This document discusses recent issues in dance education, including how to teach dance to all learners and develop diverse skills through dance. It provides annotations for 9 resources on these topics, with a focus on teaching students with disabilities or special needs. The resources discuss using principles-based and brain-compatible methods, developing life skills and movement goals, and integrating dance with other subjects like literacy, math, and history. They provide teaching tips for inclusive, collaborative class structures and curricula.

1. Recent Readings in Dance Education, Teaching All Learners, Developing
Diverse Skills, Knowledge and Intelligences
Blythe C. Stephens
A number of current issues in dance education have been on my mind this last
year, including how to teach the art of dance to all learners and how to develop a
network of academic and life skills through dance. I rely on selected resources to
fuel my teaching and dancing practice and thought I would share some that I
have found the most thought-provoking and practical. My intention is to continue
to share favorite relevant resources in the form of an annotated bibliography or
brief articles going forward to support other dance educators, teachers, and
practitioners.
Themes of teaching all learners, developmental stages, disabilities
• Autism - PECS
• Physical Disabilities – Principle-Based
• Special Needs
• Ritual
• Assistants
• Dance as Art
• Structures (5-step lesson plan, KNOW, Braindance)
1) “Using a Principle-Based Method to Support a Disability Aesthetic”
JODE vol.15 #3 p.87 Bailey Anderson
Disability aesthetic supports the embodiment of dancers with disabilities by
allowing their bodies to set guidelines of beauty and value.
Principle-based work is a methodology focusing on qualities, aesthetic ideas, and
concepts for creative and technical practice. Blend between improvisation and
finding specificity of movement styles
2) “Dance in Women’s Correctional Facilities”
DEP vol.2 #1 p.12 JoAnne Tucker
15-min jazz-based warmup, short dance, lecture/demo on modern dance
exploring basic elements of movement, tools for later improv work and creating
phrases for piece (example was on the subject of forgiveness). Small group
work, performance, question/answer session. Session listed as “stress
management,” emotional state movement themes, labyrinth.
3) “Special Needs and Dance: An Insider’s Perspective”
JODE vol.15 #3 p.110 Judith Nelson
Teaches students with disabilities and is parent of child with disability, children’s
learning center, EASE program, Mark Morris. Provides many teaching tips.

2. Teaching team includes assistant teacher, live musician, parent helpers.
Works with Autism, Downs, developmental delays, visual impairment,
ADD/ADHS, learning disabilities, etc. teaching Dance as ART using Anne Green
Gilbert’s “Braindance,” 5-part lesson plan, Creative Dance for All Ages, Brain-
Compatible Dance Education.
Start in seated circle, greeting, word of the day (LMA), then
1. “Braindance” Warm-up
2. Creative Exploration
3. Skills
4. Creating
5. Relaxation/Review/Reflection
Know what’s important, let the rest go, don’t dwell on perfectionism/details
Notice, use, create every learning opportunity, be in-the-moment, make
connections
One thing at a time (conversation, prompt, focus, step)
Wait…and see what happens- need time to process before responding, give time
to perform movement independently
4) “Developing and Sustaining an Inclusive Dance Program: Strategic Tools and
Methods” JODE vol.15 #3 p. 122
Mary Lynne Morris, Marion Balderon, Dwayne Schenneman
Collaborative educational philosophy and curricular structure influenced by:
Adam Benjamin, Laban/Bartenieff, Anne Green Gilbert.
Braindance Warm-up, conceptual approach/principle-based, “find their own”
tendu, etc.
• Life Skills: social, respect/boundaries, trust, confidence, joy of
movement/play, independence, leading/following, listening, problem-
solving/creativity, self-awareness
• Movement/Training Goals: language of dance/vocabulary (ballet/modern),
postural control, organization/shaping/forms of body, travelling skills,
dynamics, musical/rhythmic awareness, exposure to dance environments,
movement invention, improv/partnering
• Classroom Practices: TAs, props, floorwork, ritual, play and creativity,
repetition and appropriate progression
• Program Elements: consistency, parental involvement,
collaboration/integration with dance and disability community
Themes of dancing to develop…
• Literacy
• Numeracy
• Motor Skills
• Socio-emotional Behavior

