UMA Teacher Training
and Professional Development Intensive
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UMA’s Teacher Training and Professional Development Intensive is for individuals 18 and up who are considering careers or are emerging professionals in American Street Dance. This program is an immense resource to individuals that attend colleges and universities in the Philadelphia region.
Pedagogical practices in American Street Dance is the central focus of this intensive. UMA’s team strongly believes that the skills for being an impactful educator translate to what’s needed for being successful in the multitude of performance arenas available to American Street Dancers. The skills needed to effectively teach also translate to success in personal organization, teamwork and leadership. And along with offering workshops on teaching methods and systems, the intensive covers workshops that support successful employment as an American Street Dance Educator as well as tools for entrepreneurship. In order to be a successful educator in American Street Dance forms, a person must thrive as a student of the many vernaculars, cultures and histories that comprise American Street Dance. A person must also navigate what it means to be an impactful contributor on the communal level. Whether your primary performance arena is battles, stages or social media, communal engagement and collective development is paramount to your success. Academic institutions often fail to provide understanding for how to enrich your career via community engagement. They fail to emphasize how to learn outside of the classroom. If your practice and method of learning as an American Street Dancer is limited to the classroom, you will inevitably be limited in what you can achieve as a performer and educator. UMA’s teacher training will explore various systems of learning ranging from classroom based to oral transmission to media transposition. While exploring various systems of learning, participants will enjoy training in foundational styles, including hip hop, breaking, popping, locking, waacking, house and more. In the spirit of UMA’s mission to serve a diverse population of people, our teacher training offers workshops for developing skills for youth education and adult education, providing tools for successfully serving individuals of all levels as well as being equipped to support various learning styles and differences. UMA’s Teacher Training and Professional Development Intensive aims to give you a competitive edge in the workforce as an American Street Dance Educator. |
Pricing and Schedule:
Schedule: One Week Long Program Offered: June 24th week July 22nd Week August 5th Week Mon-Fri 9am-12pm 3-6pm Saturday 1-3pm Pricing: $399 full price SIGN UP BEFORE APRIL 30th FOR ONLY $349 Key Features:
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A Note from Vince Johnson, Urban Movement Arts Founder and Director. (Vince is the lead instructor of the Intensive which will feature a line up of charismatic and inspirational guest teachers, coaches and speakers)
With 20 years of teaching experience and more of being an avid student of Contemporary Black American Vernacular Dance, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to share invaluable lessons that I’ve learned across my journey. I’ve devoted my life to being an admirer, student and educator of Contemporary Black American Vernacular Dance. You’ll notice my referral to the form as Contemporary Black American Vernacular Dance opposed to how the main descriptions of programming use the term American Street Dance. Others might say Hip Hop. Immediately, we notice the potential for variance,competing ideology and even contradiction regarding the subject. It all is so very young. It was likely no more than 60 years ago that Don Cambellock threw his first Uncle Sam point. Whether your study starts at locking or extends back to Honi Coles hoofing on Philly streets, there is a plethora of information to consider. No matter the primary area of focus, understanding that forms commercially known as Break Dance, Vogue or Hip Hop are a part of a lineage of Black American Folklore is paramount to any truly successful teaching practice.
None of what we perform originates from a classroom or institution. The dance spawns from social interaction and even derivatives that have emerged like Kpop, Tecktonic and Shuffle reach back to the roots of Black American Folklore. Paying attention to the canon and identifying where we fall inside the canon is paramount in our path as educators. Through understanding the vast lineage as well as our position and intention, we gain some agency for making sense of the competing ideologies and perspectives. We pave the way for locating an authentic system for contextualizing and giving intention to our perspective, honoring the lineage with respect and integrity. More simply said, we are the best teachers of Contemporary Black American Vernacular Dance when we know where the dances come from, where we reside in the lineage and how we intend to contribute.
