Embodying music naturally through song & dance as the foundation for music education

Our Youth Dance Club & Choir Program is an embodied approach to early music education, helping our young students (ages 6-11) to develop technique and expressive capacity with their first instruments: their voices and their bodies. The best preparation for young musicians to learn to participate in our instrument and ensemble instruction is a lifestyle saturated with music and movement. Singing and dancing are the developmental prerequisites for instrument lessons, sparking a lifelong life in music and contributing to a thriving musical culture in the home.

Is music a source of frustration and your student lacks interest despite all your effort? Do they fail to progress despite all their practicing, or seem unable to make any meaningful creative connection to their work on an instrument? If so, we should start by checking the foundation. Can they sing? Can they dance? Is music internalized, so it can then be externalized on an instrument? This is becoming increasingly less common in the modern world, and our music education models often fail to recognize and address the deficits left by a life devoid of singing and dancing.

At MAFM, we hope to help young students prepare for a life of music-making by the embodied approach of our Youth Dance Club & Choir. Students attend class 1x/week (~25 minutes designated to choir and ~25 minutes designated to dance) and are sent home with material to be practiced throughout the week, which is crucial for their musical progress and development.

See schedule, financial and registration information here.

Elements of Youth Dance Club

  • Essentials of Rhythm, Posture and Group Cooperation

  • Flatfoot (percussive) Dance Instruction

  • Play Parties (American social dances accompanied by group singing)

  • Basic Barn Dances (Social dances done in circles, lines and squares accompanied by fiddle music)

Elements of Youth Choir

  • Essentials of Vocal Technique, Breath and Warmup

  • Kodaly Method Fundamentals (solfege & hand signs)

  • Canons & Rounds

  • Traditional American Folk Songs

  • Call & Response Ear Training