DaCi USA Newsletter Fall 2020

From the Chair

I am excited to greet you as the 8th daCi USA chair. Autumn is the season when I reflect and am mindful of the past year and its impact on my life. The extraordinary events of 2020 have given us all much to think about, challenging us to explore new ways for engagement and exchange and asking us to consider our traditions, beliefs, values, and practices. daCi USA, with our international family, exemplifies the universality and power of dance to liberate creativity, embody history, cherish culture, and build harmony. As people who celebrate our diversity and humanity through the power of dance, we are asked to voice solidarity.

I am honored to lead and represent such an amazing group of dedicated dancers, dance educators, and dance advocates! I look forward to when we can gather and dance together in beautiful Holland, Michigan.

At our virtual membership meeting on July 31st, we commended the leadership and dedication of outgoing board chair Anna Mansbridge and members Mary Lynn Babcock, Mila Parrish, and Marlene Strang. We acknowledged the ongoing commitment and new responsibilities of ongoing board members Heather Francis, Carol Day, Nicki Flinn, Mady Cantor, and Chris Roberts.

And we welcomed and introduced the unique talents of new board members Deborah Lipa-Ciotta, Chara Huckins, Cally Flox, Kathryn Austin, Vincent E. Thomas, Amy Munro Lang-Crow, Sara Malan-McDonald, and Jennifer Florey. I am grateful to share my passion for dance in the daCi Way with each of these remarkable individuals. Please read more about them on the daCi USA website.

Letter from the Editor

Greetings from your new newsletter editor. I am taking over this role from the visionary Mila Parrish, who was editor starting in 2013. We know Mila will continue to make vibrant contributions to dance education through her work at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I am grateful to have Heather Francis, digital designer and forward-thinking dynamo, at my side. She, in turn, is assisted by two student interns, Dana Lambert and Camille Winn. Many thanks to all of them.

As we all know, this is a year of unprecedented challenges (and opportunities) -- with the pandemic, the movements for social justice and equity for people of color, and a national election like no other. For me it has been a season of video viewing (top picks: 13th; Crip Camp; Ramy), reading (top picks: Warmth of Other Suns; Dance Pedagogy for a Diverse World), some online dance, and efforts at self-reflection and activism.

Dance education is included, of course, in this extraordinary “hinge” moment. We are all called to cope with the changes to our teaching caused by the pandemic; to become aware and proactive in relation to inclusion and diversity and equity in our work; and to take part in our national life as citizens and voters. I don’t have any magic bullets to solve any of these problems, but I appreciate that daCi gives me a connection to creative, resilient, deep-thinking people.

I look forward to a better year in 2021, for all of us. Meanwhile here is something to lift you as we move ahead: vimeo.com/437282925.

Mady Cantor

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

JoniWilson

One of the founding daCi USA board members, Joni Urry Wilson, talks about her career as a teaching artist and the joy she finds in teaching.

Joni Urry Wilson is the rock behind the scenes at the Tanner Dance Program in Salt Lake City, Utah where she is a Dance Specialist and the Studio Director. The acclaimed program was started in 1949 by children’s dance pioneer, Virginia Tanner who developed a dance teaching philosophy centered on the child as an artist. In addition to strong technical training, the approach honors and fosters children’s expression through movement. Virginia Tanner’s methods and life example inspire and inform Joni’s teaching.

Joni started dancing at three years old with Virginia Tanner. As a senior in high school Joni auditioned for a dance scholarship to the University of Utah and received the prestigious four-year Elizabeth R. Hayes scholarship. She decided that a career in dance was the path for her and went on to Mills College for an MFA.

A typical day for Joni includes teaching dance to young children in the morning, then sitting down to do administrative work for the studio program. Her afternoons are filled with teaching elementary students and then she moves into teaching teenagers. Overall, she states, “they are long hard days that are fettered with fun.”