In the News
PBS recently stopped by CDI partner school Carthay Center Elementary to see the students in action!
Take a look as they dance into academics.
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Dance Beat, the newsletter of the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute and Colburn Dance Council, recently featured an article by CDI's Founder and a CDI Alumn, Paulo Hernandez.
Click Here for the Full Dance Beat Edition (Pictured right: Paulo and Jane Seymore at CDI's 2017 Event of the Year) |
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Angela Lansbury, prolific actress and philanthropist, is a staunch supporter of CDI. Here’s a look back in time at one of the many ways she has helped us.
Have you seen the CDI Promo Video?
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At Eagle Rock Elementary the children’s attention is riveted on Carole. For many of them, Carole’s is their “funnest” class. But don’t be fooled by the fun. The California Dance Institute’s techniques are highly structured. Carole will often use children to teach children. Today she singles out Elisha Marquez who demonstrates the box step. ‘Sometimes it’s scary,’ says Elisha, ‘but it builds confidence in us and it really helps us in experience.’
Teachers say they can see the impact of dance on their students’ performance in the classroom. Children are more focused, attentive and expressive. Laurel Hitchcock is a fourth grade teacher at Eagle Rock Elementary. ‘I’m seeing tremendous increases in writing skills. They leave dance and they’re energized and they’re freer. All of that is such a wonderful academic gift.’
Teachers say they can see the impact of dance on their students’ performance in the classroom. Children are more focused, attentive and expressive. Laurel Hitchcock is a fourth grade teacher at Eagle Rock Elementary. ‘I’m seeing tremendous increases in writing skills. They leave dance and they’re energized and they’re freer. All of that is such a wonderful academic gift.’
—Val Zavala, KCET’s Life & Times
Virtues, says Valleskey, are habits, and dance, as taught by CDI, is habituation in many of the skills of learning, as well as the components of good character. Dance, properly taught, is like sport, properly understood. CDI is inexpensive. Operating on a financial shoestring…CDI is a gift to a few of this city’s public schools. It makes one marvel at what educational improvements could be achieved with small sums in the service of something much scarcer than money — imagination.
—George F. Will, The Washington Post
Valleskey teaches while participating, stomping, shaking, clapping and kicking right along with the kids, and falling to the floor in mock anguish when something goes wrong, adding laughter to the demands of doing it right and having fun at the same time.
Anglos, Asians, African Americans and Latinos shared the rehearsal floor as a pianist banged away and as the kids threw themselves into the dance with the unrestricted abandon of magical creatures whirling in the wind. When I asked some of the children — Lupe, Ali, Elizabeth, Juan, Frances and Alonna — why they were there, all had a variety of reasons, but it took Frances to simplify it. “Dancing,” she said, “makes me happy.” Total and utter bliss is a rare human condition, too often limited to moments in childhood that begin to fade when the world beyond dancing opens to a growing up fraught with peril.
Anglos, Asians, African Americans and Latinos shared the rehearsal floor as a pianist banged away and as the kids threw themselves into the dance with the unrestricted abandon of magical creatures whirling in the wind. When I asked some of the children — Lupe, Ali, Elizabeth, Juan, Frances and Alonna — why they were there, all had a variety of reasons, but it took Frances to simplify it. “Dancing,” she said, “makes me happy.” Total and utter bliss is a rare human condition, too often limited to moments in childhood that begin to fade when the world beyond dancing opens to a growing up fraught with peril.
—Al Martinez, The Los Angeles Times
