About Learning Through Dance
Compiled by Wendy de la Harpe and Dr. Larry Rogien, PhD.

Ballet Idaho is the premier professional ballet company in the state of Idaho and a recipient of the 2000 Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts and the 2001 Mayors Award for Arts Education. According to Dance USA (the National Association for Dance Companies), Ballet Idaho is among the top forty highest grossing ballet companies in the country.  Each year, Ballet Idaho tours between four and seven states with The Nutcracker, making our state’s ballet company the fourth largest producer of The Nutcracker performances just behind New York City Ballet, Boston Ballet, and San Francisco Ballet. In addition to these prestigious accomplishments, Ballet Idaho’s Academy is one of only two schools in the Northwest accredited by the National Association of Schools of Dance.

All major ballet companies have an education department that is responsible for educating the public about dance through school systems, pre- and post-concert talks, informal presentations, lecture demonstrations and various other creative means.  I am the Director of Education for Ballet Idaho, responsible for overseeing eight educational outreach programs.

1. Family Series is a pre-performance, abridged production especially formatted for families with young children. Young children learn the basics of audience participation and are introduced to professional ballet .
2. Arts Powered Learning Assemblies are presented at schools throughout Idaho. Eight professional dancers perform a production designed to tie in to Elementary school curriculum.
3. Dance Advance is a scholarship program for students  selected during the residencies  who demonstrate an aptitude and willingness to commit to a year of study at Ballet Idaho Academy.
4. Jump Start and New Visions are two programs presented in partnership with Very Special Arts of Idaho for children with special needs.
5. Dance Discovery are public performance or lecture demonstrations for selected private groups.
6. Ballet Idaho Choreography Competition is a state wide competition to encourage young pre-professional choreographers.
7. Teacher in Service is held annually in partnership with the State Department of Education to assist teachers use kinesthetic leaning in their classrooms.
8. Learning Through Dance, the flagship program, is a ten- week residency presented by Ballet Idaho free of charge to Elementary schools.

I have been with Ballet Idaho for five years. I started off as an Artist-in-Residence in for the Learning Through Dance program. Previous to my time with Ballet Idaho I have worked as a dance educator and choreographer in South Africa, London, Los Angeles, Paris and Portland Oregon.

Ballet Idaho has partnered with the Idaho State Department of Education and the Idaho Commission on the Arts for several workshops with local school districts and teachers, during which the need for arts education and assistance with kinesthetic learning in academic core curriculum has been expressed.  Ballet Idaho has also worked with the State Department of Education to develop the State Standards for the Humanities, specifically Dance. These Standards are addressed at an annual teacher in-service Ballet Idaho presents in partnership with the State Department of Education. During the workshops, teachers have expressed a need for instruction in schools to address these standards. There are few resident dance teachers at elementary schools in Idaho and Ballet Idaho is working to fill this need.

In 1997, as a means to bring dance to students and teachers in elementary schools Ballet Idaho introduced a pilot program to selected schools in Idaho. Research into arts education determined that in order to be a desirable arts program for schools, the program needed to be tied to core curriculum and state educational standards.  The curriculum was developed by dance educator Joe Dewey with input from Charles “Chip” McNeal , Education Manager of San Francisco Ballet.

During the years 2001 and 2002 the curriculum was refined, tested, written, edited and published by myself, then the Artist in Residence at Ballet Idaho, Karla Bodnar, then the Director of Education and  education specialist, Lisa Fisher. Dr Peggy Wenner, Arts and Humanities Specialist at the Idaho State Department of Education provided a letter of support and funding for the publishing of the curriculum was provided by the Idaho Commission on the Arts with assistance from Ruth Piispanen, Director of the Arts in Education. The completed curriculum was submitted to the Idaho Department of Education and the National Standard for Arts Education for endorsement which was received in 2002.

The Learning Through Dance program provides schools with an Artist-in Residence for ten weeks to work with third grade students.  Typically, the Artist teaches a one-hour lesson to a class once a week for ten weeks. The Idaho State Standards for third grade humanities, language arts, mathematics, and the National Standards of Arts Education have been incorporated into the program, providing students with a fully integrated learning experience. The program is designed specifically for third grade, however, most of the concepts and lessons can be modified for any grade level.

The first lesson opens with the “Self-Control Dance.” This is really follow-the-leader, but the students are asked to maintain control of their bodies, as they try to match the instructor’s movements exactly, and to maintain control of their voices, which should not be used during the “Self-Control Dance.” The “Self-Control Dance” is followed by a warm-up, to articulate and stretch the body. Both of these activities are repeated at the beginning of each lesson. They become the opening ritual of the dance classes.

The activities that follow these in the first two lessons develop the students’ spatial and body awareness, as well as continuing to work without the use of voice. Activities include the “Stop-and-Go Dance” (students are directed to move while music is playing, and to freeze when the music stops) and mirroring exercises. Also introduced is the concept of the Three Levels of Movement (high, middle, and low). Students are given further practice of use of space when they learn Stage Directions (stage right, upstage, etc.) Every lesson concludes with the students running and leaping across the space. They sometimes create their own jumps and sometimes are practicing technical skills.

