By Steve Sucato
As part of our ongoing Kinection for Learning residency program designed to support and enhance classroom learning through creative movement and kinesthetic learning, GroundWorks DanceTheater’s teaching artists have been in residence at Warrensville Heights’ Green Inspiration Academy and Cleveland’s Warner Girls’ Leadership Academy since the beginning of 2022 and will continue through June 10.
The residencies follow in the footsteps of last fall’s Kinection for Learning residency at Warner Girls’ Leadership Academy that students there found gave them a better appreciation for dance and had them feeling special and important in their classes according to a post-residency survey. Several of the students rated our teachers with an A+ for their knowledge, kindness and respectfulness. Said one 4th grader, “…time goes by when you’re having fun, so everyone stop having fun so we can work on this longer.”
The Kinection for Learning program is designed to align with Ohio Academic Content Standards in a variety of subjects and grade levels and is customizable to meet the needs of any school.
For The Green Inspiration Academy and Warner Girls’ Leadership Academy residencies, Groundworks’ Education & Community Engagement Director, Rebecca Burcher along with company teaching artists Maddie Hanson, Nicole Hennington, Madison Pineda,Teagan Reed, and Victoria Rumzis are taking academic concepts from the core curriculum of the STEAM education teaching approach, and creating new connections and understanding through experiential learning and physical embodiment. The focus being on internalized learning through physicality and the concept that once information is in your physical being, it lives in you.
The residency programs goals are enhancing and supporting the understanding of academic core standards and principals through movement, encouraging creative problem solving, providing a more individualized experience for students, increasing focus and interest in academic subjects, and bringing together artists and educators to create a unique and valuable experience for each school’s students.
Split by grade levels at the two academies to address differing standards, GroundWorks is providing dance education for Pre-Kindergarten – 8th grade students at Warner Girls’ Leadership Academy, and Kindergarten – 8th grade students at The Green Inspiration Academy, that allows students to incorporate their own preferred or individual style(s) to their movement. Working individually, with partners, and in small groups, the students create and perform their own movement studies. The dance education curriculum implemented in both residencies is relevant to physical education, dance, and SEL state standards.
Currently in these residencies, students are learning the BODY, ACTION, SPACE, TIME, and ENERGY elements of dance. The students have self-selected groups to work in and are creating a dance with those five elements of dance in mind.
Some of the goals and outcome of the curriculum for these residencies is having at least 85% of the students being able to demonstrate six different forms of locomotion including walks, skips, hops, gallops, and spins, a similar number of students demonstrating cross-lateral awareness through twisted shapes and non-locomotor actions, and contributing original gesture-based movement to the group. Additionally, that students are able to demonstrate fine motor skills including dexterity of ankles and wrists, non-vocal communication skills, can independently demonstrate the elements of dance physically when prompted, and that they have an understanding of appropriate audience etiquette.
GroundWorks is thankful for our continued partnerships with Warner Girls’ Leadership Academy and The Green Inspiration Academy in transforming education through the art of dance. Thank you to the Martha H. Jennings Foundation for their support and funding of Kinection for Learning.
Photos Credits (Top-Bottom): GroundWorks’ Victoria Rumzis with 1st grade students at Green Inspiration Academy, Photo by Rebecca Burcher; 4th grade students at Warner Girls’ Leadership Academy with Rebecca Burcher, Photo by Imani; 4th grade students at Warner Girls’ Leadership Academy, Photo by Rebecca Burcher; 5th grade students at Green Inspiration Academy with Rebecca Burcher, Photo by Victoria Rumzis.