Y dance company focuses on arts emphasis in public school system
By Derek Gurr
BYU dance company Kinnect is striving to teach children to investigate, explore and create through dance.
The 12 Kinnect dancers appear in elementary school auditoriums to share their love of dancing and encourage children to consider dance as a way to discover themselves.
“We are truly advocates for the creative process,” said Rebecca Downs, a dance major from Orem, who recently graduated.
Kinnect’s efforts highlight concern for the diminishing arts emphasis in the public school system.
“The ‘whole child’ is being neglected in our school systems,” said Marilyn Berrett, faculty adviser to Kinnect. “We are so focused on tests and math and language that other areas are beginning to be diminished.”
According to the National Dance Education Organization, 57 percent of students do not receive any dance education during the K–12 years. Of the students who do, only 7 percent received training from dance specialists.
The fine arts section of the Utah State Office of Education says dance is “a universal language, an expressive and vibrant art with the capacity to unify the physical mental, social, emotional, aesthetic and spiritual aspects of the human being.”
Kinnect was formed in 2002 and the name comes from two words: kinetic (which relates to motion) and connect. “We are Kinnect,” says its mission statement. “Artist educators who love to connect dance to everything and everyone in the world around us.”
One of Kinnect’s objectives is to boost children’s self-esteem through dance.
“We not only teach children how to move but we also teach them how to gain confidence and how to cooperate together,” Downs said. “Educating the whole person.”
Although they might not focus as much as other groups in typical performances, members of Kinnect dedicate their share of time to prepare to teach and instruct children countrywide. Kinnect concentrates its efforts in Utah, but the group has also performed and taught in New York and Philadelphia. Participants have also made several tours out of the country to places such as Brazil and the Netherlands. Earlier this year they did a conference in Jamaica.
“I think that the arts help us to understand our humanity,” Berrett said. “I am tremendously concerned about what’s going on with children in school, that we’re negating the arts to an unnecessary part of our children’s lives.”
This article was published on May 14, 2010 by the Daily Universe, BYU’s student newspaper sponsored by the BYU Department of Communications.
