Arts Are Core: Summer Conference
July 26, 2023
8:00 am–4:00 pm
In Person Conference
Presenters
Keynote Speaker/Presenter: Donna Washington
Donna Washington is an award-winning internationally known master storyteller, artist-educator, and author who has been performing for audiences of all ages for over thirty-five years. She is renowned for her storytelling for both children & adults from poignant & funny fables about the human condition to racy relationship stories to spine-tingling tales of terror. She has been featured at numerous festivals, schools, libraries, theaters and other venues around the world including Canada, Peru, Argentina & Hong Kong. During the pandemic, she presented over two hundred shows & workshops virtually online. In 2020, she co-founded the non-profit organization Artists Standing Strong Together with Master Storyteller Sheila Arnold for which they won a 2021 Oracle Award.
Donna's eleven storytelling CDs have garnered thirty national awards. She has authored numerous articles about storytelling and education including her very popular blog Language, Literacy & Storytelling. She is also the author of five children’s books: Li’l Rabbit’s Kwanzaa, A Pride of African Tales, The Story of Kwanzaa, A Big Spooky House, and award-winning Boo Stew. Peachtree Press is scheduled to publish her next picture book, Prak Fills The House, in September 2023. She travels all over the world performing and giving workshops. She lives with her husband and cat in Durham, NC.
Learn more about Donna on her website! https://dlwstoryteller.com/
Tina Misaka
Tina Misaka is an alumna of the University of Utah Modern Dance Program and has performed with Repertory Dance Theatre and other professional dance companies around the world. Throughout her career Tina has worked as a dance educator, teaching throughout the United States and Europe. She served as rehearsal director for New Carte Blanche (Bergen, Norway) and acting dean of Danshogskolan (Sweden). Tina was honored with the Salt Lake City Mayor's Arts Award (1998), and the Sorenson Legacy Award for Excellence in Arts Education (2014). She was the 2021 recipient of the University of Utah’s College of Fine Arts Distinguished Alumi award for arts education. For the past 15 years, she has served as a highly qualified licensed dance educator in the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program (BTSALP). Currently, Tina is the BTS Dance Educator at Mountain View Elementary in Salt Lake City. Tina is renowned throughout Utah as a master dance pedagogue and an expert in the field of arts integration. As a dance educator, she promotes young people's artistic enrichment as well as their personal growth. She educates the whole child and elevates learning as students meet and achieve dual learning objectives in dance and other content areas to understand both better.
Jill DeVilbiss
Jill DeVilbiss teaches music at Edith Bowen Laboratory School, a K-6 charter school at Utah State University. She also teaches Music for Elementary Classroom Teachers for USU pre-service teachers. Jill holds two degrees from Utah State and is a licensed K-12 teacher. She has completed three levels of training in both the Kodàly and Orff-Schulwerk methods of teaching music. She also completed two summer courses at the Orff Institute in Salzburg, Austria. Jill has presented at state and national conferences on the Child’s Singing Voice and Integrating Music into Other Core Curricular Areas. She contributed to a music curriculum “Turn on the Music” and has been an advocate for Directed as well as Passive Listening. She was a part of a four-year study on the effect of arts education on children’s problem solving and conflict management skills at Utah State University.
Cynthia Davis-Nordfelt
Cynthia Davis-Nordfelt graduated from BYU with a double BFA in Education and Music Dance Theatre. She studied Shakespeare while living in London and spent many a rainy evening at the Tate Modern. She is currently a professional singer with the Utah Chamber Artists and has performed at exciting venues from the Chicago Opera House to the Utah Olympic Games. With her own children in elementary school, Cyndi became a BTS Arts Educator. She currently teaches grades K-6 at Riverton Elementary School in Utah. Her students range from Special Needs cluster classes to Advanced Placement learners. Cyndi specializes in light and shadow theatrical works. She has adapted Plato’s Allegory of the Cave for high school production and most recently wrote and directed a K-6 Arts Integrated Native American program that includes dance, music, and 3 trickster tales told through shadow puppetry.
Natalie Nish
Natalie Nish has been teaching art for 15 years. Currently she serves as a Beverly Taylor Sorenson Visual Art Educator at Birch Creek Elementary in Smithfield, Utah. At Birch Creek Elementary she has built an art program that integrates Art with content curriculum and serves close to 700 students in grades 1 through 6. She loves to give her students a variety of art learning experiences from pop art sculptures made from toilet paper to self-portraits done in the style of Tim Burton. She especially enjoys allowing her students to experience a medium regardless of how messy it may be. Because of her great love of her students, her art form and teaching, Natalie was recently recognized as the 2022-2023 Elementary Art Educator of the Year from the Utah Art Education Association.
Sharon Cook
Sharon Cook is a veteran teacher with over 25 years of experience. She currently teaches 5th grade at Century Elementary in Bear River City, Utah. She engages all learners through a variety of learning experiences. She has found that deeper learning and greater memory retention occurs while integrating the fine arts and multisensory experiences throughout her lessons, often camouflaging the learning through playful activities. Creativity is exhibited throughout all that Sharon does, both at home and at school. She loves to learn new things about people and the world around her. She loves art, music, reading, sewing, cooking, gardening, camping and hiking.
Katherine Ross Hejazi-Far
