Educational Background/Training

BA in Dance from Connecticut College, 2015; additional training at the American Dance Festival (2008, 2010, 2013, 2019), Bates Dance Festival (2009, 2019) and the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation (2015)

About the Artist/Ensemble

Mauri Terra Connors is a multidisciplinary dance artist located in the countryside of Virginia. She makes work with movement, paper, and words. She received her BA in Dance with honors from Connecticut College in 2015, where she studied with David Dorfman, Heidi Henderson, Shani Collins-Achille, Lisa Race, and Shawn Hove. She has performed with Jenny Davies/ Progeny Dance in Lexington, VA and was a performer in Vicky Virgin’s Arm Dance #1: Forgiveness, a dance for camera, in Brooklyn, NY. Her writing and visual work have been included in Contact Quarterly and About Place Journal.

From 2018-2021 she was the Artistic Director of Halestone Dance Studio, located in Lexington, VA, where she taught creative movement, modern and contemporary dance, improvisation, choreography, and more at a studio location and in the public schools. Her teaching is influenced by her experiences as a forest school educator for parent-child classes, her volunteer work at Boxerwood Education Association and her work as a court appointed special advocate for Blue Ridge CASA.

Currently she is working as a guest artist with ShaLeigh Dance Works in Durham, NC.

Educational Program Description

For pre-schools and elementary schools my workshops and lessons can be tailored to include content relevant to existing science, language arts, history or math curriculum, such as a lesson on rhythm and pathways when kindergartners are learning about patterns. Each lesson includes a developmentally appropriate warm-up, time to explore a movement concept improvisationally, time to develop a new skill and practice it, and time to create and/or improvise as a group. I create movement experiences that are joyful, welcoming, and adaptable to all learners. I value students’ input on where we go next in the class.

In studio settings for older students (elementary through high school) I am available to teach in similar way or through more traditional dance vocabulary – modern dance technique, release technique, improvisation techniques and contact improv. I am available to create and set choreography on students or to teach compositional techniques for students to create their own choreography.

Audiences

• All Ages