The History of Dance Nova Scotia

DANCE NOVA SCOTIA was founded in 1974 and incorporated in 1975, as one of eight provincial cultural service organizations, Cultural Federations of Nova Scotia which are funded by the province. DANS is the umbrella service organization for all forms of dance in Nova Scotia. DANS mandate is to encourage, promote and support dance as a cultural, educational, social, recreational and healthful activity for Nova Scotians of all ages, abilities and backgrounds. Dance Nova Scotia is a registered charitable organization governed by a Board of Directors elected from the dance community.

Programs include:• Providing educational resources to public schools including the creation of instructional manuals, cds and video tapes relating dance to the Grades P - 9 social studies, language arts and music curricula in Acadian and traditional Cape Breton dance, training and in-services for school teachers and library resources for dance in education;

• Community based networking and pilot programs to promote existing dance opportunities and to encourage the development of new dance programs where none have existed before.

• Providing services to professional dance artists and companies to assist with fund raising, grant writing and promotion;

• Providing a forum for dance artists to develop touring and performing networks;

• Partnering with KiNETiC STUDiO to present Taking Steps to Fly a program for young choreographers;

• Professional development for dance teachers with a strong focus on bio-mechanical development for injury prevention and conditioning. This includes workshops, lectures, master classes and library materials;

• DANS Summer Dance, a summer school for serious dance students with outstanding guest teachers and Summer Dancing, a series of day camps and workshops for both serious and recreational younger dance students held throughout the province;

• DANSpace-on Grafton dance studio managed on behalf of the Culture Division of Nova Scotia Tourism, Culture and Heritage to make the space available to artists in all disciplines;

• Data base of dance artists and dance teachers throughout the province;

• A library collection of over two thousand text books and instructional videos for choreographers, dance teachers and public school teachers;

• plus an awards program, workshops, newsletter, web site and weekly e-news bulletins.