Additionally, we must also develop understanding and appreciation for the various methods for learning a vernacular form, ranging from instruction based to visual transpositional learning, Regarding visual transposition, there is a reason why someone can become a beast at finger tutting entirely through social media engagement, whereas absolutely no prima ballerina emerged outside of a conservatory. There is an entire generation of young people that participate in Contemporary Black American Dance who had their entry point through Fortnite. There is a particular DNA to Black American Vernacular that makes such learning and adaptation possible. Understanding the nature and function of vernacular dance is another contributing factor to one’s success as an educator in vernacular forms.
Of course, teaching a solid 5,6,78 and showing moves is a solid basis for many as dance educators. However, with a force as powerful, robust and culturally significant as Black American Vernacular Dancer, anyone would be selling themselves short as simply a show and tell educator.
UMA’s intensive aims to support participants in growing their personal and communal practice and study in order to foster the conditions, insights and processes that build impactful community leaders and educators.
I’ve developed a clear brand and approach to Black American Vernacular Dance education that I am proud of. I hope to inspire other young professionals through the lessons that I’ve learned. Ultimately, my goal is to build up young professionals that I would eventually want to hire. I am convinced that if I would want to hire an individual, undoubtedly any our dance education organization would want to as well
With 20 years of teaching experience and more of being an avid student of Contemporary Black American Vernacular Dance, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to share invaluable lessons that I’ve learned across my journey. I’ve devoted my life to being an admirer, student and educator of Contemporary Black American Vernacular Dance. You’ll notice my referral to the form as Contemporary Black American Vernacular Dance opposed to how the main descriptions of programming use the term American Street Dance. Others might say Hip Hop. Immediately, we notice the potential for variance,competing ideology and even contradiction regarding the subject. It all is so very young. It was likely no more than 60 years ago that Don Cambellock threw his first Uncle Sam point. Whether your study starts at locking or extends back to Honi Coles hoofing on Philly streets, there is a plethora of information to consider. No matter the primary area of focus, understanding that forms commercially known as Break Dance, Vogue or Hip Hop are a part of a lineage of Black American Folklore is paramount to any truly successful teaching practice.
None of what we perform originates from a classroom or institution. The dance spawns from social interaction and even derivatives that have emerged like Kpop, Tecktonic and Shuffle reach back to the roots of Black American Folklore. Paying attention to the canon and identifying where we fall inside the canon is paramount in our path as educators. Through understanding the vast lineage as well as our position and intention, we gain some agency for making sense of the competing ideologies and perspectives. We pave the way for locating an authentic system for contextualizing and giving intention to our perspective, honoring the lineage with respect and integrity. More simply said, we are the best teachers of Contemporary Black American Vernacular Dance when we know where the dances come from, where we reside in the lineage and how we intend to contribute.
Additionally, we must also develop understanding and appreciation for the various methods for learning a vernacular form, ranging from instruction based to visual transpositional learning, Regarding visual transposition, there is a reason why someone can become a beast at finger tutting entirely through social media engagement, whereas absolutely no prima ballerina emerged outside of a conservatory. There is an entire generation of young people that participate in Contemporary Black American Dance who had their entry point through Fortnite. There is a particular DNA to Black American Vernacular that makes such learning and adaptation possible. Understanding the nature and function of vernacular dance is another contributing factor to one’s success as an educator in vernacular forms.
Of course, teaching a solid 5,6,78 and showing moves is a solid basis for many as dance educators. However, with a force as powerful, robust and culturally significant as Black American Vernacular Dancer, anyone would be selling themselves short as simply a show and tell educator.
UMA’s intensive aims to support participants in growing their personal and communal practice and study in order to foster the conditions, insights and processes that build impactful community leaders and educators.
I’ve developed a clear brand and approach to Black American Vernacular Dance education that I am proud of. I hope to inspire other young professionals through the lessons that I’ve learned. Ultimately, my goal is to build up young professionals that I would eventually want to hire. I am convinced that if I would want to hire an individual, undoubtedly any our dance education organization would want to as well