Dr. Brook Parker-Bello was happy to be interviewed for the 2020 DA:NCE film: ‘Healthy and Harmful Dance: What Do the Experts Say?’ Although she did not dance as a child, she was abused and exploited in her early years. As a national expert on child abuse with a PhD, Dr. Bello knows that all forms
by Susan Gingrasso, MA, CMA, LOD Teacher Trainer Associate Director of the LODC What if children had an “alphabet” of movement concepts to explore, experience, and build their understanding of themselves as movers, as creators? What if this “alphabet” guided children to think, do, and feel their own movement fully – to develop their ownership
by Susan P. Lloyd Last October, I was on a flight from SFO to Miami, FL to present at the National Dance Educators’ Conference. I happened to sit next to Nancy Ng from the Luna Institute in Berkeley, California. She too, was on her way to the conference. Ms. Ng asked the title of my
by Kristen A. Jenson, M.A. “The girls come to the set ‘porn-ready’” remarked one pornographer, as he commented on the changes he saw in the performers. Thanks to so much sexual objectification in the media and in dance, his new female “porn stars” needed little coaching. How tragic. But how understandable. Especially when you acknowledge
By Danielle Freitag, LADC | December 2019 There once was a little girl who loved to sing and dance. At first, she would twirl around the house like a ballerina without ever thinking she needed to have anyone to dance with, or for. This little girl was me, and like so many young girls, I
by Lisa Long Over the past year I have become increasingly aware of the need to educate dancers, dance teachers and parents about the hyper-sexualization of children in dance and beyond. As a college Professor I encounter students just before they make their way into the dance world, and it is with immense hope that
By Judith Lynne Hanna, Ph.D. Many arguments for dance education have been made. For example, certainly students in dance may acquire skill sets that serve them in myriad of ways, develop embodied knowledge and kinesthetic connections, and become gainfully employed. But the most important reason to offer dance education in schools and universities as well
The hypersexualization of women in our Western world has a long, prevalent and unfortunate history. Sadly, in fact, it is not difficult to verify the tragic pattern of this exploitation. According to a plethora of research on this topic, the evidence that women are sexualized in print and television advertisements, music videos, video games and
by Lynn Monson | January 2020 Your child is begging you to enroll them in a dance class or maybe you’ve decided it would be good to enroll them in a dance class. So, how do you find a good class, appropriate for your child’s age? These three questions may help you. What do you
Guest Blog Post By: Leslie Bryan, CSUSB Theatre/Dance Faculty The greatest joy for me as a dance educator is to help students find the movements from within and to explore their own sense of aesthetics in the art of dance. For the past 20 years, I have been a lecturer in the Theatre Arts/Dance department
