With support from the California Arts Council, Luna Kids Dance, Inc. dba Luna Dance & Creativity (formerly Luna Dance Institute) will offer dance integration strategies to early childhood education (ECE) teachers in Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) to meet their
early learning goals of inclusion and access, positive embodiment, creative expression through the arts, social-emotional learning, and trauma-informed practice. Two early education inclusion hubs, Kaiser Early Learning Center and Burbank Preschool will receive a full-year dance curriculum for all students through model dance classes and side-by-side coaching faciliated by teaching artists, family engagement activities, and professional development (PD) onsite and at Luna through their Professional Learning services. These sites will serve as models for OUSD as they implement a teacher led PD plan to ensure dance education access for all students 0-5 years old.
Our ADA-accessible STUDIO LAB children’s program offers a progression of dance learning designed to nurture the choreographer in every child in a studio class structure at Luna’s studios in Berkeley. The STUDIO LAB adult program offers opportunities for and presentations on dance research, the choreographic process, and topics that expand ideas about what dance is and who can dance.
PROFESSIONAL LEARNING fulfills Luna’s mission to bring all children to dance as we deepen the knowledge and practice of dance learning through workshops, courses, panel conversations, and resources designed so that creative practitioners manifest creative self-efficacy, investigate teaching practice, establish collegial communities, cultivate dance leadership, and become change agents.
Luna helps the field of dance education arc toward justice through FIELD MOVING, our practice-to-policy approach that includes sharing the findings of our inquiries and research; joining with others to create impact; and relentlessly advocating for inclusion, creativity, and self-determination. Recognizing that our work is situated within systems of oppression and racial injustice, we seek change by working together in community, paying attention, staying true to our values, and placing children as the future at the center of our work.
Through PARTNERS FOR CHANGE, Luna collaborates with organizations (social service and human welfare agencies, schools and school districts) throughout the region, state and nation to build capacity for enduring dance programs that support the values of each community.
Luna, an expert in EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION in dance, has refined, over more than three decades, its pedagogy and curriculum to align with discoveries in neuroscience, play research, child psychology, and cultural responsiveness. As we envision a future with today’s toddlers becoming tomorrow’s leaders, early learning demands our crucial attention and focus. Luna faculty continue our research, theory-building, and practice to better understand how dance is at the convergence of all processes of learning.

