Nevada Union Dance

Thank you friends of the NU Dance Program!

by

March 11, 2022

THANK YOU!

Thank you so much to everyone who has written letters and/or attended the 4+ hour board meeting to advocate for our dance program. I cannot even begin to express how much it means to me and to our current dance students affected by these proposed cuts to our beloved program. Your advocacy is making a difference! It has been so uplifting to witness the outpouring of support from parents, alumni, community members and, of course, my amazing students (past and present)!! I have cried reading your beautiful letters and listening to your speeches. It is such an honor to be part of a program that is truly making a difference in the lives of students.

Most of all, I am so proud of each and every one of my dancers. You are brave, strong, intelligent, and articulate young people. I am so lucky to be your teacher! At last night’s meeting, Lahela and Teran did an amazing job representing our students. Thank you to all of you who were able to attend! I know it was a long night, and we were at the very bottom of the agenda. Even if you weren’t able to stay the whole time, your presence made a positive impact!

I had a meeting with our district and site leaders yesterday, and they have promised that there will be NO CUTS to the NU Dance program for the upcoming school year. I am so relieved and happy to tell you that we will be able to provide full time dance education for beginning, intermediate, and advanced/ensemble for the 2022-2023 school year!

I will continue to work hard at recruitment and retention of students to our program. Full class sizes will leave no justification for any cuts now or in the future. Auditions for intermediate and advanced dance will be this upcoming Wednesday, March 16th from 3:45-6:00pm in the NU dance studio. All students who would like to be considered for movement up from their current level will need to audition. If you plan to stay at your current level of intermediate or advanced, then you are not required to audition, but you will still need to fill out the Audition Application. This short google form will inform me that you plan to stay in the program for next year. Please be sure that you have also talked to your counselor and signed up for the appropriate class(es) for next year. Of course, we need students who want to do Beginning Dance as well, so please help to spread the word to anyone who might be interested in joining our dance program. If you have any questions or would like more information, please let me know. Here is the link to our website with information on the requirements for each level: https://www.nevadauniondance.com/auditions/.

Over the past week, I believe your letters have given our school leadership a better understanding of the value of this dance program to our school and to our district. Again, thank you so much for the time and effort you put into supporting us.

With Deepest Gratitude,

Courtney Wadman

March 8, 2022

Letter to the dance community:

Nevada Union High School’s Dance program is on the list of proposed reductions for the 2022-2023 school year. The Board has voted to approve the potential reduction of Dance by one third next year, potentially taking away 2 of our 6 dance classes, due to budget cuts. They are also considering reductions in Dance and Band classes at Bear River.

If you are concerned by these reductions to Performing Arts in our District’s schools, then you could write to the leadership of our school. Here are their email addresses, if you’re interested:

I hope that they will receive a flood of emails advocating for the preservation of a full-time dance program at NU for next year and for years to come. It will require an outpouring of community support to help them recognize the impact of this decision on our dancers. Please spread the word far and wide about this issue!

Thank you for your help!

Courtney Wadman

March 7, 2022

Here is a copy of a letter that I have sent to our school leadership:

To Whom It May Concern:

Nevada Union High School has had a full-time Dance Director for 25 years, offering three levels of instruction: beginning, intermediate, and advanced. There are currently three beginning classes, one intermediate class, one advanced class, and one performance ensemble class. The same group of students are enrolled in both advanced dance (7th period) as well as performance ensemble (8th period). These two classes are designed to be taken concurrently to provide students with access to 5 days per week of training at a college-preparatory level.

The NU dance program is renowned for the caliber of its training and productions. A week ago, the advanced dancers performed at the Northwest Regional High School Dance Festival in Vancouver, where our seniors, juniors, and even a few sophomores were recruited by universities and conservatories. Our students were offered multiple scholarships for summer programs as well as acceptance letters to rigorous college dance programs. Most of the other schools represented at this festival specialize in the Arts. Nevada Union is one of the few public high schools with a dance program comparable to conservatories. This should make our District and all of Nevada County very proud.