To sharpen memory skills, and introduce historical and cultural aspects of dance, the students learn a traditional dance, the “English Country Dance.” In Lesson 5, the memory skills are again tested as the students learn about theme in choreography as well as the plight of the endangered Giant Panda with the “Panda Dance.” These dances are repeated each lesson.

The students also create their own choreography. Students arrange traditional ballet steps in an order of their choosing, and will create “sculptures” and actions to represent nouns and verbs. Students create their own visual symbols and then translate them to movement in the “Symbol Dance,” which is an introduction to the “Math Dance.” In the “Math Dance,” students create movement for each symbol in an arithmetic equation.

We have several options for our science lessons, and often confer with the classroom teacher to decide which ones to use. We have a “Solar System Dance” that offers experiences with gravity and orbiting, as well as the distinguishing characteristics of each planet. We have a “Map Dance,” that offers experiences in reading, creating, and following maps. We have a “Body Dance” to address how various anatomical systems are put together and how they work. We also have a lesson that addresses the form and function of Simple Machines, such as levers, inclined planes, and wheels and axels. In the very recently revamped Idaho Content Standards for Third Grade Science, there is less emphasis on simple machines and the solar system, and more on the State of Matter, so we have developed a new lesson that has the students imitating the movement of molecules inside solids, liquids, and gases.

The Learning Through Dance program developed by Ballet Idaho is a unique outreach program for a ballet company in that the curriculum is designed to improve academic achievement using dance. Typically ballet companies will give a class focusing solely on a general understanding of dance: for example, by giving a beginning dance class focusing on body positions and traditional dance steps.

Since the inception of Learning Through Dance nine teachers have been trained to teach the curriculum and have taught over 1000 third grade students annually since 2001. Anecdotal evidence indicates that children (especially those with English as second language) learn concepts such as nouns and verbs, gravity, and the three states of matter more effectively through movement.

Ballet Idaho has received funding from the Idaho Commission on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and generous local foundations to continue to offer the programs free of charge to schools, however, sponsors are now requiring statistical evidence of the success of arts programs. While arts educators are in agreement that it is very difficult to quantify results for a subjective art form, the academic achievement could be quantified. This increasing need to develop an evaluation tool became a major goal for Ballet Idaho in order to continue the success and funding of the program. Fortunately, a chance meeting with a colleague led to the meeting with Dr. Larry Rogien of Boise State University who agreed to do an audit of the curriculum and to design a pre- and post-test that could be used to evaluate the program.

We are very excited by the results of the evaluation of our Learning Through Dance program by Dr. Larry Rogien, who is a professor of Educational Psychology at BSU. During the last two years we have been collecting data via pre- and post-tests based on the Idaho State Standards for Third Grade as well as National Standards for Arts. The pre- and post-tests were designed to test students understanding of dance, level changes, shape, form, spatial awareness and self-control as well as historical connections and cultural significance. Language Arts were addressed in lessons and testing on the structure of a story and use of nouns and verbs. Testing on science subjects included simple machines, the solar system, and the three states of matter.

During 2005, Dr. Rogien met with me, and Jennifer Pierce, a Ballet Idaho Administrative Assistant and BSU graduate, on a monthly basis to refine and interpret the data being collected. At the end of June, once all the data had been entered, Dr. Rogien was able to compute a statistical result which showed a significant point increase between the pre- and post-tests. The results of the testing indicate that students who experienced the Learning Through Dance program improved from a pre-test result to a post- test result by more than 30 percentile points, using standard scores.

Significance testing was done using a simple matched pair T-test. Excel analysis indicates that the difference between pre- and post-test results was significant (p < 1.66 E-18). The effect size for the treatment in z score units was 1.28. See table 1 below.

Table 1: t-Test: Paired Two Sample for Means

The following are quotes from third grade teachers whose classes have experienced the Learning Through Dance program:

Well-known and respected Dance Educator Anne Green Gilbert of Seattle, Washington, in her book, Teaching the Three Rs Through Movement Experience writes, “I first taught third grade in a north Chicago elementary school. The children were not motivated or excited about learning. Being a dancer and a dance educator and realizing the importance and values of non-verbal communication, I decided to start a movement program in my classroom. The change was amazing! The scores on their spelling tests greatly improved after sessions in body spelling. The children took a new interest in math after making up problems with their bodies. They understood the revolution of the planets after moving around the classroom in the solar system they had created.”

Like Anne Green Gilbert, my colleagues and I have witnessed increased academic achievement by our dance students, but we have also observed major behavioral changes in students during the ten-week course. Students become more disciplined and inclined to follow directions. The Physical Education Specialist at one of the pilot schools