Congratulations to our dance majors on a successful first semester.  And thank you to our dance families for your continued support of our program.  We are looking forward to a great second half of the year, the culmination of which will be our Spring Showcase in May (more info below).  We hope you have a restful last week off, and we're looking forward to seeing our students in the new year!

Conferences and Grades

Thank you to everyone for participating in our 1st semester conferences.  For those parent/guardians that attended these meetings, I truly enjoyed speaking with you and getting to share a little bit more about the work we are doing in our program.  After reflecting on these first meetings, we are working with Administration and our fellow Arts Directors on devoting a specific week during 3rd quarter to our second round of arts conferences.  During this week, conferences would take place between 8am and 4pm, opening up more conference times during the school day, allowing more arts faculty to be present at meetings, and ensuring that students receive feedback in timely manner after 3rd quarter progress reports come out.  Please stay tuned for more information on this.

As many of you know from our conferences, grading is something that the Dance Department continues to reflect on and refine.  Recently, we made some small adjustments in Powerschool to ensure that our evaluation system is more accurately reflected in the grades that Powerschool generates.  Also, we have more clearly broken down our rubric, indicating the specific percentage that each mark represents (see below).  Students will receive another round of evaluation forms for 2nd quarter, one from each teacher and each class.  They may pick these up as soon as classes resume on January 7th.  Please reach out with any questions about grading, and thank you for your patience with this process.

Dance Department Rubric

5 (exemplary) - 100%

4.5 - 95%

4 (mature) - 90%

3.5 - 85%

3 (progressing) - 80%

2.5 - 75%

2 (basic) - 70%

1.5 - 65%

1 (below basic) - 60%

Faculty News

Spring Showcase and Auditions

DonorsChoose.org

We are halfway to our goal on our latest Donorschoose project!  Our dance majors are in need of yoga mats for our conditioning classes.  Our requested Manduka mats are high quality and will last us for years to come.  To receive these materials, our project must be fully funded by February 23, 2019.  Please consider giving to this project here, and thank you to those that have already donated.   

Winter and Summer Intensives

Workshops and intensives provide a great opportunity for student's to continue their dance education and gain exposure to new instructors, studios, dance companies, etc.  For those that have inquired or may be interested, I have compiled a list of local studios with upcoming winter and summer classes, workshops, and intensives.  Dancersgroup.org is also a great resource for summer intensives.  Please check here for their 2019 summer workshop guide.  (Some studios have not posted current summer info yet.  If they do have current information, I have provided the link below). 

Alonzo King LINES Ballet (SF)

ODC Dance Commons (SF)

Shawl-Anderson Dance Center (Berkeley)

Contra Costa Ballet Centre (Walnut Creek)

Berkeley Ballet Theater (Berkeley)

Post:ballet (Berkeley)

Center for Community Arts (Walnut Creek; in partnership with Diablo Ballet)

FACT/SF (SF)

Upcoming Performances

If you have the opportunity, please check out some of these upcoming performances.  I have made an effort to take students to more shows this year, but its impossible to see everything!  Some great companies and artists come through the Bay Area, and my recommendations are below.  Baydance.com is also a great resource for upcoming performances.

We Are On Instagram!

A reminder that the Dance Department has its own instagram @cocospadance.

Please follow us and spread the word!