Session participants will learn how to host a local, regional, or statewide, international folk dance festival. The presenter will provide month-by-month checklists, roles, parent & teacher letter templates, possible dance lists, access to sample online teaching & performance videos, and sequences for participants to begin hosting their own festival. Attendees will also experience several international dances as well as see video performances of students and adults performing in festivals such as the Indiana Children’s International Folk Dance Festival.

Participants will be able to: coordinate and direct a local, regional, or statewide festival after attending this session. Teach and facilitate several possible dances with their students, families, and community members. This session addresses all four Anchor Standards of the National Core Standards for the Arts. Developing on individual participants’ goals, processes and programming resulting from this session have the potential to specifically meet National Core Music Standards Pr4.1-3; Pr5.1; Pr6.1; Re7.1,2; Re9.1; Cn10.0; Cn11.0 and all Dance standards.

Mike McBride teaches K – 6th grade students in general music, Ethnic Dance Ensemble, Choir, Orff Ensemble, and guitar classes at Forest Glen Elementary School of Spanish Immersion, MSD of Lawrence Township in Indianapolis, IN. He was the 2016 Indiana Music Education Association’s Elementary Music Educator of the Year and the 2017 Forest Glen Elementary School Teacher of the Year. He currently serves as MSDLT’s Elementary Music PLC leader.

Mike earned degrees from Anderson University (MME) and Taylor University (BME). He is fully certified in Kodály, Orff-Schulwerk, First Steps in Music, and Conversational Solfege.
Mike has served on the boards of the Indiana Orff-Schulwerk Association (IOSA) and the Indiana Music Education Association (IMEA), including as the Chair of the Indiana Children’s International Folk Dance Festival. He is a member of FAME, AOSA, and OAKE and has presented at IOSA and IMEA professional development conferences as well as for the Organization of American Kodaly Educators National Conference.

When Mike is not making music, he loves hiking in Fort Harrison State Park in Indianapolis with his wife, daughter, and son.