3. • Cultural Literacy
• Critical Thinking
• Character
• Ownership
• Responsibility
5) “Dance and Literacy Hand in Hand: Using Uncommon Practices to Meet the
Common Core”
JODE vol. 6 #1 p.31 Janet H. Adams
Creative link between dance and writing, increased emphasis on linguistic
connections to dance, developmental link among pictures, symbols, letters for
literacy acquisition, students learn to “analyze, evaluate, refine, and document
their work,” establish structures of learning, emphasis on constructing meaning
through semiotic activities.
6) “A Model for Successful Dance Residencies with a Focus on Math Literacy”
DEP vol.1 #4 p.16 Sharon Miller
8-10 week residency in PE timeslot, creative movement K-1, rhythm tap 2nd
-3rd
graders, listening skills, how time can be divided, meet Common Core
Curriculum Content Standards, demo/informance, evaluations.
7) “The Wiggle Jig: A Comprehensive Outreach Program Developed by Ballet
Met” DEP vol.2 #1 p.6 Ambre Emory-Maier and Elle Pierman
The Wiggle Jig brings dance into early childhood education classrooms,
enhancing students’ social, motor, and cognitive learning and developing self-
expression and critical thinking. Conducted in Public Schools and Head Start
programs via 10-, 20- or 25-week programs, one class per week, taught by 2
dance educators and one musician.
Literacy companion book “Leap and Twirl”, somatic, brain-based curriculum, pre-
K animal moves rubric, literacy, STEM learning modules, neuromotor skill gains,
measurable outcomes.
8) “Using Dance to Create Ownership, Responsibility, and Character”
DEP vol.1 #4 p.9 Typhani Harris
Character building, persistence, composition, mind-mapping, self-control,
respect, conscientiousness, responsibility, ownership, grit, confidence
9) “What Does Dance History Have to do with Dancing? Making College Dance
History Usable for Dancers”
JODE vol.16 #3 p.3 Elizabeth Kattner

4. Movement components that have proven successful in introductory courses can
be extended to in-depth studies of dance history with dancers who have formal
training. Research projects, exploring history through movement in conjunction
with archival material, photos, books, papers and videos, incorporate into studio
sessions.
Fleeting nature of performing arts, reconstruction, learning to choreograph by
studying a master, working with primary and secondary sources.
Goals:
1. Tools to visualize dances without film documentation
2. Historical documentation combined with studio work
3. Introduce primary and secondary source research to students
4. Demonstrate how choreographic structure relates to cultural and social
norms
5. Explore reconstruction methods: photos, text, music…
6. Introduce work of a master as he (Balanchine) developed his
choreographic voice
Website recommendation:
“Accelerated Motion: Toward a New Dance Literacy in America”
Additional resources:
Review of “Dancing to Learn: The Brain’s Cognition, Emotion, and Movement”
JODE vol.6 #1 p.36
Affect of dance on development of the Mind:
1. Dance is means of communication with structural and functional relations
to verbal language
2. Dance is physical exercise with thinking and emotional expression
3. Dance is a means of coping with stress
“LMA: The Literacy of Thinking Through Movement”
DEP vol.2 #1 p.25
Artistic Literacy is a core principle embedded in the new Core Arts Standards.
• LMA is systematic approach to learning, embodying and applying four
aspects/literacies of Laban theory: body, effort, shape, and space
• Labanotation is literacy to preserve, enrich, and secure dance
• Language of Dance by Ann Hutchinson Guest grows technical and artistic
embodiment and literacy, integrating graphic notation of movement
alphabet concepts
Review of Discovering Dance text
DEP vol.1 #4 p.27
“iMovie supports the choreographic process”
DEP vol.1 #3 p.26

5. “The Pros and Cons of Student Performances”
DEP vol.2 #1 p.22
“Pay Rates for Dance Teachers”
DEP vol.1 #4 p.24
The Art of the Changing Brain James Zull