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Dance a story, dance a song, skip, twirl, dance along

By Joan Richoz, Whistler Public Library Join Mary Elizabeth Manley, associate professor of dance for a free workshop exploring stories through creative dance, songs, and rhymes Feb. 22.

By Joan Richoz,

Whistler Public Library

Join Mary Elizabeth Manley, associate professor of dance for a free workshop exploring stories through creative dance, songs, and rhymes Feb. 22.

The workshops are a joint presentation of Celebration 2010 and the Whistler Public Library and are a part of the Whistler Arts Showcase 2010. There is a session for tots (2 and 3 year olds) and a caregiver from 10-10:45 am and another for 4 and 5 year olds (parent audience welcome!) from 11- noon on Saturday, Feb. 22 at Millennium Place.

Pre-registration is necessary as workshop size is limited. Call the Library at 604-932-5564. The program is made possible by the sponsorships of Celebration 2010, the Governments of Canada and British Columbia, the City of Vancouver, the Resort Municipality of Whistler, and the Canada Council for the Arts.

A York University Dance Department faculty member since 1974, Professor Mary-Elizabeth Manley has developed expertise in teaching, research, choreography and production. Published research articles reflect her chosen specialization in the areas of pedagogy, dance education in early childhood and creative and modern dance for young people.

Strongly committed to arts education, Professor Manley directed Artstart, a fine arts weekend program for children and teens, from 1986 to 1996. Her Youth Ensemble that developed from Artstart’s dance offerings, performed locally and internationally in Salt Lake City, Utah and Kuopio, Finland.

While on leave from York in 1998, Professor Manley taught modern dance at Simon Fraser University in the School for the Contemporary Arts and assisted with an Internet course, Dancing in Cyberspace , through SFU’s Distance Education Program. During this time she was also Program Director for the Seymour Art Gallery in North Vancouver and in 2000 acted as Artistic Advisor to the recreational dance program at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts in Burnaby.

She continues to maintain connections in Vancouver and internationally by serving as the VP of the board of Judith Garay’s Dancers Dancing Dance Company, as Canada’s National Co-Representative for Dance and the Child International and consulting for the Whistler Dance Academy.