A Decade of Dance at BIS Abu Dhabi

Mrs. Lowe was excited by how motivated the PE team were and their willingness to embrace Dance. The inaugural Dance Production had a Circus theme involving CCA groups from the Primary and Secondary Schools, along with gymnastics. From this initial spark, Mrs. Lowe was invited to be part of the first group of 10 Dance teachers to work with Juilliard Performing Arts Institute in New York to initiate, plan and deliver the Juilliard Creative Classroom platform for Dance. From this wonderful opportunity a strong partnership between BIS Abu Dhabi and Julliard was established. With this partnership came more professional development opportunities not only for the PE Department, but also other teaching staff.

Dance as a discreet subject was later added to the Key Stage 1 curriculum to add the benefits of Dance to students from a young age – supporting and developing balance, coordination, muscle strengthening and help with posture. Dance also helps to increase self-confidence, self-motivation, self-esteem, general physical confidence and general and psychological wellbeing.

Mrs. Lowe wanted to create more opportunity for creativity and having worked with Juilliard understood the transferable skills that could be taken from the Dance studio to the classroom. From this idea, Mrs Lowe developed a training programme with our Juilliard Dance Specialist to train Key Stage 2 teachers to offer the tools and the online teaching resources to initiative creative ways to deliver interesting and exciting lessons. Whilst all of this was growing, so too was the confidence of the teachers involved, which automatically engaged students and encouraged them to participate in Dance. The number of boys dancing grew and so did the CCA programme with more year groups being offered the opportunity to Dance. Units of work within the PE programme were given more time in the curriculum and the quality of movement material being created opened a new door to invite students to perform at the Annual Dance Production.                     

Alongside the Dance curriculum and the CCA programme boys Dance has developed and grown due to the partnership with Nada Musharbash, a professional Dancer and choreographer. BIS Abu Dhabi were also part of the inaugural BSME Dance Festival and have participated in every edition of it, including the online Festivals during COVID. We now acknowledge Dancers at the Sports Awards, have introduced Dance Leaders, Dance Ambassadors and promote high achievers and performers in Dance with The Headteacher’s Commendation.