Company Videos Andrew Jannetti & Dancers (playlist)

As the year comes to and end I wanted to share this compilation video that I made of my work over the past 30 years. If you haven't seen this yet, enjoy!

Happy New Year!!

Andrew

Got back from NDEO just in time for Hurricane "Sandy"

Five days in darkness and no hot water.
Had a blackout at school on Wednesday, had to drive home through a snowstorm and tomorrow it is supposed to be 65 according to the weather stations. Go figure.

For the most part things are back to normal for me but not for many people. Many of my friends are still without power, going on 12 days now. I am hoping that relief will come soon and I feel for all who lost everything as a result of Sandy. One welcome relief from all this stress was the reelection of Barak Obama. Yeah!!

Please check out the new info on the Cultural Diversity page of my blog. Lesson plans and links  to other informative websites are available for your perusal.

All the best,

Andrew

"Moods Swing" Jessica Lewis and Andrew Jannetti (Jessica Lewis Arts/Andr...

For those of you who missed it, here is the video of our performance last week at WAXworks in Williamsburg Brooklyn. Enjoy

New Year New Potential

I am featured along with three other colleagues in an article is in this month's Dance Teacher Magazine.
Check it out here or go to this link: http://www.dance-teacher.com/content/new-year-new-potential

I was recently interviewed for an article in Dance Teacher magazine on Older Adults and exercise. Here is a link to the article.  It is a very informative article on Seniors, dance and exercise. Take a look.

http://www.dance-teacher.com/content/senior-moves

After 34 years of living together, Andrew & Ken got married in NYC on March 26, 2012 in the West Chapel at the City Clerk's Building accompanied by an entourage of family and friends. An historic moment for all and a true testament to enduring love, long-lasting friendships, close family bonds and an inclusive, accepting community. It truly takes a village and the act of matrimony adds to and strengthens both the individual and the entire community. Plus it was a lot of fun!!!
This is a record of the ceremony and a picture montage of some of the highlights of their life together.

Ken and Andrew's Marriage Ceremony

Graduation Valedictory Speech

As some of you know I was asked to write a speech for the Valedictory Celebration for NYU Steinhardt as a representative of the Dance Education Department. After the initial speech writing they narrow it down to 5 finalists, who then have to present the speech in person in front of a panel consisting of students, administrators, and faculty. 

I was truly honored to be asked to write a speech and doubly humbled when I got into the finalist round. Unfortunately my speech was not chosen to be presented. I have however been chosen to represent my Department by being this year's Departmental Banner Bearer for the Steinhardt Valedictory Celebration.  I will carry my department' s banner onto the stage at Radio City Music Hall.

This award carries with it a certificate and an honorarium that will be presented to me at the Valedictory Ceremony, on Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at Radio City Music Hall beginning at 3 pm. I will be seated on stage with the dais party.

So even though I do not get to give the speech that I wrote,  I am incredibly honored to be asked to be the Banner Bearer for my Department.

I know that many of you were very helpful and encouraging and sending positive vibes. All of which I truly appreciate and I do believe was not a wasted effort. You all should know that I did my very best and spoke from my heart, which is the only way I know how to do it.

Thank you all for all of your support throughout my entire Graduate Career.

Below is the final version of my speech so that you can imagine with me what it would have been like to read it on stage at Radio City.

My Valedictory Speech 2012

When I decided to go back to school to get a graduate degree I was gainfully employed as a dance educator and enjoying every minute of it. I was teaching dance to grades K – 12 and actively engaged in my school as the resident choreographer, a 9^th grade advisor, and as the director of student activities.

My decision to return to school was multifaceted and involved my desire to better understand my own teaching philosophy as well as enhance my intuitive ability to teach by exploring methods and theories that resonated with what I considered my progressive approach to education.

The program at NYU Steinhardt seemed a perfect fit, except that I was hardly your typical Dance Education graduate student. Being 55 and male, not only was I the oldest student in the program I was one of 4 men and very often the only man in many of my classes. If you think men are a minority in the dance world they are practically non-existent in the world of Dance Education especially on the elementary school level.

At first I felt out of place, floating, unanchored in a sea of young energetic women all intent on being the best dance educator to ever come out of NYU. I was just happy to make it to my next class without having a senior moment.

