Legacy of dance grant will live on

• Perpich Center for the Arts grant went to LILA in FL

LILA teachers Raul Arroyo (Minneapolis), Jenni Muras (Hugo), Fred Moreno (Oakdale), Claire Gilbert (Forest Lake) and Jade Hibbard (White Bear Lake) enthusiastically demonstrate the five elements of dance: body, action, space, tempo, and energy. LILA developed Spanish curriculum materials as part of the Perpich Center dance grant. (Photo submitted)

It’s Monday morning at Lakes International Language Academy, a Spanish and Mandarin Chinese language immersion public elementary school in Forest Lake.

“Attention, attention, Lilavision will begin in one minute,” blares over the loudspeakers in Spanish, prompting students to turn on their classroom televisions for the student-produced morning news.

First is an announcement inviting students to an upcoming family dance night with an international “Carnaval” theme. A later video shows four students dancing to the music of a Native American chant. The student announcers explain that the performers choreographed the dance themselves.

In a fifth grade classroom, students applaud and make plans to use the gym during recess to create their own dance. Afterwards, their teacher leads them in a morning meeting activity. Students create actions to represent natural disasters and the class combines them into movement sequences. Dance making and movement have become student-led and commonplace at LILA.

Please read more here.