Kids Co'Motion 2025! July 7-26
Performances on July 25 and 26
Kids Co'Motion meets Mondays through Fridays, from 10 am-2:30 pm at The Annex of Collegiate United Methodist Church and Wesley Foundation. The group will perform two fully produced shows at the Ames City Auditorium to share their amazing work!
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We'll be learning, creating, and connecting our movement with our ideas to make dances. We move our imaginations!
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Kids Co'Motion is an annual program designed to train children ages 8-18 in modern dance technique, composition theory, practice, and production. During daily practices, kids work on dance technique, learn to improvise, experiment using movement to express ideas, and then to develop opinions. Kids use those skills to create dances.
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Kids Co'Motion performance workshop teaches more than dances to students. Kids Co'Motion builds creative choreographers, helps students gain confidence in their own ideas, and teaches them to organize those ideas and structure them into dance. Students not only study with master choreographers and teachers, but they also compose dances by themselves and with other students, learning from everyone's ideas.
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Valerie Williams
Director Valerie Williams has been honored as a "local treasure" by the Ames Community Arts Council. During her career as dancer, choreographer, and teacher, Ms. Williams has touched audiences around the world. In addition to her work as director and principal dancer with Co'Motion Dance Theater, she has worked as rehearsal director for Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Co, does scholarly research in Early Dance, perfroms with Musica Antiqua, and choreographs musical theater productions.
Praise for Kids Co'Motion!
The shows were absolutely wonderful! You did such a splendid job in all aspects of the design, instruction, and execution of this wonderful production. THANK YOU! ~ Gwyn
I credit dance with my lifetime commitment to fitness and thank Valerie and Co'Motion Dance Theater for continuing to expand the world of creative possiblity for young people. ~ Alan
After working with other kids theatre programs since leaving Ames, I've seen programs insist upon dumbing down the art form. I found this approach odd and ineffective compared to the way I was treated by Valerie, Lana, and many other professional dancers and theatre artists at KCM. I was not only treated like a professional, but my opinions and ideas were respected and, oftentimes, used. When we were treated like adult artists, we acted that way. During the school year my teachers were trying desparately to teach my classmates and me about teamwork and maturity, but I was getting all that knowledge over three weeks in the summer. ~ Madeleine
