about Kate
Kate offers creative dance and movement educational resources, professional development and mentoring for teachers (current and future) families and providers in all settings who work with preschool through 8th grade children.
The author of four instructional audio compact discs, Brain Bop (2008), AlphaBeat (2001), Step On The Beat (1998, 2010) and Songs for Dancing (1994, 2012), Kuper promotes accessible movement activities for use in classrooms, dance studios, day care, and at home.
Kuper is a Visiting Lecturer in the Dance Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she focuses on Community Engagement.
Kuper is also a Workshop Leader for the Kennedy Center's Partners in Education program (Washington, D.C.) a consultant to school districts, businesses and educational organizations, and a Teaching Artist who conducts residencies and interactive performances.
During her career as a professional choreographer in Chicago (1981–86), Kuper received recognition from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Illinois Arts Council.
She has performed for and taught students since 1982, inspiring thousand of children ages 3 –14 to move and learn.
She directs the Creative Dance for Children program at UIUC, offering classes to ages 4-10 and mentoring college students in best practices so that they can become proficient teachers themselves.
An articulate lecturer, she seeks to extend the reach of dance appreciation through talks and lecture-demonstration programs for audiences of all ages.
Kuper presents an annual lecture series through the Osher Life Long Learning Institute in Champaign-Urbana. This series, for learners over 50 years of age, called Viewing Dance: Enriching the Audience Experience is designed to help audience members understand and appreciate the influences on and process of mature and emerging dance artists in the Department of Dance at UIUC who choreograph for the four departmental concerts.
Kate teaches a concept-based approach to dance focusing on preschool through eighth grade children.
She has been on the roster of the Illinois Arts Council's Arts-in-Education program since 1982, working consistently as a Teaching Artist since 1989. In 2000, Kuper received acknowledgment for her outstanding contribution to the field through a Service Recognition Award from the Illinois Alliance for Arts Education.
Kate also teaches integrated curriculum: language arts, science, math and social studies learned through movement, rhythm, rhyme and music. Some of these lesson ideas now appear in Activate! magazine, a bi-monthly publication designed for K -6th music teachers, to which she has been a regular contributor since October, 2009.
Kuper collaborates with her husband, percussionist Rocky Maffit, on recording projects and in schools where Rocky provides live, original music for student choreography and performance.
Kuper holds a BA from Oberlin College, an MFA from the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee, and Level I Orff certification.