DANVILLE SCHOOLS

Press release

The Danville Independent School District announced a new dance program, taking place at Mary G. Hogsett Elementary School. The school was awarded a VSA Kentucky Arts Inclusion dance education residency.

During March, all first-grade students will be a part of an experiential and inclusive dance residency during their physical education classes.

In addition, this project entitled “What can we say through movement” has been selected to represent VSA Kentucky as a 2018-19 VSA Arts Connect All Workshop/Residency, a program of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Hogsett Elementary is excited to welcome Yolantha Pace and Paula Meckes as its two dance teaching artists.

Pace will guide the students in exploring West African dance movements and the role of dance in West African culture. She is a performing arts specialist, award-winning author, playwright, poet and missionary to Haiti.

Her work is steeped in her heritage of the African-American, Cherokee and Arapaho cultures. Meckes will guide the students through creative dance workshops. Students will explore a variety of movements that express stories, ideas and emotions.

Meckes is retired educator from the Kentucky School for the Deaf, and has run the Danville Boyle County Recreation Department Dance Program since 1993. She is a member of the National Association of Dance Masters.

This project was funded in part by VSA Kentucky, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing inclusive arts and education programs for children and adults with disabilities, in addition to professional development for artists and teachers in schools and communities statewide.