Dance Teacher Blog: Music for K-12 Dance

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Dance Teacher Blog: Music for K-12 Dance
By Brandy Curry

When the music changes, so does the dance. - African proverb

Music shapes the flow, mood, and energy of my dance class.  Be it a movement class, ballet class, or modern class.  Classical music is the music I hear in my head when choreographing and that's why ballet is my favorite style of dance to teach.  I have found in recent years of teaching dance in education that sometimes I'm the one that introduces classical music or jazz music to my students.  After all these years I have finally uploaded all of my CD's to my iTunes.  I use iCloud for backup and storage. iCloud also keeps my music library up to date on all of my devices. Visit: iCloud.com and login with your Apple ID!

Here is a list of great Artists I have used teaching K-12 Dance in school.  

BY GRADE

Putumayo Animal Playground

Grades K-2nd

Putumayo for Kids

Lynn Stanford Classical Music

Enchanted Soundtrack

Kidz Bop 

Disneymania

Gwendolyn and the Good Time Gang

Johnny Only

Scott Killian Classical Kids

Grades 3rd-5th

Putumayo for Kids

Lisa Harris Classical Music 

High School Musical Soundtrack

Cheetah Girls Soundtrack 

Kidz Bop

Radio Disney 

Disneymania 

Aly & AJ

Taylor Swift

Shake it Up (Disney)

Wreck it Ralph Soundtrack

Selena Gomez Courtesy of Disney Music

Grades 6-8

Introduce pop and jazz music. Check lyrics of pop music before you play in your class. 

Carly Rae Jepsen 

Aly & AJ

Selena Gomez

Justin Bieber

Taylor Swift

Coco Jones

Bridgit Mender

Corinne Bailey Rae

Grades 9-12

Continue Pop Music, but feature an assessment unit on Jazz Music (Visit: PBS Kids)

Charlie Parker

Miles Davis

Billie Holiday

Movie Soundtracks w. Instrumental music

Adele

Coldplay

Steven Cravis

Imogen Heap

Frou Frou

Don Caron Classical Music

Lisa Harris Classical Music

Miro Magliore (Contemporary & Modern)

Michael Roberts (Contemporary & Modern)