Building Dances : A Guide to Putting Movements Together

Even if you've never taught or choreographed dance before, Building Dances provides all the tools and blueprints you need to create and facilitate dances.
This how-to book will help you introduce, develop, and assess the basics of choreography in grades K-12. Building Dances takes you step-by-step through the choreographic process.
You'll find sample lesson plans; guidelines for teaching the skills involved; suggestions for organizing movements; ideas for stylizing and individualizing dances; dance construction models for designing dances; age-appropriate adaptations for grades K-3, 4-6, and 7-12; student outcome/assessment forms and sample criteria; summaries and a glossary that explains important dance terms in everyday language.
The book is accompanied by a unique deck of 112 Deal-a-Dance cards that provide movement examples students can try out right away. These cards offer 224 teacher-tested and student-appreciated ideas for choreographing dances.

Susan McGreevy-Nichols is the national director of Arts, Planning and School Support for the Galef Institute in Los Angeles. She taught at Roger Williams Middle School in Providence, Rhode Island, from 1974 to 2002. She was the founder and director of the inner-city school's nationally recognized dance program in which more than 300 of the school's 900 students elected to participate.

Susan is coauthor of Building Dances: A Guide to Putting Movements Together (1995) and its second edition (in press), Building More Dances: Blueprints for Putting Movements Together (2001), and Dance About Anything (in press). She is a charter member and presenter of the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) and a former treasurer and board member. She also has served as the president of the National Dance Association (NDA) and the nominating chair and (Rhode Island) state leader for the Kennedy Center Alliance for Arts Education.

Susan has received numerous NDA presidential citations and an Eastern District Association (EDA) of the American Alliance of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD) Merit Award in Dance. In 1994 she was named Rhode Island's Dance Teacher of the Year, and in 1995 she was honored both as the NDA National Dance Teacher of the Year and as an EDA Outstanding Professional. She received AAHPERD's Honor Award in 2000.

Helene Scheff, RDE, has been a dance educator and administrator for 45 years in both the public and private sectors. She is coauthor of Building Dances: A Guide to Putting Movements Together (1995), Building More Dances: Blueprints for Putting Movements Together (2001), Experiencing Dance: From Student to Dance Artist (2005), and Dance About Anything (in press).

A registered dance educator, Scheff is the founder and executive director of Chance to Dance, an in-school dance program started in 1985 that brings quality dance education to children in grades 4 through 8.

A graduate of the famed NYC High School of Performing Arts, Scheff is a former Joffrey Ballet dancer. She is a founding member and former president of the Dance Alliance of Rhode Island and has served as vice president of dance for the Eastern District Association (EDA) of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. She is a board member of the Rhode Island Alliance for Arts Education and the Committee Liaison for UNITY. Scheff is a member of the National Dance Association (NDA) and a charter member of the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO).

Scheff was named the Rhode Island Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance's (RIAHPERD) Dance Teacher of the Year in 1996 and was honored as an EDA Outstanding Professional in 1996. She received the RIAHPERD President's Honor Award in 1997 and an NDA Presidential Citation in 1998. She was awarded the Dance Alliance of Rhode Island Dance Legacy Award in 2002.

Marty Sprague, MA, is a professional choreographer and performer with more than 29 years of experience in public dance education. She is the dance teacher at the Providence Academy of International Studies and artistic director of Chance to Dance.

Marty holds a master's degree in dance education from the Teacher's College at Columbia University and a BFA in dance from Boston Conservatory. She has been a licensed trainer for the National Center for Education and the Economy's Course I, Standards-Based Curriculum—a professional development course for standards-based teaching and learning. She served on the Rhode Island Governor's Task Force for Literacy in the Arts. Marty is a member of the Arabella Project, a dance group exploring the realms of the older dancer.

Marty is coauthor of Building More Dances: Blueprints for Putting Movements Together (2001), Experiencing Dance: From Student to Dance Artist (2005), and Dance About Anything (in press). She also served as a consultant to the authors for the first edition of Building Dances: A Guide to Putting Movements Together (1995).

In 1992 Marty was named the Rhode Island Dance Educator of the Year and in 1998 earned an Outstanding Professional Award from EDA. In 2004, Marty was honored with Dance Teacher Magazine's Dance Teacher of the Year Award for K-12. She is a member of the National Dance Association (NDA) and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and she is a charter member of National Dance Education Organization (NDEO).