The Art of Dance as a Pathway to 21st Century Skills and Arts Integration of the Common Core!
ABOUT ARTPATH
OUR MISSION
Artpath brings practicing artists into schools to teach visual and performing arts as part of the curriculum. Aligning our teaching with class curriculum, we focus on the power of expression through the arts. Children are physical and the arts provide another pathway to their learning through physical expression. The arts are a kinesthetic means for students to partner, problem solve and synthesize. Done in a safe and familiar environment, Artpath lets students feel the joy and delight of their expression and its impact on others. Visual and performing arts are a great way to bring curriculum to life.
OUR DIRECTOR
Donna Von Joo-Tornell, professional dancer and choreographer is the Director of Artpath and the Artistic Director of Atelier5 A Modern Dance Company. Donna has over 10 years experience as a teaching artist in the Bay Area and is committed to sharing this powerful artform and its educational benefits with the community.
She worked as a resident dance artist for primary school students for ArtPath for 10 years before becoming the director and its primary teaching artist. In addition, she worked for Young Audiences San José and Silicon Valley, a similar non-profit.
Donna was on the faculty at Dancenter in Capitola for 8 years. She now teaches Limon techinique independently at the Tannery World Dance & Cultural Center in Santa Cruz.
As a dancer, Donna has performed the choreographic works of a diverse collection of choreographers including: Sharon Took-Zozaya, Kim Shipp, Emilie Plauché, Rick Heiman, Erica Essner, Fred Mathews, Gary Masters, Robert Regala, Sylvie Minot, and others.
Through workshops she has had the opportunity to work with Ralph Lemon, Daniel Nagrin, Carlos Orta, Nina Watt, Carla Maxwell, Raphaél Boumaila, and Ernestine Stodelle.
Donna earned her BA in dance from San Jose State University where she had the opportunity to dance with Limón West Dance Company, Limón Company, and UDT (University Dance Theater). She has also been seen in Cat Wiilis’ Diaspora, with Stamping Zebra Dance Company, Crash, Burn, and Die dance company, BelcCobra Dance, Shipp Dance Theatre, and Margaret Wingrove Dance Company.
She has choreographed more than a dozen pieces and seen them produced through Dance Romanesque, DanceWorks, Choreographers Collective, and Eddie Gale's Concert for World Peace, at Circle of Palms during National Dance Week’s Dancing Downtown in San José, California and Modernbook /Gallery 494 in Palo Alto, California.
Her most recent Atelier5 production was Cradle and All, a dance piece in three parts including He Sat Down Beside Her, Small Secrets, and Cradle and All. This dance looked at children’s nursery rhymes and their overlooked violent and unsettling elements. Prior to this she choreographed Remaining Recording Time Is. . . . Donna has enjoyed several collaborations with artist Sieglinde Van Damme.
Under Donna's direction, Atelier5 received a Mentor Graphics Foundation grant to do a participatory children’s dance event at the San Jose Museum of Art.
Donna holds the passionate belief that everyone is entitled to dance and all people have the ability to understand the language of contemporary dance.