North Springs’ Director of Dance Speaks about the Importance of the Arts

by Jordyn Newsome

Dance is an art form that allows a person to express themselves while using their body as a medium to do so. Many use it as a release from stress, while others use it as a fun pastime. Others, however, prefer to dance with structure, utilizing practiced choreography and rhythm to create meaningful routines.

The North Springs Dance Program, part of the school’s Visual and Performing Arts Magnet, is led by North Springs’ Dance Director Ms. Noble. The program fosters an environment where students who are interested in dance can flourish and have an opportunity to express themselves and their abilities. Not only does the program offer classes, but it showcases student dance work in annual performances, including Project Dance, the North Springs Black History Month showcase, Multicultural Night, North Springs Theater productions, and the North Springs May Arts Festival, which features performances from all of the school’s Visual and Performing Arts programs. These programs come together to form an important part of a school curriculum.

THE POWER OF DANCE

“The power of dance is life changing,” asserts Ms. Noble. “It is an incredible means of expression. It’s a way for students to move their bodies throughout the day is a way for students to have a way to express their social, emotional learning. A lot of my student are in back-to-back classes, and they come to me, and they are able to artistically express themselves. They’re able to creatively express themselves and just emotionally get out some of the things that they’re dealing with in their personal lives right now.”

Sophomore dance student and Vice President of North Springs’ K-Pop Club Emerie Overton agrees about the importance of dance in school programs, and that dance isn’t just recreational. “Dance overall isn’t just walking and dropping it the whole time. There’s different dance styles that multiple of our dancers connect with, like contemporary, ballet, modern, and jazz. And I think if people really take the time and study those and look at our department and see what we’re doing, I think that would change [people’s] mind about how they view us. It puts off the stress, and students enjoy it, too.”

PROJECT DANCE: A NORTH SPRINGS ARTS TRADITION

Ms. Noble explains that the North Springs dance program focuses on student collaboration and choreography, with courses in Jazz 1 through 4. There is also a dance elective, the company class, and two major productions each year: Project Dance, a student choreographed showcase that students audition for, and a full department showcase in the Spring.

Project Dance is an extension of the dance program’s work, focusing on student-created choreography, as Noble explains. “Project Dance is a student choreographed showcase that came about way before I was here, under the tutelage of Denise Kent, who started the dance program here at North Springs, and many other dance teachers that have been here before me. And it’s super popular. It was one of the selling points that got me wanting to work here and be on board with this program. The students, either in the program or just around the school, know about it. A lot of the students, before they get to the particular school year, are preparing for it, and upcoming Seniors are looking forward to it. It’s a very popular event within the dance program.”

Students including Emerie agree about the popularity and importance of this long-standing production.

“Project Dance is an opportunity for Miss Noble’s dancers where they can self-choreograph their own songs and put out their own, their own creative ability into dance and showcase it,” she says. “It came about because there aren’t a lot of [in-school] dance opportunities for dancers…Most student dancers [say], ‘you take this choreography and then you do it.’ There aren’t a lot of opportunities where people are just able to choreograph their own dances, and that’s what we create in Project Dance.”

As the director of the show, Ms. Noble strives to make sure all the dance pieces have intention behind them and that they challenge her students. This year’s Project Dance was a bit different than in previous years. Emerie explains how it evolved over the course of the year:

“First in the beginning of the year, we chose a bunch of songs that we wanted to do. And then from that our theme was showcasing how we can look really bubbly and really cute, but there were more hidden messages to what’s going on. Like personally, like our “Song Dolls” by Nine Muses. It was a very cute and like very airy, very bubbly song, but it was about a woman who’s going through breakup out of a very long relationship and finding herself. There’s another one about coming out of COVID and getting back, returning back to our normal lives. We just chose like messages we thought would really fit us.”

The most important point about Project Dance is that it’s not just a series of random dance performances. “We aren’t just putting a bunch of dancers on stage just twerking to Beyonce and saying anything,” Emerie says. “We have actual goals and actual messages we want to put out through dance.”

Ms. Noble explains further how her students’ study of literature fueled their art. “Currently, for the company, class, we are ending a storytelling unit with gesture-based movement, where we’re telling stories of encountering someone that we have not seen in a long time, and it does not end well. I’m teaching them choreography based on that, and they have to act that out with partners, and we’re journaling about it. It’s really a place where they can come in a space where it’s comfortable, and they’re freely able to express themselves. 

DANCING IS AN ACT OF PHYSICS

Building storytelling and journaling lessons into a dance course may seem unconventional, but Noble has very set goals in mind. One reason for integration of dance education with core classes is the school’s transition from a preforming arts and science magnet into the first STEAM high school in Georgia.

“North Springs High School for years has been regarded for its strong Visual Performing Arts programming,” says Noble. “Our STEAM direction allows that program to continue, evolve and flourish.” And her program’s new direction all started with a piece of art.

