By Eason Franklin
The Lowndes Signal

Lowndes County’s Board of Education Head Start program is getting ready to hold a dance recital.

The event will take place May 5 at the Central Elementary mini-gym and is open to the public.

This year’s featured piece was coordinated by Dance Teacher Marsha Hardy and is dedicated to the late Michael Jackson.

Speakers, an iPod and creative dance through music are the only pieces of equipment needed to entertain the 311 students across the three centers.

The children learn numbers, colors and left/right all while dancing and each child learns by their own experience, memory, observation and imagination, according to Director Samita Jeter.

Classes offer children a chance to be exposed to creative arts while teachers and teachers’ assistants get the chance to take a break.

Teaching dance to the children at Head Start has been Hardy’s commitment for about four years.

Hardy, who is soon to be a mother, came to Head Start with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Education from Ohio State and experience from the Baldwin Magnet School in Montgomery.

All three centers, located at the Ft. Deposit, Central and Jackson-Steele elementary schools, participate in the recital over the course of the semester.

Dances can last anywhere from 20 minutes to one hour and are the culmination of a 12-week rotation period.
Hardy is a native of Montgomery and holds the responsibility of coordinating dances by herself.

Jeter hopes to eventually incorporate additional dance teachers and even start a music education program for the Head Start centers.