The Footprints Dance Project

Art is about searching and sometimes finding... it is about exploring... it is about sharing the private and listening in silence, it is lasting but not immediate, it is valuable but priceless, it is based in the past but reaches for the future... it is free to anybody but may not be used by everybody... it is universal... it resists categories and makes connections across them. Art is all things that the rest of life is not.

"Reflecting On Culture". John Tusa. 1999.

About Kidz Arts ::

John Tusa knows. The arts – the fruits of the imagination – aren’t life’s accessories. The arts educate kids to grow into successful people. Kids learn best by doing — to play the piano only by playing the piano – to dance to its music only by dancing to its music.As they learn, they discover their internal impulses and build their CQs (their creative quotients). This is important because kids with high CQs grow up to be better pilots, better chemists, better mothers and fathers, better dentists and doctors, better accountants, better engineers and better lawyers. Well, creative kids become better at everything!

About Footprints Dance Project ::
Canadian Choreographer Neah Kalcounis founded the Footprints Dance Project in 1999 with the ongoing mentorship of Elaine Bowman, Founder Dancers Studio West, Brian Webb, Director of the Canada Dance Festival and of Edmonton's Brian Webb Dance Company, and Cori Stent of Calgary’s Wildflower Arts Centre.

We make dance, the process of self expression through bodily movement, accessible to as wide a community of children as possible. Our dance classes are designed for young people eigthteen years of age and under who are eager to move and to discover and explore their creative potential so as to be able to express themselves physically through dance but who otherwise wouldn't have the chance to learn to dance. We teach youth that the body is a source of great creativity. Creative self-expression through dance helps build motor skills, creative thinking and problem-solving skills. It aids social and emotional development.

Footprints Dance Artists In K-12 Education
Feeling cramped? In our in-school programs we inspire students to get moving by making movement irresistible. Give your students a bigger, much more absorbent chance to dance! Read what Calgary educators have to say about our customized, in-school dance programs...

Footprints students study technique and learn the movement vocabulary necessary for creative expression through dance. Yet, rigid dance structure is never emphasized at the expense of hindering the pure creative dance experience. Dance technique movement fundamentals are taught and drawn upon as a means to bring out the creative movement impulse and the unique expression that lies within each individual dance student.

Students in our weekend dance programs study in the studios of the City of Calgary’s Wildflower Centre at 3363 Spruce Drive SW; at Killarney Aquatic Centre, 29th St. at 17th Ave. SW; and at the Hellenic Community Centre, 1 Tamarac Cresc. SW. We're also compiling a list of students looking for a chance to dance with us at Village Square Leisure Cente in the Calgary's North East.

Each year, the good folks at Calgary's Dancers' Studio West (DSW) help our Footprints Kidz learn dance theatre technologies in the run up to our year-end and Christmas productions at DSW's Studio Theatre II.