“There is this incredible piece of artwork as you walk down the ramp of the F-Hallway section of the school,” explains Noble.” I remember when I first came to do my interview to work at North Springs, I saw that walking to the dance rooms and knew I needed to be here.”

The mural she saw depicts dance figures with force and energy. This got Ms. Noble to think about physics as integral to dance. As a result, she began collaborations with her neighbors and colleagues, including Science curriculum leader Ms. Hobby and teachers Ms. Berger and Mr. Warren. “We created a lesson that explored the concept of projectile motion using dancers performing leaps and jumps,” Noble says.

Mr. Warren explains the science of the lesson. “We measured the height and average dancer jumped using different dancing methods of jumping. I used the slow-motion feature of a phone/iPad camera with a meter stick in the background so the bottom of the feet/toes to the floor could be measured.  We then switched to leaps and we measured the distance from take-off foot to landing foot.”

Noble emphasized the cross-curricular benefits of the integrated lesson. “The Physics students measured distance travelled, time in the air, and related their findings to how dancers can achieve better grand jetes, or big leaps. It was a very cool lesson!”

Ironically, Noble started her own path by building in science and dance into her learning. She attended a magnet school in Augusta, GA, where her focus was science and dance. “I wanted to be a physician but also loved to dance,” she says. “I took academics seriously and also had a place to express myself artistically. Some people know that my background, and initial love, is science. Attending that school (\[Davidson Fine Arts] shaped me to be the person and teacher I am today. I believe in academic rigor, excellent etiquette, and embracing creative outlets whether towards a profession or recreationally.”

Noble earned her bachelor’s degree at Georgia State and pursued her love for dance professionally post-undergrad before working in geriatric rehabilitation, before moving her career path back to dance.

“I am a model example of how integrating academia and the arts creates a versatile and multifaceted individual,” she laughs.

Noble says she has seen how this direction has had a profound effect on her students’ learning, as well as on herself. “I have been so impressed by how my dancers have embraced dance-making through the lenses of science, history, language arts, and math,’ she says. “STEAM has also awakened a new drive within me where I feel that my students and colleagues can see my other passions outside of dance, and I’m motivated to create and implement new ways to engage students in the classroom.”

EXPANDING THE ARTS

Since collaborating with her Science peers, Noble started pursuing the goal of integrating and embedding her dance program into other parts of the curriculum. She found that Connecting Project Dance with English Language Arts and the theme of “Storytelling Through Dance” was a perfect way to challenge her students as well as show how dance and language arts are connected. Noble says that in mid-February, dancers will take a field trip to the Fox Theater to see the world-renown dance company, Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, where North Springs dance magnet alumnus Xavier Logan is a dancer in Ailey’s second company, Ailey II.

Noble also says that her Jazz Dance 3M and 4M classes are working on a Black history piece in collaboration with Mr. Throne and Ms. Willis’ American Literature ELA classes telling the story of the Chicago Race Riot of 1919, based off of study of Carl Sandberg’s poem, “Chicago.” The Dance program will expand into a study with Social Studies with the Dance 1 Elective class studying jazz dance history through the Harlem Renaissance period. In addition, the Dance Company will perform and participate in the Kennesaw State University Dance Festival on the first weekend of February, and all classes are working on choreography for our spring production, CORE.

“We are busy,” Noble laughs.

CHALLENGES TO THE ARTS

At a time when dance, music, and other VPA programs are being threatened with budget cuts, Ms. Noble stresses that embedding arts programs like dance into core learning is more important than ever for students. “The arts, and especially the dance arts, are always in jeopardy to be impacted by national, state, and district budget cuts. The arts are deemed as extracurricular, elective, and non-essential to a child’s education, thus being one of the areas considered first on the chopping block.”

Far from being nonessential, she says, the arts are vital to student success. “Arts are everywhere: in movies, plays, birthday cards, wedding toasts, first dances, television shows, fine dining, concerts, nature and so much more. Many students who struggle academically thrive in their fine arts classes, so much so that it is the reason they get on the bus to come to school.”

Noble explains how this has led her to advocacy in the Sandy Springs Community. “I’m really trying to get the word out in the community and around the school that dance is education and dance is a big part of a lot of the students’ classes,” she says. “A lot of my dance students value heavily dance as a class. And not only the core classes. A lot of things are going on within education as a whole, on a state and national level.”

Her student Emery says that the Dance Department is very versatile and very authentic and allows students tap into their creative sides. “Our music department, our dance department, our theater department allow students to really branch out into other sides of themselves, and it creates a safe space, a safe environment for everyone.”

Noble concludes that dance allows students to have a break from monotonous work, feel free, and allows them to tap into their emotions and tell a story. It allows for collaboration, creativity, and fun all in one, and is critical to the growth of children into adults.

“Art is all around us,” she says “We must stress the importance of protecting arts programs to give all children a robust educational experience.”

For more information about the North Springs Dance Program and Project Dance, students and parents can contact Ms. Noble at noblem@fultonschools.org