The strength of our program lies in our rigorous training schedule. In addition to our district-funded school day dance classes, we hold daily after-school rehearsals as well as evening enrichment classes. We host professional guest choreographers from New York and Los Angeles for intensive weekend rehearsals. We put on three major productions in the Don Baggett Theater every school year; we perform at halftime sports events and school rallies, and we host summer dance intensives for the community. We take field trips to New York, L.A., San Francisco, and to regional as well as national dance festivals.

Tomorrow, our advanced dancers will have a special master class with a professional dancer who currently lives in Germany; she will teach our students and share with them her pathway to a successful professional career dancing in Europe. We are able to provide this special opportunity to our students because this woman is an alumna of our program and a graduate from Nevada Union. It was our program that prepared her for a successful career in the dance world.

Last weekend, we produced the 21st annual Student Choreography Showcase production, which several audience members praised as “the best” that our program has ever produced. Afterwards, our students stood on the stage and took turns with the microphone, sharing with the audience the impact this program has had on them. Several students talked about how it has greatly supported their mental health, self-esteem, sense of community and belonging, and motivation to attend Nevada Union. A couple of students said they wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for the NU dance program.

Sadly, our school principal, district administration, and school board members chose not to attend this event. I invited the leadership of our school to see this production and witness firsthand the most accurate and current picture of the program they plan to cut by a third for the upcoming school year. These proposed cuts would take away two of our six classes.

I urge the district administration and our school board not to make these cuts to dance or any other performing arts classes for the upcoming school year. Our programs have been impacted by COVID far more than most other subjects. Students could not safely do triple pirouettes or leaps in their bedrooms or living rooms during distance learning. Once we were allowed back on campus, their training schedule was greatly reduced; they couldn’t have any physical corrections/contact, no partnerwork, and we couldn’t hold live performances. It was only at the end of last school year that we were permitted to have a show with 10% audience capacity (50 tickets for a 500 seat theater) while maintaining 6 feet of distance from other dancers and wearing masks while performing on stage. These obstacles to a normal dance training experience impacted enrollment for the current school year (fewer students ready for an advanced level), so our numbers for our advanced class are at an all-time low. However, I see significant growth in all of my students this school year, and I will have growth in my enrollment for intermediate as well as advanced/ensemble for next school year. That said, we have not had adequate time to recover fully from the devastating impact of this pandemic on students’ involvement and improvement in the performing arts.

This is compounded by the fact that the schedule change to a 4×8 was not accompanied by a change in graduation requirements. Students are offered free periods and study halls, and they don’t need to take performing arts classes to graduate. Our classes are not deemed “essential.” We are in competition for students with perceived easier electives that don’t require students to perform. And dance already has cultural and social stigmas that prevent a lot of male students from wanting to enroll. Clearly, we face obstacles that other subjects do not.

Please show some compassion and recognition that we are barely getting back to “normal” after two years of pandemic life, and reducing class offerings for performing arts is not what is best for our students nor our district as a whole. A significant number of students come to our district and stay there because of our programs.

There is a great deal of research on the benefits of dance in public education. Dance engages all the senses, wires the brain for successful learning, develops gross motor skills, and enhances emotional well-being. Dance offers neurological benefits: it is effective because it involves sensory input, holds students’ attention for longer periods of time, helps them make connections between new and past learning, and improves long-term recall. Dance offers inclusion for English-language learners. It improves student achievement, lowers drop-out rates, enhances emotional well-being, and supports learning of underserved populations including kinesthetic learners, special education students, and low-income learners. A recent study in California found that students who participated in dance demonstrated more persistence and had higher grades than those involved in non-dance activities. For more information on this research, visit https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/Research-Art-Works-NDEO2.pdf.

Preserve and protect our amazing dance program at Nevada Union. Make it a priority to fund full-time Performing Arts educators. Our classes help to achieve every one of the LCAP goals for our District, and they help to attract and retain students in ways that core classes cannot. We should be considered “essential” and equally important to other subjects. I strongly urge the district to include at least 1 year of Visual or Performing Arts as a required class for graduation.

Respectfully,

Courtney Wadman, MFA, MA, BFA, BA
Director of Dance at Nevada Union High School
Performing Arts Department Chair