What room am I in? What do you mean class meets on Monday, isn’t it Monday?

After my first year of studying educational theory and philosophy, research technique and protocols, as well as how to teach special populations, I finally started to settle into being a graduate student and became totally engaged with a whole new generation of dance educators.

Then I lost my full time teaching job, a casualty of budget cuts and austerity measures. I was not a happy puppy. I considered postponing my education to concentrate on being gainfully employed.

I applied for over 70 positions and was only able to get 4 interviews, none of which developed into any viable employment. I began to piece together part time jobs and even worked for $8.00 an hour just to get my foot in the door at some institutions.  

For the first time in my adult life I felt unemployable. I began to wonder if it was worth it to continue my graduate studies and put myself into more debt.

Friends encouraged me to stick with it and were supportive and positive that things would turn around. I wasn’t so sure.

Many of my schoolmates were in the same boat except that I was 20 or 30 years older than most of them. I guess you could say that being unemployed made me feel younger because now I knew exactly what they were going through. I finally got to live like a graduate student, not sure of how I was going to get through the next class, find a job and manage to pay my rent.

So despite the odds and my fear of increasing debt I stuck it out and I am truly glad that I did.  My last year as a graduate student at Steinhardt proved to be the most fruitful both professionally and personally. I solidified friendships, I developed a new network of professionals, whose concerns and interests matched mine, I presented a workshop at the National Dance Education Organization conference as a student representative of NYU

and I had the pleasure of taking classes in other departments in Steinhardt, which expanded my viewpoints on arts education and its practical application in the field. I even developed a healthy interest in and respect for education research.

Well I stuck with it and things did turn around.  I am currently employed 6 days a week and have actually had a number of job offers that I had to turn down.

I am thrilled, humbled, and honored to have made this journey with many of you sitting here in the audience today. From my perspective I see the wealth of opportunities that a graduate education from NYU Steinhardt has to offer for each and everyone of us.

In conclusion I want to leave you with some words that a very dear friend of mine said to me once many years ago and that still ring true today.

"when we walk to the edge of all the light we have

and take that step into the darkness of the unknown,

we must believe that one of  two things will happen:

There will be something solid for us to stand on

or we will be taught how to fly."

When you leave here today I truly hope each and every one of you will either be standing on solid ground or learning how to fly.             

I thank you all for providing me with a rewarding and memorable graduate school experience.

Size Matters

I was having a conversation with my sister about class size and she seemed to recall having classes of up to 50 students in grammar school. At which point I told her that she was absolutely wrong and that if there were classes existing like that today that it was a disservice to both the student and the teacher and probably against the law in many states. So I started to do some research to find articles about class size and came across many. This one in the Washington Post caught my eye, especially when I saw the quote from John Dewey.

Class size is an issue that I am struggling with at the elementary school where I am teaching as many of my classes are close to 30 and very often inclusion classes, which means it could have up to 12 kids with IEP"s 

As the article addresses class size across the entire education system including Ivy League Colleges. I thought the example of the Harvard Creative Writing class was particularly ironic. I think it is important for us as educators to take the issue seriously and figure out what we can do to advocate for smaller class sizes, even right here in our own backyard.

Thanks 

All the best,

Andrew

follow this link to the article:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/class-size/7-class-size-myths----and-the.html

As John Dewey wrote, “What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children.” If education is really the civil rights issue of our era, it is about time those people making policies for our schools begin to provide for other people’s children what they provide for their own.

Dance as a Radical Act

Hi All,

It has been a while since I have posted on here. I came across these two articles about dance as a radical act and thought they were important and insightful enough to share. Here are the links as well as the blog where you can find them.

All the best,

Andrew

Here are the links
To Dance Is a Radical Act | Psychology Today
www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-body.../dance-is-radical-actNov 29, 2011 – The practice of dancing is vital to our survival as humans on earth. By Kimerer LaMothe, Ph.D....

Part Two: To Dance Is (More than Just) a Radical Act | Psychology ...
www.psychologytoday.com/.../part-two-dance-is-more-just-radical-a...Dec 31, 2011 – What one who dances knows about nature in us and around us By Kimerer LaMothe, Ph.D....

you can also go to her blog
http://familyplanting.com/2011/11/29/to-dance-is-a-radical-act/#comment-86