Arts Integration: A Powerful Model for All Students

Sessions 3 & 4: Grades K–6

This session will focus on arts and academic integration and will include dance, drama, music and visual arts as well as other curriculum areas. We invite you to come play and learn.

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Tanner Dance Presenters 

Mary Ann Lee is the director of the Tanner Dance Program and Children's Dance Theatre in the College of Fine Arts at the University of Utah, where she is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Dance. She trained with Virginia Tanner and was a member of Children's Dance Theatre. She received master's degrees in dance and French from Mills College and the University of Cincinnati, respectively. She performed professionally with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company and Moveable Feast Dance Company in San Francisco and with the Contemporary Dance Theatre in Ohio. Ms. Lee was a dance specialist for the National Endowment for the Arts' Artists-in-Schools program and taught throughout the United States. She has been an invited guest teacher in China, Japan, The Netherlands, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, England, Finland, Canada, and Brazil. Ms. Lee continues to teach at the University of Utah in the Departments of Modern Dance and Education, and in the Tanner Dance Program. She teaches throughout Utah, nationally, and internationally.


Penelope Marantz Caywood is known and respected throughout the Salt Lake Valley as an actor, teacher, choreographer, and the artistic director of the University of Utah Youth Theatre. She has been involved with Youth Theatre since 2000, assuming the position of artistic director in 2006. Youth Theatre is part of the Kennedy Center Partners in Education program, along with Kingsbury Hall and the Salt Lake City School District. Penelope has worked at numerous community, university, and professional theatres and has directed, choreographed, and musically directed over 25 productions across the Wasatch Front. She began performing in 1978, in Torrance, California and has worked in many theatres across the Los Angeles area. Throughout her career she has developed her artistry through training in voice, improvisation, theatre, ballet, and contemporary dance. She received a degree in elementary education with an ESL endorsement from Cal State Dominguez Hills, with a minor in vocal performance. Penelope teaches creative drama, tap, and musical theatre to young people and to educators across the Wasatch front. She also teaches two university courses for education majors: Drama in the Classroom and Integrating the Arts into Academic Learning. Ms. Caywood continues to act in, direct, and choreograph local productions--a bit trickier now that she has a six-year-old daughter.


Sabrina Theodore has been an art educator and advocate working with the nation's highly respected institutes. She has received degrees in art from the University of Utah and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, as well as studying at Parsons School of Design, also in New York. Her extensive knowledge of art and beauty is communicated to all her students through her motto: “Art is a buffet: try it, make mistakes; your mistake could be someone’s masterpiece.” Ms. Theodore has instructed thousands of young students locally through the Salt Lake and Granite School districts and the Tanner Dance Program at the University of Utah.