Preparing high school seniors for college-level dance is never easy. Most students are unfamiliar with the options available, and preparing for auditions and more advanced technique is a huge undertaking. But at the School Without Walls in Washington, DC, dance teacher Heather Pultz has created a unique after-school program that introduces students to college dance early on. They meet and work with undergraduate George Washington University dance majors, attend performances and get audition feedback from GW dance department professors. “I wanted my kids to see dance as a real-world profession and a serious discipline,” she says. “The college students have a great work ethic. I wanted to encourage that academic pre-professional mind-set, and this was an easy way to foster it.”
Pultz’s program can be seen as a small-scale version of the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards’ initiative to align K–12 arts education with higher ed. One goal of the new standards for arts education is to prepare students for college-level study by creating a basis for new AP courses and exams in the arts. But Pultz has seen a more immediate benefit by taking college preparation into her own hands. Not only does she foster an awareness of college dance, she provides opportunities in the arts that her students might otherwise not experience.
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Filling the Gap
