Dance and Creative Movement

Dance education is essential to academic growth, fostering creativity, expression, cultural understanding, and communication through movement. It develops students’ innovation and critical-thinking skills by encouraging originality, problem solving, sound reasoning, and the ability to synthesize ideas from multiple perspectives. Through dance, students build literacy, global-readiness, and lifelong engagement that prepares them for success in school, work, and life.

Dance is core to academic growth and central to the education of every student. Dance education allows students to:

develop the capacity for creative, expressive movement;

demonstrate the necessity and positive results of expression through movement; and

understand their own culture and the role of dance in their own and other’s lives.

Through Dance Education, students learn the meaning and value of creativity and innovation by:

demonstrating originality and inventiveness in work and being open and responsive to new and diverse perspectives;

developing, implementing, and communicating new ideas to others through creative movement; and

acting on creative ideas to make a tangible and useful contribution to the domain in which innovation occurs.

Through Dance Education, students obtain critical thinking skills that shape their efforts and affect their personal value choices by:

exercising sound reasoning in understanding and making complex choices and decisions.

understanding the interconnections among systems; identifying and asking significant questions that clarify various points of view and lead to better solutions; and

framing, analyzing, and synthesizing information in order to solve problems and answer questions.

Through Dance Education, students learn to communication through creative movement by articulating thoughts and ideas clearly through more than written and spoken word.

Dance Education prepares students for success in school, work, and life:

Literacy as Dance is an essential language.

developing a globally competitive workforce since Dance develops essential skills for global competitiveness in the 21st century; and

nurturing engaged learners for Dance promotes healthy living and active learners.

Standards

Resources

An overview from the Kansas State Department of Education that explains the purpose, structure, and vision of the dance standards, setting the foundation for coherent, developmentally appropriate dance instruction across all grade levels.

Kansas Curricular Standards for Dance and Creative Movement Introduction rev032317 (PDF)

Kansas framework for dance education, outlining grade-banded standards, expectations, and guidance that support coherent, developmentally appropriate instruction in creative movement and dance from early childhood through high school. Kansas State Department of Education guidance document that supports early childhood educators in designing developmentally appropriate dance instruction by outlining foundational movement skills, creative expression, and instructional expectations aligned to Kansas standards for learners in Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 2.

Dance PreK-2.IE (PDF)

Kansas State Department of Education guidance document that supports elementary educators in designing grade-appropriate dance instruction by outlining key movement skills, creative processes, and instructional expectations aligned to Kansas standards for students in Grades 3–5.

Dance 3-5.IE (PDF)

Kansas State Department of Education guidance document that supports middle school educators in designing developmentally appropriate dance instruction by outlining core movement skills, creative processes, and instructional expectations aligned to Kansas standards for students in Grades 6–8.

Dance 6-8.IE (PDF)

Kansas State Department of Education guidance document that supports secondary educators in designing rigorous, standards-aligned dance instruction by outlining advanced movement skills, creative processes, and instructional expectations for high school students.

Dance High School.IE (PDF)

Kansas State Department of Education reference document that defines key dance and creative movement terminology to support shared understanding and consistent, standards-aligned instruction across grade levels.

NCCAS Glossary for National Core Arts Dance Standards (PDF)

Kansas State Department of Education tool that aligns dance standards and instruction to Rose Capacities, illustrating how dance education develops transferable skills such as creativity, communication, critical thinking, and collaboration across grade levels.

Crosswalking Dance Rose Capacities (PDF)

Assessment

Kansas State Department of Education–developed exemplars that illustrate how standards-aligned dance learning can be assessed through authentic performance tasks, demonstrating student understanding of movement, creativity, and artistic processes.

Model Cornerstone Assessments for Dance website is available upon request.

Dance and Creative Movement

Standards

Assessment

Kansas leads the world in the success of each student.

Contact KSDE

Agency Information