Guest Blogger

by Susan P. Lloyd Last October, I was on a flight from SFO to Miami, FL to present at the National Dance Educators’ Conference. I happened to sit next to Nancy Ng from the Luna Institute in Berkeley, California. She too, was on her way to the conference.  Ms. Ng asked the title of my presentation. With a hint of hesitation, I announced; Addressing Hypersexulatization in Collegiate Dance.  To my surprise, Nancy expressed interest and shared the following story:  In Nancy’s home community of Marin County, California, her daughters’ school library displayed a number of magazines. The magazines made available for girls were about physical looks and appearances. The boy’s magazines focused on professions such as science, technology, engineering and [...]

by Kristen A. Jenson, M.A. “The girls come to the set ‘porn-ready’” remarked one pornographer, as he commented on the changes he saw in the performers. Thanks to so much sexual objectification in the media and in dance, his new female “porn stars” needed little coaching. How tragic. But how understandable. Especially when you acknowledge the powerful messages young girls get from performers like Jennifer Lopez who say they want to be their role models. To raise girls who are empowered to value themselves as more than decorations, let’s be intentional about what they watch, wear and play with. What they watch--avoiding sexualized entertainment Ask yourselves, what messages are my daughters (and sons) getting from the shows they watch? Are [...]

By Danielle Freitag, LADC | December 2019 There once was a little girl who loved to sing and dance. At first, she would twirl around the house like a ballerina without ever thinking she needed to have anyone to dance with, or for. This little girl was me, and like so many young girls, I had taken years of dance lessons–jazz, tap, and ballet. As a young girl, there was innocence in the way that I moved. To be able to move freely in expressions that elicit beauty gave a sense of liveliness. I’ve always loved to dance. Dance has also brought healing from the past–a past where dance became seductive and controlled. My song and dance was eventually stolen. [...]

by Lisa Long Over the past year I have become increasingly aware of the need to educate dancers, dance teachers and parents about the hyper-sexualization of children in dance and beyond. As a college Professor I encounter students just before they make their way into the dance world, and it is with immense hope that I share some remarkable moments that have occurred in my classes this past year. I teach both Creative Dance for Children (CDC), a class geared to teaching the ins and outs of teaching dance in K-12, and Theory and Critique, which encourages students to form and articulate clear opinions based in fact. Within both of these courses, I present the thirty-minute video, Dance Awareness: No [...]

The hypersexualization of women in our Western world has a long, prevalent and unfortunate history.  Sadly, in fact, it is not difficult to verify the tragic pattern of this exploitation.  According to a plethora of research on this topic, the evidence that women are sexualized in print and television advertisements, music videos, video games and the Internet is undeniable (Gow, 1996; Grauerholz & King, 1997; Krassas, Blauwkamp, & Wesselink, 2001).  When discussing the topic of “Sexualization” we need to have a clear definition of what the term “Sexualization” means.  According to the American Psychological Association (APA), sexualization occurs when, “ A person’s value comes from his or her sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics; A person [...]

by Lynn Monson | January 2020 Your child is begging you to enroll them in a dance class or maybe you’ve decided it would be good to enroll them in a dance class. So, how do you find a good class, appropriate for your child’s age? These three questions may help you. What do you want your child to gain from taking dance? And how much are you willing to invest? To have fun? To learn about the art form of Dance? For sociability? To burn off excess energy or to help your child with coordination or strength etc? Can you commit to once or twice a week for eight weeks or a year? How much money can you spend [...]

Guest Blog Post By: Leslie Bryan, CSUSB Theatre/Dance Faculty The greatest joy for me as a dance educator is to help students find the movements from within and to explore their own sense of aesthetics in the art of dance.  For the past 20 years, I have been a lecturer in the Theatre Arts/Dance department at California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB) teaching dance education courses for pre-service teachers.  The courses focus on the pedagogy and technique of how to implement dance in public school classrooms.  We explore how to be inclusive in decisions of who gets to dance, how to add depth and scope to dance lessons and how to develop future dancers and patrons of dance who will [...]