Meet Crelata®!

“My middle school students were eager to learn Latin dance styles like Salsa, Merengue, and Bachata because they had seen them danced at family gatherings and they wanted to be able to join in. I had no experience with these styles, so I asked my students to teach me what they knew. Most of them were used to being wallflowers at family events so they were too shy to share what they had observed. I attempted to learn the basics online. It did not go well. When I presented what I “learned” to the class they laughed and told me I was doing it all wrong. (They were right.)”

“After many years, I was able to raise thousands of dollars to bring in a teaching artist who could teach us authentic Latin dances. For the first time, I saw my students truly come alive in their bodies. Everyone was up and moving in the center of the room with a sense of pride. I was upset that it took so long to give my students an experience where their cultures were validated and represented accurately.”

“The pandemic completely changed how I was able to teach. I had to go from classroom to classroom, and I kept losing my voice from teaching six classes a day in double masks and a face shield. Since there were smart boards in every room, I thought it would be a good idea to project online dance lessons for the students to follow along with. I carefully curated the few videos I could find and presented them to my class. Much to my dismay, the videos were too fast, too hard, poor quality, had ads that popped up at inconvenient times, and didn’t engage the students in creative thinking. My students shut down. They stood staring at the smart board, desperate to learn, but they couldn’t follow the teacher. The only effective strategy was when I paused the video and broke the steps down into smaller parts using my pedagogical knowledge of how children learn.”

“Through these experiences I realized the need for educationally sound digital arts lessons that could supplement existing dance curriculum or be a dance curriculum for schools that don’t have one. I hope you’ll dance with us!”