Dancing to learn - "Kids oil the Move" program brings dance into the public schools

Dance Magazine, Sept, 2003 by Gus Solomons, Jr

Kids oil the Move a yearlong program that brought dancing into public schools, staged its culminating event, Celebrate, at Colden Center, Queens College, for an audience of parents, friends, and students of the participating schools. [] During 2002--3, students in grades K-2 from nine schools in Community School District 27 learned dance from their own classroom teachers-not dance experts coached by dance teaching artists who work with Jannas Zalesky's organization, Together in Dance. Zalesky, until recently director of the education department of City Center, now heads her own consulting firm, dedicated to infusing dance into the school curriculum.

Teaching artists Roslyn Biskin, Karen Curlee, Margot Faught, Kate Hamilton-Caillet, and Doris Walker-Bennelt showed teachers the elements of movement and basic ways to arrange it in space and time, got them comfortable with their own abilities to move, then guided them in how to teach classroom subjects using movement activities. The children in turn gained confidence in their innate movement skills and had fun learning their lessons.

Three-foot-square letters, C-E-L-E-B-R-A-T-E, hung across the stage under a Kids on the Move banner. Dressed in orange, red, orange, or blue T-shirts, the youngsters bounded joyfully into the stage to perform dances they'd created in the after-school component of the program, for which some students were chosen by lottery, since demand was high. Music ranged from African drumming to Glen Miller, and the elements of composition were evident: pathways in space, levels, and locomotor and axial movement. They skipped in circles, made shapes individually and in groups, rolled on the ground, and jumped up and down. Some used props to amplify the motion: silk scarves, masks, top hats, pom-poms, and flags. Drummer Michael Wimberly emeced the proceedings, announcing the program and entertaining during transitions with call and-response chants with the audience.

Barbara Rudnick, coordinator of social studies/multicultural and arts, unearthed the Carol M. White Physical Education grant from the U.S. Department of Education, which funded the project, and brought Zalesky on board. Phyllis Greenberg, director of special projects, admitted that dance was the hardest of the arts to get teachers to accept in the classroom, "because it involves moving furniture"

SOME TEACHERS HAD INITIALLY BEEN RESISTANT, NOT FEELING KINETICALLY EQUIPPED, BUT WITH THE GUIDANCE OF THE TEACHING ARTISTS, THEY CAME AROUND. As TEACHERS CAME ONSTAGE TO BOW WITH THEIR STUDENTS, ONE COULD SEE THAT ALTHOUGH THEY WEREN'T TRAINED DANCERS, THEY HAD CAUGHT THE SPIRIT AND UNDERSTOOD THE VALUE OF DANCE IN THEIR CLASSROOMS--DESK-MOVING NOTWITHSTANDING.

"Children moving and dancing cooperatively? Usually they're expected to work quietly. Never did I think it would work out so great," said Karen Punzi from PS 45. "Now," she said, "they never slop asking, 'Miss Punzi, is it time to start dancing?'"

Michele Mattia said, "[The program] has influenced my teaching style in a positive way. I can transform boring areas of the curriculum into fun and exciting lessons that grab students' attention. It is rewarding to look around the classroom and see your students enjoying themselves while meeting the standards."

"If 'John' is hopping around the room anyway, why not use it to create a learning experience?" observed teacher Marykate Flood.

As Rudnick put it, "We taught them how to make it not an extra, but an essential piece of enhancing what they already do."

Greenberg said that in light of the current reorganization of the New York school system and the unpredictability of funding, no one is sure whether the program will be able to continue and expand next year to higher grades. Its loss would be tragic: Here was vivid evidence of the enormous value of dance in enhancing children's learning experience. When they enjoy learning, they learn better.

Gus Solomons Jr is artistic director of PARADIGM and leaches at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts.