Good afternoon from St. Joseph’s Indian School!
Today’s blog post comes from Melanie, a recent Artist in Residence at St. Joseph’s. Enjoy!
It has been such a blessing to dance with the students of St. Joseph’s through the Artist in Schools program with the South Dakota Arts Council. I was very grateful for the opportunity to be in this incredible gem of a state!
Pam, St. Joseph’s Personal Living Skills Instructor, was a great help in pulling it all together and having the residency run so smoothly! She was very supportive and helpful and made a world of difference!
With the first through eighth grades, we explored the world of dance from many perspectives! We danced to music from all of the over the world, from Ireland to Jamaica, Sweden to Oceania, India to Cuba and many other places.
We explored ballet as a wonderful way to stay in peak performance shape, avoid injuries, build strength, flexibility and balance and respectfully warm up our bodies in the process! We released some of our pre-conceived ideas about ballet and learned that many professional athletes use ballet in their training.
The dancers also took the ‘ballet class’ taught in the language of ballet, which is French. They learned that by listening and watching, they could discern much of another language without speaking it.
The dancers explored how to embrace the RESPECT that a dancer is required to have for him/herself, for all others and for all of our environment. We spent much of our time with creative movement and learning to tap into our own creative spirit, moving through a space filled with other dancers who were also spontaneously improvising…. without bumping into one another!
I LOVED seeing smiling faces of the Lakota children in each class!
We also explored many different props such as cotton bandanas, silk scarves, stretchy loops and silk streamers while we challenged ourselves to dance with others by mirroring or shadowing their movements. We learned that being a leader of movement means that we are responsible to our followers.
I am very impressed by and appreciative of the “Circle of Courage” that is emphasized at St. Joseph’s Indian School. I experienced generosity of spirit, independence in creativity, mastery of attempting difficult ‘moves’ and lastly, relationships broadening as they danced together in a new way throughout the residency.
I was sad to leave the wonderful staff, faculty and students, but delighted that I have been blessed by the opportunity to dance with the students at St. Joseph’s Indian School!
Thank you kindly.
Melanie
Artist in Residence
