“Brenda Pugh McCutchen (doing business as) Dance Curriculum Designs LLC” is a prime example of woman-led entrepreneurial venture in the field of dance education in the 21st century. In 2000, McCutchen began writing the holistic foundation textbook for teacher preparation, Teaching Dance as Art in Education, published by Human Kinetics in 2006. She didn’t plan to create a business. She set out to write 3 textbooks and had already outlined them. But as she wrote this first text, she realized there were no foundation resources to help dance specialists teach and activate dance’s core concepts with their students. How were they to then achieve the level of dance literacy required for 21 century schools?
As a teacher, she kept envisioning teacher materials that focused on the core concepts of dance’s artistic processes. To replace the old 20th century “presentational dance” model (which was ineffective as the well-rounded subject it was meant to beK-12) with a holistic, literacy-based educational model mandated the creation of substantive teacher resources. As McCutchen’s textbook described the new 21st century “6DC Model of Educational Dance,” it also mandated 6DC resources to teach dance as art and literacy in today’s schools. So, once she sent the Teaching Dance… manuscript to Human Kinetics she began creating the “content and methods” to teach 6DCeducational dance. That has produced effective teachers who articulate what is most important to know and do in dance’s artistic processes: creating, performing, critiquing, and connecting dance history and culture.
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This year marks the 25 anniversary of Dance Curriculum Designs™ LLC and of McCutchen’s impact on the field through the 6DCmodel of educational dance and its6DC resources used far and wide. Her passion to create resources is matched only by her passion to serve as advance curriculum consultant to colleges and universities to facilitate dance department optimization. Through curriculum audits and long-range-planning, she helps dance departments “tune-up” each degree program for maximum benefit to their graduates and programs.
Even though Dance Curriculum Designs™ operated from 2016-2023 under the cloud of an environmentally-induced neuro toxic illness which slowed down McCutchen’s pace and productivity for seven years, she is now back at the helm of D.C.D. with full steam ahead and no turning back.
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