Announcement

Dance Department Featured in NAE Blog

Posted by Jason King on Jun 21 2019 at 11:09AM PDT
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May is always an exciting time for me as it is time to reflect on how far we have come and where we are off to next. As I finish my fifth year here at Windermere Preparatory School I’m genuinely amazed at how much our dance program has evolved and grown. Not only in numbers but also in the vision and direction of the program. The dance department offers students 1st through12th grade the opportunity to seek life enrichment through dance. Our goal has always been to develop passionate, well-rounded dancers and performers. Our program offers a lower school curriculum where every student will take a semester of dance from 1st – 5th grade. There are over 150 middle and high school dancers that choose to take dance every day for 50 minutes. Their dedication and perseverance can be seen in class and at their performances. ?Whether it’s our 4th and 5th graders singing and dancing in their showcase, A Taste of Broadway, or our middle and high school dancers performing in their Winter and Spring concerts. It is evident when you see them that the process that has been taken in class has so much impact on what’s happening to them as individuals and on stage.

Now with Juilliard Creative Classroom, which has been a fantastic tool used to enhance the concepts and principles that were already being taught at all levels, it has helped our students to be exposed to such incredible core works which have inspired some of their compositions. We have found ways to make
Juilliard Creative Classroom fit organically into our dance curriculum with the help of our curriculum specialist Becka Vargas, who has been an amazing asset to our dance faculty. Juilliard Creative Classroom has been especially helpful within our IB dance program, which our dance curriculum is based on, especially with composition and analysis. Students have been given the tools to begin creating at an early age exploring with confidence and excitement. The knowledge they have gained is carrying over with them into our middle and high school. As Shanthi Ramakrishna, an IB dance student and our salutatorian this year in the high school said so eloquently, “Dance is an outlet to channel creative energy, which I believe is transferable across any discipline.”

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