EnhanceDance Director
Andrea Downie, Founding Director of EnhanceDance
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ANDREA DOWNIE is the Founding Director of EnhanceDance, an initiative established in 2017 to share equity-informed and evidence-based principles and best practice in dance teaching, training and performance. She is a founding member, Past President (2016 & 2017) and Co-Chair of the Resources Committee for Healthy Dancer Canada, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the health, well-being and performance of all dancers. She is HDC's longest serving board member, instrumental in the development of the organization, and having served in every role within the organization since its inception in 2008.
A dance educator, choreographer and kinesiology instructor with 25 years of experience, Andrea is currently pursuing a PhD in Kinesiology at University of Calgary, focusing on transformative experiences and the integration of dance science, somatics, and social justice in dance education. She received her MA in Dance Studies and her HonBFA in Dance Performance from York University. Her master's research focused on motor learning, and from it, she developed the Multisensory Pedagogical Model for Dance Skill Instruction to enhance dance skill learning. Andrea completed her professional training at Dance New Amsterdam (formerly Dance Space Centre) in New York City, and performed with Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects while there. Andrea is a certified Level 1 & Level 2 Conditioning-with-Imagery Training teacher, the C-I TrainingTM Course Director, as well as the provider of the Level 1 C-I TrainingTM Teacher Course & Certification. She is one of only a few certified teachers of Simonson Technique in Canada. She is also a Registered Provider with Safe in Dance International for the Healthy Dance Certificates, and a third-party CPD course provider for Royal Academy of Dance Canada. Andrea has experience working with professional, pre-professional and recreational dancers of all ages, levels and abilities. She works actively across Canada as a teacher-tutor, guest dance instructor, choreographer, and speaker, enthusiastically sharing her passion for dance. Her dance classes are intelligently structured, founded on evidence-based principles and best teaching practice, and strive to cultivate and sustain an equitable and just learning environment. Her choreography delves into various aspects of the individual and collective experience to explore what it is that makes us human and how dancing can be transformative. Andrea resides in Toronto and Calgary. She is a sessional instructor in the Dance Program at University of Calgary and teaches at The School of Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre (CCDT) in Toronto. Her classes encourage somatic awareness, movement efficiency and effectiveness, and individual artistic expression within a safe, supportive, equitable, and inclusive environment. |
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Andrea Downie
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