Activity Overview: Chess

By Stacy DeBroff

Chess teaches logic based on strategic planning of actions and reactions. It also helps your child anticipate the consequences of his actions and think creatively.

• It improves concentration, focus, self-discipline, calculation, and critical thinking skills.

• Chess enhances memory skills as a player must remember prior moves and strategies to plan an attack and also because there are so many moves one can make in the first 10 moves of the game.

• As players must be keenly aware of position and an opponent’s responses, reactions, and strategies, chess develops awareness and analysis and teaches pattern recognition.

• When played competitively, chess helps children make quick decisions under a great amount of pressure.

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Dance Safety

By Stacy DeBroff 

You may be overjoyed watching your child in his or her dance recital, but all that practice can take its toll on a young child's body. Here are a few things to look for in your child to prevent injury.

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Activity Overview: Tap

By Stacy DeBroff

Whereas jazz and ballet provide visual complexity, tap focuses more on intricate rhythms and musical phrasing. In other words, a tap shoe’s metal sole turns into a percussion instrument.

When slaves were first brought to America, slaveholders prohibited the use of drums or any other African instrument out of fear that slaves would communicate over long distances and start a revolt. The slaves resorted to using their feet to keep their indigenous beats alive.

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Activity Overview: Salsa/Latin Dancing

By Stacy DeBroff

When people hear Salsa music, they usually find it harder to sit still than to get up and move to the beat. This hypnotic rhythm, the most popular type of which is called “Mambo,” finds its roots in both Europe and Africa. When Africans were transported as slaves to Haiti and Cuba they brought their musical heritage with them. Mambo, like the conga and bongo, was originally a Bantu name for a musical instrument used in a ritual to mean “conversation with the gods.” In the 18th century, this fiery African beat gradually blended with the European settlers’ country-dances, or contradanza, as they were known in Spain.

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Activity Overview: Modern Dance

By Stacy DeBroff

By the late 19th century in Europe, ballet had reached a standstill. Many felt it had become a frilly showcase for pretty girls rather than a challenging mode of artistic expression. Modern dance was the result of a rebellion against ballet’s rigid rules and refusal to change with the times.

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Activity Overview: Jazz Dance

By Stacy DeBroff

Since the 1920’s, many creative dance forms have sprung from the explosive rhythms of jazz dance. Examples of jazz dance range from social dances like the Charleston to Big Band swing to the tap dancing of Fred Astaire. Jazz dance finds its roots in Africa. African folk culture influenced early 20th century stage shows in both Europe and America. The infectious toe-tapping moves that accompanied Ragtime and other honky-tonk music eventually became jazz dance.

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