El Cerrito High School Dance

El Cerrito High School Dance The El Cerrito High School Dance Program has been helping young people become great dancers for over five decades. Come check us out on stage! Ms. Burgess.

El Cerrito High School has a long and rich dance history. Dance has always been offered at ECHS, and in 1978 Jacqueline Burgess replaced retiring teacher Dorothy Grunseth, to teach the one dance class offered at the time. Burgess built the Dance Program up over the following 10 years by teaching Horton, Graham, and Dunham technique imbued with Jazz and Classical Ballet, and adding a full schedule

of classes and performances. In 1988, the Dance Program made many important steps in its development: the dance curriculum was re-written to meet University of California A - F requirements, Dance became a part of the Visual and Performing Arts Department, the courses were augmented and prerequisites were developed, a second dance studio was created, and Nancy Hallamore, and later Dawn James, joined the Dance Faculty. By 1990, there were 11 sections of dance offered in Afro-Haitian Dance, Ballet, Modern Jazz, and Dance Production. The following year the school district went bankrupt and the faculty was reduced back to one teacher again, Ms. She persevered through those trying times and maintained the quality and rigor for which the Dance Program was known. She added dance concerts to the performance seasons and moved the big shows to the theater at Contra Costa College to accommodate the growing dance audience. In 2006, as construction for the new ECHS campus was underway, the Dance Program moved into portable studios and performed several shows at Harding Elementary School. In 2008, the ECHS Dance Program moved into its new home in the E Building and continued to thrive. Burgess retired in 2012 after over 34 years of dancing at ECHS. She was replaced by Jessy Kronenberg, her former student who graduated from ECHS Dance in 1998. Kronenberg has moved the Program forward into a new generation while maintaining the tradition of high quality dance education at ECHS. Graduates of ECHS Dance have gone on to receive undergraduate and graduate degrees in dance and related fields. Some have become dance educators, others are professional dancers in companies around the United States, and still others have started their own professional dance companies.

05/08/2025
05/08/2025

Body image has an enormous impact on mental health, wellness, and how students engage with dance.

As dance teachers, our messaging about bodies can be a hugely important factor in our students' self image, identity and confidence.

This pre-conference intensive, "Body Image in Dance Education", will include practical tools and strategies to foster healthy body image in students, as well as ways to safely support and advocate for those who may need more help.

Participants will investigate their own dance training, what it taught them about their body and bodies in general, and how these beliefs and learnings may or may not be showing up in their classrooms. We will consider unique teaching environments, and participants will leave with an action plan for how to implement these concepts in their own work. Using the framework of Love Your Body Week, a program the presenters, Mary Gorder and Rachel Stewart, have been developing for 20 years that has been adopted by NDEO's National Honor Society for Dance Arts, you will gain a deeper understanding of the implications of body image in dance training, as well as how to better care for your students and yourself.

Learn more and register for the 2025 NDEO Conference and pre-conference intensive day at ndeo.org/2025intensives

05/08/2025
05/08/2025

🚨URGENT: The Future of the Arts Needs You

The National Endowment for the Arts is facing devastating cuts - cancelled
grants and a 50% staff reduction that threatens our nation’s creative
infrastructure.

This isn’t just about funding. It’s about:
✨Creative expression
✨Local economies
✨The stories that shape us

Take Action Now:
✅Appeal the cuts
✅Contact your representatives
✅Share your arts story
✅Join our Emergency Webinar TODAY (May 7)
✅Complete our Impact Survey

🔗Visit americansforthearts.org/advocate/protect-the-nea for resources & action steps from Americans for the Arts

Your voice matters. The arts are essential, not optional. Stand with us.

Dance & Democracy!
03/13/2025

Dance & Democracy!

10/30/2024

NEW COURSE ALERT! ⁠
⁠
In our new upcoming course "Teaching Musical Theatre Dance Forms: A Historiographical Approach", you will take an embodied historiographical approach to the classroom teaching of Musical Theatre dance forms with a focus on decolonization of the canon.

During the course, we will:

1. Generate lesson plans for teaching the embodied dance history of musical theatre from 1921 - present

2. Develop knowledge of the cultural roots of the dance forms commonly identified with the performance of musical theatre

3. Identify the choreographers whose work has shaped 100 years of musical theatre as well as the often uncredited artists who influenced them

4. Examine the historical events surrounding the production of 12 musicals and consider grade-appropriate techniques for incorporating these events into the teaching of musical theatre dance forms.⁠

Link to learn more is in the comments! ⬇️
⁠
**NDEO member early access registration opens THIS FRIDAY, November 1**

10/29/2024
10/29/2024

If you're a dance teacher who is still figuring it out... NDEO is the place for you!

We are a community of dance teachers from diverse sectors, genres, and teaching environments - all committed to lifelong learning, increasing access to dance education, and figuring it out together!

Check the comments ⬇️⬇️⬇️ for a link to learn more about how NDEO can help you continue "figuring it out". ⁠

https://gofund.me/411b375fMs. K needs your help!I wanted to share a GoFundMe campaign to help fund a billboard promoting...
08/30/2024

https://gofund.me/411b375f

Ms. K needs your help!
I wanted to share a GoFundMe campaign to help fund a billboard promoting reproductive rights in North Carolina. Every donation makes a real difference in spreading awareness and inspiring hope in a place that needs it, so if you can, please consider donating or sharing the link below. Thanks for your support!

Address

540 Ashbury Avenue
El Cerrito, CA
94530

Telephone

(510) 231-1437 Ext 26580

Website

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