“”LA CROSSE, Wis., (January 31, 2022) – Dancing creates a unique sense of community, and at North Woods International School staff are expanding the music and physical education curriculum to include teaching students dances from around the world.
Through the generosity of a Gold Star Grant from the La Crosse Public Education Foundation, North Woods teachers hosted a dance artist in residence this week. The focus of the residency was global folk dancing. Over 300 kindergarten through fifth-grade students each had the opportunity to work with resident artist Sue Hulsether from New Day Hoedown four times during the week.
“Our students participating in these folk dance lessons are more engaged, joyful, and actively moving,” said North Woods Music Specialist Mandi Wolfgram. “We will be using global folk dance to not only enhance our music and physical education curriculum through moving artfully to music but also to strengthen our students’ social and community building skills.”
As an added bonus of the residency, music teachers from throughout the district will be offered training during professional development to be able to incorporate folk dancing at each of their individual schools.
“Folk dancing has been a lot of fun and feels really creative to me,” said North Woods fifth-grader Autumn Yang. “I feel happy doing this, learning these dances, and hearing kids laugh and have fun. Once we leave, we’ll probably know how to do most of the dances pretty well so I’m going to do this at home!”
North Woods staff plan to incorporate elements and lessons learned from the global folk dancing residency into the school’s regular Global Arts Nights for their families.
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