Dance and Theater Educators Study Viewpoints

July 23, 2025

Two educators participate in a session about Viewpoints, a movement-based practice

Minnesota K-12 dance and theater educators came together on July 22, 2025 for a “Viewpoints Tuesdays in July” session, presented by Mary Harding, Perpich’s Dance Education Specialist. Harding reflected on the session, sharing, “The participants for this workshop dived into the work with enthusiasm and often thought of other applications for the material. I am excited to continue this work with them!”

Viewpoints is a movement-based practice that uses six elements – space, shape, time, emotion, movement, and story – to create and analyze performance, focusing on the materiality of the body and the creative use of space. Throughout the morning, participants explored different components of Viewpoints. They improvised, created movement from prompts, practiced using the elements of abstraction, and changed the space through creative use of props and objects. Finally, participants took turns directing each other in a movement score.

One participant commented, “My biggest ‘ah-ha’ today was the permission to Play and Throw Away! I learned that this is a great way to develop trust and confidence with students while allowing them to explore movement and develop skills.” Another participant reflected, “I have visited Viewpoints so many times through a theater lens, but haven’t found specific ways to embed it into my dance curriculum (besides a handful of exercises). I feel like I left today’s session flooded with ideas on how I could incorporate this into my Comp II classes, and how beneficial these exercises will be for their creations while also using them myself for our Fall concert. Fantastic Session!”

Dance and theater educators engage in the Viewpoints session

Mary Harding is both the Dance Education Specialist (since 2018) and the Arts High School Dance Instructor (since 1990) at Perpich. In her dance career she has performed professionally with ballet, jazz, and modern companies. While a member of the Zenon Dance Company, Harding taught dance residencies in schools across the nation. In 2002, The National Dance Association and Sportime named her the National Dance Teacher of the Year. In the same year, Mary received the SURDNA Arts Teachers Fellowship. Over the years, she has developed multiple interdisciplinary works with her colleagues and students and has presented this work at national conferences. Mary received her master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from the College of St. Catherine. Her research, “Peer Coaching in the Arts Classroom,” received the Sister Ann Harvey Action Research Award in 2008 and the Arts Schools Network Research Initiative Award in 2009. The research was published in the June 2009 edition of Journal of Dance Education. Her article, “Assessment in the High School Technique Class – Creating Thinking Dancers”, was published in the August 2012 edition of JODE. Harding was a member of the MN Standards writing team in 2008 and 2018. Harding was on the National Core Arts Standards Writing Team in 2012. In 2020, Mary was appointed to a three-year term on the National Dance Education Organization’s Board of Directors. She is currently a writer for National Core Arts Standards as part of the Community for All Learners Lesson Piloting Team. She is also a participant in a national Professional Learning Community through Connected Arts Network. Her interests lie in K-12 dance standards, equity and access in curriculum development, highlighting student voice, and supporting emerging K-12 teachers through professional development.