Kristen Lewis

Discipline: Dance
Homebase: Vancouver
Languages: English
Grant Eligibility: Eligible to apply for AIC

Kristen is an experienced movement educator and an accomplished dance artist. Her tried and true approach to childhood dance education, cultivated through 12 years of teaching experience, creates welcoming, productive class environments where students explore fundamental dance concepts as a framework for discovering their own unique ways of moving. In Kristen's classes, students build core dance skills (technique, improvisation and dance-creation skills), in an environment that fosters creativity, critical thinking, self-confidence and healthy body image. Kristen loves connecting dance concepts to broader curriculum material and welcomes the opportunity to work collaboratively with classroom teachers to design a dance residency that fits their needs. Kristen is well-versed in land-based approaches to dance pedagogy and is happy to work with teachers to create a unique, land-based dance residency that responds to curricular needs.

Classroom Residency(ies)

Brain Dance for Learning Readiness

School Year: 22-23

The Brain Dance is an engaging eight-part sequence based on the movement patterns a child naturally goes through in the first year of life. Practising the Brain Dance on a regular basis integrates body and brain functions, creating a state of learning-readiness. Kristen can lead Brain Dance classes for all grade levels, in a time-frame that works for the school's needs. Over the course of the residency, students are empowered to lead sections of the Brain Dance on their own, and teachers gain the skills to implement the Brain Dance into regular classroom activities after Kristen leaves.

Dancing the Land

School Year: 22-23

An interactive dance workshop for elementary, middle school or high school students, using contemporary dance to deepen connections with the land in the immediate environment of the school. Through this land-based approach to dance education, students will work together with the dance teacher's guidance to create a dance that can be performed at the end of the residency. Kristen is skilled at working across age groups, ability levels and with deep cultural sensitivity; she has conducted several land-based residencies, including one for an entire elementary school which culminated in a full-school recital celebrating children's creative interactions with the land.

Performance Creation Intensive

School Year: 22-23

Working intensively with a group of students, a class or several classes over a period of a few days or weeks (min. 8 sessions), Kristen will mentor students in the creation of their own dances to perform at a special school event (school assemblies, holiday concerts, graduation celebrations). The focus will be on creative-process: learning about dance as an artform, and exploring core dance concepts and choreographic skills in a respectful, empowering environment where the contributions of all students are valued. Subject matter can be chosen in consultation with the teacher, school and students. Indoor performances or outdoor, place-based performances are possible.

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