BYU Dance Education Majors Go Forth to Serve in Pandemic

BYU Dance Teachers-in-Training Reach Out to North Utah County Middle & High Schools

Even teachers in training are heroes this year! BYU Dance Education majors didn’t let the pandemic stop them this week. Eighteen BYU dancers brought sashays, smiles and swag to eager middle schoolers who learned to use dance to cope with school stress.

In past years, the BYU Department of Dance has hosted hundreds of young students from the greater Salt Lake Metro area for a Junior High Day of Dance. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event this year was transformed into a day of outreach for several trios of BYU dance students who will be soon be dance teachers with full credentials upon graduation.

These teachers-to-be traveled on Monday, Feb. 22, 2021, through icy roads from Provo to North Utah County and were welcomed into six schools: Lehi Junior High, Vista Heights Middle School in Saratoga Springs, Lake Mountain Middle School in Saratoga Springs, Timberline Middle School in Alpine, Lehi High School, and the Dance Conservatory in Pleasant Grove. Some classes contained students who were on the schools’ respective dance companies. Other classes were Men’s Dance, Intro to Dance and several advanced level classes.

Usually the Junior High Day of Dance is a chaotic, but exciting day on the Brigham Young University campus in Provo. School busses usually fill the college parking lots that day, while chatty 12-15 year-olds get a taste of college life, and chaperones are exhausted by 4:00. This year, however, the kids stayed in their schools’ dance studios, but got to enjoy a sampling of the BYU Dance life, customized for their own school and class level.

The middle school students were taught dance routines, given a chance to ask questions, and even treated to some new BYU Dance swag that the older students brought to them. The full-time junior high dance teachers were given information packets about the BYU Dance program and performing groups, to inspire their students to go to college and to continue to dance throughout their education.

BYU Dance Major Hali Boss was one of the teachers-in-training from BYU who got to experience this “Reverse Day of Dance” in two separate schools on Monday — Lehi Junior High and Lake Mountain Middle School. She had an excellent day and shares her observations in the paragraphs below.

In her own words ~ Hali Boss, BYU Dance Education Major

“It was such a great experience to have the opportunity to take what we are learning in class about teaching and apply it to a real junior high classroom. The schools were so gracious to have us and the students were polite and very kind. “

“It was fun to get to know the students through how they executed the movement we taught them. I was shocked at how large the class sizes were and how many students really want to be involved in dance. Although they had big classes, we were able to keep the students in their assigned spots due to COVID-19 restrictions and parameters.”

“I enjoyed watching the students have dance as an outlet during their day, and I believe it is so important for students to be able to express themselves everyday through movement. That is why it made me so happy to see how many students were allowing dance to be in their school schedule. ” ~ Hali Boss, BYU Dance Education Major, Feb. 24, 2021

In her own words ~ Lyric Ikeomu, BYU Dance Education Major

“Overall it was a really good experience to visit Lehi High’s dance company class and teach improv. I loved working with high school students. I think they’re such a fun group and have such good energy.”

“They’re also very talented and advanced technical dancers. This made it nice to push them in new ways of movement. I could tell that they hadn’t done a lot of modern technique or improvisation. And so initiation improv was a little out of their comfort zone, yet they were confident enough and skilled enough that they got it eventually.”

“I think that overall this teaching experience went really well. I think I connected with the students, and when I was teaching I felt good about it.” ~ Lyric Ikeomu, BYU Dance Education Major, Feb. 25, 2021.

Learn more about the BYU Dance Education major and teaching program here.