. Participants were from all over the world: dance teachers, occupational and physical therapists, music teachers, choreographers and performers, classroom teachers and parents, all with a keen interest in finding new ways to use movement as a learning tool. While dancing, creating, discussing and reflecting, I soaked up lots of great ideas for bringing fun and learning together in a meaningful way. And after a week of spirited dance, my body felt tired, but loose and healthy! My brain was centered and excited, ready to tackle new challenges! Being around all those wonderful movers and thinkers, I was like a pig in mud!
A Teacher Matures...
A lifelong dancer, I have been teaching for what feels like forever, but it wasn't until I trained as concept-based creative dance teacher that I felt I had the tools I needed to teach dance to all ages and abilities. That was in the mid-90's, and after several frustrating years of teaching traditional dance classes, I was so relieved and excited to be handed a new set of vocabulary and teaching tools that made ideas accessible and teaching moments clear. Since then, I've worked with a myriad of groups: kids and adults, seniors and babies, teen parents and their children, pre-teens and teenagers, folks with special needs, and the concept-based approach never fails. Because the movement choices are rooted in problem-solving, not aesthetic formalism, anyone and everyone can feel comfortable in a concept-based creative dance class. I enjoy the opportunity to make adaptations as a teacher, to find new ways of looking at things.
It was exhilarating for me to return to the Creative Dance Center, to see old friends and co-workers, with whom I had taught for the three years I lived in Seattle. And what was equally fun was to see how we had changed, how dancing and learning had thrust us onto new pathways to explore!
Continually encouraged and excited by my longtime friendship with Anne Green Gilbert at the Creative Dance Center, I continue to seek the latest fun ways to bring brain development into the dance studio, the daycare center, the classroom and the home.
New Energy!
And with this renewed training, I'm excited to bring to the Eugene community the newest idea in dance education: brain compatible dance. Brain-compatible dance education takes a multi-faceted approach to learning. Borrowing from Howard Gardner's renowned take on the Multiple Intelligences, brain compatible dance offers elemental learning to visual-spatial, kinesthetic, auditory, logical-mathematical, nature-spiritual, intra- and interpersonal learners. In every class, we offer a variety of moments that combined together bring in every one of the seven intelligences. People learn in different ways, and in solving problems and making choices in dance class, not only can we become better able to solve problems and make choices in our every day lives, but we adapt our understanding of other people and the way they do things.
Rooted in the concept-based creative dance method is a strong sense of fun, of playfulness. As Anne says, "When we're laughing, we're learning!" - and sometimes, all it takes to make a bridge between two people, or a new class, is the willingness to find our inner-giggle. In a lovely, gentle way, dance has a freeing effect, as the class takes a collective breath and just jumps in to have a good time. The learning comes along for the ride.
In any Sparkplug Dance concept-based class each dancer will also learn the fundamental human movement patterns that hardwire and soothe the central nervous system: The Brain Dance(c)! Many of the learning disabilities we see today that demonstrate weaknesses in the central nervous system hardwiring, such as problems with visual eye-tracking, attention, filtering and behavioral issues, can be greatly improved, even prevented, with a deeper understanding of how are brains are designed to learn. As the Brain Dance(c) creator Anne Green Gilbert humbly suggests, these patterns are what
The Brain Dance© breaks down the "baby" patterns for the first twelve months of life into easy exercises that simultaneously engage and soothe the psyche and the soma, readying the brain for nimble and inquisitive cognitive learning. In Sparkplug Dance classes, the Brain Dance© is how we start our class, acknowledging each other, checking-in with ourselves, and appreciating what we can do today!
I'm inspired to find moments in my teaching to synthesize brain-compatible movement with a multi-disciplinary conceptual approach to learning.
The concept-based creative dance method, as developed by Anne Green Gilbert and taught by Rachael Carnes in all Sparkplug Dance programs, is recognized as an effective learning modality by Dance and the Child International (DaCI), the National Dance Educators Organization (NDEO), the American Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHERPD) and the National Dance Association (NDA).
