|
Lecture-Workshop: Collaborative Journeys to Healthy Dance Practice (Andrea Downie, Maggie Morris, Karine Rathle)While language and location can provide potential barriers to communication and collaboration, being open to establishing/nurturing unexpected connections can lead to meaningful relationships and outcomes. This session will explore communication and collaboration by first presenting the discoveries and strides gained through an intercontinental collaboration, and then leading a creative network building workshop for multidisciplinary conference participants.
Following the conference theme, this interactive workshop aims to share the value of collaboration, demonstrating how working together can enrich joint vision, organizational goals and aspirations, and support individual journeys. The following workshop endeavours to support the formation of new beginnings and connections for the conference participants through creative networking. The goal is to facilitate communication and strengthen networks between participants and disciplines. Multidisciplinary collaborations will be encouraged, requiring everyone's input/strengths to come up with creative solutions. Participants will work together during the workshop, and throughout the conference, to discuss healthy dance definitions, collaborative opportunities and a shared vision of the future of healthy dance practice. Dancers, dance educators, researchers, dance scientists and health professionals are all welcome to participate and share their respective ideas, experience and knowledge. |
Andrea Downie |
ANDREA DOWNIE is the Conference Coordinator, Immediate Past President, and a founding member of Healthy Dancer Canada (HDC), a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the health, well-being and performance of all dancers. She is HDC's longest serving Board member, instrumental in the development of the organization, having served in every role within the organization since its inception in 2008. She is also the Founding Director of EnhanceDance, an initiative established in 2017 to share evidence-based best practices in dance training, performance and teaching.
A dance educator, choreographer and kinesiology instructor with 25 years of experience, Andrea received her HonBFA in Dance Performance and her MA in Dance Studies from York University. Her master's research focused on motor learning, and from it, she developed the Multisensory Pedagogical Model for Dance Skill Instruction to enhance dance skill learning. Andrea completed her professional training at Dance New Amsterdam (Dance Space Centre) in New York City, and performed with Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects while there. Andrea is a certified Level 1 & Level 2 Conditioning-with-Imagery Training teacher and the C-I TrainingTM Course Administrator, providing the Level 1 C-I TrainingTM Teacher Courses & Certifications. She is one of only a few certified teachers of Simonson Technique in Canada. She is also a Registered Provider with Safe in Dance International for the Healthy Dance Certificates, and a third-party CPD course provider for Royal Academy of Dance Canada. Andrea is currently based in Toronto. She has experience working across Canada in post-secondary dance and kinesiology programs, secondary school dance programs, pre-professional dance programs, arts centres and private dance studios. She works actively as a teacher-tutor, guest dance instructor, choreographer and speaker, enthusiastically sharing her passion for dance with teachers and dancers of all ages, levels and abilities. She teaches weekly classes at The School of Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre (CCDT), and other studios, in the greater Toronto area. Her dance classes are intelligently-structured, founded on evidence-based principles and best practices, and integrate dance history. She encourages somatic awareness, movement efficiency and effectiveness, and individual artistic expression within a safe, supportive and inclusive learning environment. |