As Starbound National Talent Competition celebrates its 31st season, the team knows what keeps dance families coming back. “We’ve always been one of the leaders in this industry, and through listening to our clients’ feedback and making changes, we continue to set the standard higher,” says Sandra Coyte, founder and director. With a calendar of more than 70 Regional competitions and five Nationals, Starbound’s events combine the glamour and innovation of a large-scale production and theater experience with the fairness and personal attention you’d expect from a family-run company. Starbound of ..read more

May is your month, dance teachers. Ahead of all the Teacher Appreciation Week and Thank a Teacher Day celebrations, we at Dance Teacher want to express our gratitude and applaud you for everything you do to inspire and nurture the next generation! This month, we hope you’ll take the time to appreciate your fellow dance educators as well. Let’s face it: As busy dance educators, we often spend most of our time with students, which means fewer opportunities to connect with colleagues. In our Teaching Tips column, you’ll find advice on developing this much-needed camaraderie and harmony with your ..read more

Trying to book a dance teaching gig isn’t like your average job hunt where you simply send in your resumé and do an interview. You likely also have to share a video reel, teach a trial class, and demonstrate how you connect with the students. And at every step along the way, you’ve got to focus on making yourself as marketable as possible to potential employers.  So if you’re looking to get more teaching gigs, keep these nine tips in mind to ensure you’re putting your best foot forward every step of the process.  1. Submit All the Materials Requested Jason Warley, the owner of Man in ..read more

According to Kristi DeCaminada, a principal character artist with San Francisco Ballet, acting is one of the most important skills a dancer can possess. “It’s essential to storytelling,” she says. “That’s how we communicate to the audience—it’s the most important part of what we do.” Incorporating some acting lessons into your dance classes—no matter what age you teach—will set your students up for success in the dance world and beyond.  Start Early Establishing a solid technical foundation is often the focus for beginning dance students. And while this is undoubtedly important, placing f ..read more

Repertory experiences are a critical part of dance education—especially for college dance majors. Generally, universities with BFA dance programs have main-stage dance concert series toward the end of the fall and spring semesters. This rehearsal and performance process is designed to prepare students for the professional field. To shed some light on the curation process, Dance Teacher spoke with four educators in BFA dance programs: associate professor Bruce McCormick, at the University of Southern California; assistant professor Leslie Kraus and associate professor Roxanne Lyst, at the Unive ..read more

In a perfect world, dance institutions would take the initiative to protect dancers from the abusive and dysfunctional work environments that still plague the industry. But after years of activism through their organization Whistle, which focuses on ending gender-based harm and other forms of abuse in dance by offering workshops and resources, Robyn Doty and Frances Chiaverini were finding that this wasn’t the reality of the field. At one Whistle workshop, for instance, the director of a major festival expressed that the impetus was on the dancers to speak up about abusive work environmen ..read more

Maria Torres Teaches a Latin Jazz Warm-Up The post Maria Torres Latin Jazz Warmup appeared first on Dance Teacher ..read more

5 Plant-Based Snacks for Your Dance Bag The post vegan-snacks/ appeared first on Dance Teacher ..read more

Choreographer Kiel Tutin was destined to be a creator. “I was a choreographer before I was a dancer,” he says. He grew up creating pieces in his bedroom and setting the work on his older sister and her friends. “We used to rent space, and I would mix music and teach them routines before I had any kind of formal training.” Tutin has come a long way since then. Now, he’s a sought-after choreographer in the world of K-pop. Around age 11, Kiel started his first dance classes—community ballroom lessons at a local church hall in Nottingham, England, and street-dance class as an extracurricular activ ..read more

Maria Torres always knew that she would be a dancer, even despite her parents’ urging her to pursue a career path with more stability. When she landed a job performing with one of her mother’s favorite singers, Celia Cruz, Torres says she finally earned her parents’ blessing. But even after that, her mother encouraged her to have a line of work with more security to fall back on.  Torres chose teaching. “I always taught,” she says. “Teaching was always a vocation, or a part of me.” For a while, she attended school for occupational therapy and did an internship in physical therapy, but she ..read more