Let’s face it being a good dancer just makes life easier. It allows you to walk confidently onto the dance floor at your cousins wedding and shake it off, electric slide, and nae-nae all night long. You don’t sweat it when your friends want to go out dancing and you feel no anxiety joining that salsa class going on at the studio down the street. I can confidently say that is not me…my life is not easy. Not that I want to blame my parents for this but one hundred percent… its all their fault. Growing up I played every sport offered but was never enrolled in a dance class. I never learned the grace of a ballerina, the rhythm of a jazz dancer or the creative movement that modern dancers possess. Lucky for the kids in our Kids in the Game programs they don’t need to live their adult lives resenting their parents for never letting them dance! In 2017, we are upping the ante and are offering more movement and dance classes then ever before!
Thanks to KING staff member Frances Niduaza-Murphy, KING has always implemented movement and dance into our curriculum. Frances is a professionally certified Zumba instructor and also teaches step and hip-hop classes to many of our after school programs. She also led the way to have Kids in the Game be accredited by Zumba Kids. Her desire to combined music and movement has paved the way for our newest KING dance coaches to expand upon our current offerings.
Hailey Kemp joined the KING staff just this month and is bringing immense talent and experience to our staff. Dancing from the age of 3 (good job parents!) she has experience in ballet, jazz and lyrical performance dance styles. She studied somatic and improvisation practices in college and has a passion for teaching fitness dance, Zumba and musical theater. So basically, she is pretty darn qualified. Hailey said it best when she told me why she loved to pass her experience on through teaching, “Teaching is important to me because it allows all children regardless of their history, ethnicity, and social status to move equally”. Hailey says her favorite type of dance to teach is improvisation and creative movement because it allows the children to shine and put their influences into movement.
Joining Hailey is an array of other talented dancers and coaches. With new programming starting this New Year such as ballet classes at the School of the Blessed Sacrament, and a constant desire to widen our range of offerings, our coaches will stay busy teaching their best moves. Maybe even it’s not too late for me to stop resenting my (wonderful!) parents and have them teach me to be a dancing KING too!