FALL CONFERENCE

UDEO Fall Conference

Dear Utah Dance Educators,

Please join us for the 2021 UDEO Fall Conference at Dixie State University in beautiful St. George, UT!

Given the upheaval of the past 18 months, the intention behind this year’s theme, Re-Connecting: Renewing the Dance Education Community, is for each participant to find opportunities to Re-Connect: to self, to place, to practice, and to community.

For those able to join on Friday, November 5th for some pre-conference activities, we will meet at the DSU Eccles Fine Arts Center parking lot at 4:30pm to caravan out to Snow Canyon State Park where we will aim to reconnect to self and place through ecosomatic improvisation. Following this movement experience, we will gather for dinner at nearby Xetava Gardens Café in the Kayenta Arts Village around 6:30pm.

The official 2021 UDEO Fall Conference begins Saturday, November 6th with registration opening at 7:30am in the Eccles Fine Arts Center Lobby on the DSU campus. Many notable dance educators will present at the conference this year. In-person attendees have the option to participate in up to 4 sessions throughout the day, enjoy lunch and awards, and listen to the keynote address scheduled for midday. Workshop and presentation sessions throughout the day include a range of topics including inclusive pedagogy in dance education, somatic aerial dance, dance technique, improvisation, sector specific sessions, building community between dance sectors, and more!

Following lunch and the awards presentation, our Keynote Speaker, Sondra Fraleigh, will present “Geographies of Us.” Sondra brings with her over 50 years as a dance educator, artist, and scholar. She is the founder and director of Eastwest Somatics and is an international leader in dance, yoga, and healing arts. “Geographies of Us” draws from Fraleigh’s unique and rich history in movement arts and research, while also looking forward to the future of dance education and somatics.

For those unable to join us in-person, please check out the Virtual Option which includes 2 sessions specifically designed with remote participation in mind and a livestream of Awards and Keynote Address.

Best,

Sara Gallo, UDEO Fall Conference Chair

COVID Protocols: Masks are requested for all conference attendees throughout the day for in-door sessions and activities. Boxed lunches will be provided with an option for conference attendees to eat outdoors.

Schedule (In-Person)

Friday, November 5 (Option Pre-Conference)

4:30 pm - Eco-somatic Improvisation at Snow Canyon

6:30 - Dinner (Not included in the registration fee.)

Saturday, November 6

7:30-8:00 - Registration

8:00 - 8:30 - Somatic Warm-Up - Lori Higbee

8:30 - Welcome - Sara Gallo

9:00 - 10:20 Session 1

Pivoting with a Purpose - Jennifer Weber
Exertion<-->Recuperation Through Aerial Dance - Elizabeth Stich

10:30 - 11:50 Session 2

Pivoting with a Purpose - Jennifer Weber
Exertion<-->Recuperation Through Aerial Dance - Elizabeth Stich

12:00 - Lunch

12:30 - Awards Presentation

1:00 - 1:50 Keynote Speaker - Sondra Fraleigh, "Geographies of Us"

2:00 - 3:00 Session 3

Still I Rise - Ashley Boyack
Katsugen Undo - Dimitri Peskov
Embraced for Being: Examining Racism in Dance Education Through Somatic Movement and Appreciative Inquiry - Lehua Estrada, Eileen Rojas, and Natosha Washington

3:10 - 4:10 Session 4

The Interactive Dance of K-12 - Rachel Marie Kimball
Let's Dance! - Ashley Mott

Schedule (Virtual)

Saturday, November 6

9:30 - 9:40 - Welcome, Sara Gallo

9:40 - 10:30 - Session 1

Still I Rise - Ashley Boyack

10:40 - 11:30 - Session 2

The Interactive Dance of K-12 - Rachel Marie Kimball

12:30 - Awards Presentation

1:00 - 1:50 - Keynote Speaker - Sondra Fraleigh, "Geographies of Us"

REGISTRATION AND PRICING

Full day in-person (with lunch)

Professional

Member: $50 (early reg.) - $55 (late reg.)
USBE: $15 (early reg.) - $20 (late reg.)
Non-member $70 (early reg.) - $75 (late reg.)
USBE-non $25 (early reg.) - $30 (late reg.)

Student

Member: $10 (early reg.) - $15 (late reg.)
Non-member: $15 (early reg.) - $20 (late reg.)

Half-day virtual:

$25 (early reg.) - $30 (late reg.)

Travel Funding

Check with your principal, district professional development office or arts coordinator for opportunities for travel support to this year's weekend conference.

Keynote Speaker - Sondra Fraleigh

Sondra Fraleigh, Eastwest Director, Professor of Dance Emeritus, Fulbright Scholar & RSMT

Sondra Fraleigh is an international leader in dance, yoga, and healing arts. She Is a Registered Feldenkrais® teacher, and certifies Registered Somatic Movement Educators and Therapists through ISMETA, International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association. She has been a professor of dance and somatics for over forty years in the Department of Dance at the State University of New York at Brockport and is a valued mentor to dancers and somatic practitioners in the USA, Europe, Japan, Mexico, and India.

For more than 40 years, Professor Sondra Fraleigh has been a leader in the study of movement and dance. She is a Fulbright Scholar and professor emeritus of the State University of New York, College at Brockport, where she chaired the Department of Dance. Her innovative choreography based in somatics and inspired by butoh has been seen on tour in America, Germany, the UK, India, and Japan. She served as president of the Congress on Research in Dance (renamed, Dance Studies Association) and as a Faculty Exchange Scholar for the State University of New York. Her articles have been published in texts on dance and movement, philosophy, somatics, and cognitive psychology. Some of her articles are available for download below.

Eastwest Institute features Shin Somatics® - an approach to healing and personal transformation developed by Sondra Fraleigh through her teaching of dance and movement, integrative bodywork, philosophy, and meditation. Her work is informed by her certification in the Feldenkrais® Method and CranioSacral Therapy - as also her study of Myofascial Release, Effective Communication, Japanese Butoh, Yoga, and Zen meditation.

Keynote Presentation - "Geographies of Us and Place Dances"

Sondra will speak about and illustrate geographies as a wide term that speaks to dance and Placescapes. “Us" is a term that usually refers to persons. Sondra challenges and stretches the notion of “us,” foregrounding the entangled nature of the human, the more-than-human, the earth, and its atmosphere. We invite you into a new way of thinking about and being moved by the collective “us” who inhabit planet Earth and how dancing on earth impacts our understandings of ourselves as part of nature.

Awards 2021

Lifetime Achievement Award 2021

Pam Musil, MA, was a Professor of contemporary dance for 27 years at BYU. Her expertise and interests resided in dance science and dance education; she taught Kinesiology for Dancers and several dance pedagogy courses. She is a certified level 2 Franklin Method Educator (FME). Her teaching career prior to her work at BYU included eleven years teaching in the public schools where she was recognized as State, Regional and National Dance Educator of the Year by the National Dance Association (NDA). Her scholarship at BYU included five years as artistic director of DancEnsemble and various scholarly publications that span grades 7-12 through post-secondary education and administration, and addressed topics including dance choreography, literacy, curriculum, education and gender. Her work can be found in the Journal of Dance Education, Research in Dance Education, Arts Education Policy Review, Arts Education and Literacies (2015), Dance and Gender (2017), and Case Studies in Dance Education: Ethical Dimensions of Humanizing Dance Pedagogy (Schupp & Risner forthcoming 2019). She serves on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Dance Education.

Rachel Marie Kimball