About echs dance

ABOUT THE ECHS DANCE PROGRAM

El Cerrito High School has a long and rich dance history. Dance has always been offered at ECHS, and in 1978 Jacqueline Burgess replaced retiring teacher Dorothy Grunseth to teach the one dance class offered at the time. Ms. Burgess built the Dance Program up over the following 10 years by teaching Horton, Graham, and Dunham technique imbued with Jazz and Classical Ballet, and adding a full schedule of classes and performances. In 1988, the Program made many important steps in its development: the dance curriculum was rewritten to meet University of California A - G requirements, dance became a part of the Visual and Performing Arts Department, a second dance studio was created, and Nancy Hallamore and Dawn James joined the Dance Faculty.

By 1990, there were 11 sections of dance offered in Afro-Haitian Dance, Ballet, Modern Jazz, and Dance Production. The following year the school district went bankrupt and the faculty was reduced back to one teacher again, Ms. Burgess. She persevered through those trying times and maintained the quality and rigor for which the Program was known. She added dance concerts to the performance seasons and moved the big shows to the theater at Contra Costa College to accommodate the growing audience. In 2006, as construction for the new ECHS campus was underway, the Program moved into portable studios and performed at Harding Elementary School.

In 2008, the Program moved into its new home in the E Building and continued to thrive. Ms. Burgess retired in 2012 after over 34 years of dancing at ECHS. She was succeeded by Jessy Kronenberg, her former student and 1998 ECHS graduate. Ms. Kronenberg has moved the Program forward into a new era while maintaining the tradition of high quality dance education at ECHS. In 2013, the Program became a chapter of the National Honor Society for Dance Arts. On average, ten students a year now graduate from ECHS with Honors in Dance. Korematsu Middle School opened in 2016 with a dance studio on its campus thus reinstating a feeder middle grades dance program for ECHS Dance. In 2018, Ms. Kronenberg added Dance Composition to the Program’s course offerings. From 2018 - 2020 the program participated in the annual state dance festival for the California Dance Education Association, acting as the host site in 2018 and 2020.

In the spring of 2020, ECHS Dance shifted to an “online dance studio and stage” model as the world faced the COVID-19 pandemic. For three show seasons, the Program produced digital dance concerts and students took class and rehearsed via Zoom video conferencing. The dancers took on this challenge with grace and determination and created stunning dances for the screen. In the spring of 2021, limited in-person on-campus opportunities started up again at ECHS and the dancers used the tennis courts as their studio and performance space, adapting once again to unprecedented times. As the 2021-22 school year started, the dancers returned to their home in the ECHS Dance Studio after being away for a year and a half. They danced in masks, with high powered air purifiers cycling, and returned to a regular schedule of classes and rehearsals, as well as performances on their home stage.

Graduates of ECHS Dance have gone on to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees in dance and related fields. Others have become dance educators, professional dancers in companies around the United States, Broadway performers, and still others have started their own professional dance companies.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Jessy Kronenberg started dancing in 1983 at Cerrito Dance Arts Center where she studied Ballet, Tap, and Jazz under Eleanor Edson Weigand, Maryse Young, and Maureen Nichols. As an ECHS student, she trained under Jacqueline Burgess. In 2002, Ms. Kronenberg earned BA degrees in Environmental Studies and Dance from Pitzer College, where she focused on Modern Dance and Composition. Later, Ms. Kronenberg joined Asheville Contemporary Dance Theater in North Carolina. She earned a Master’s degree in Teaching at Western Carolina University. While dancing professionally with ACDT she toured in the Southeastern US, Mexico, and Colombia. Before returning to ECHS in 2012, Ms. Kronenberg was teaching Modern Dance at EAFIT University in Colombia, South America. She has studied and taught Ballet, Tap, Jazz, Modern, Salsa, Tango, Swing, and Gymnastics for students of all ages and all levels.

Ms. Kronenberg has acted as the Department Chair for the Performing Arts Department at ECHS periodically during her tenure. She is also passionate about dance education advocacy. Ms. Kronenberg has served continuously on the Board of the California Dance Education Association since 2014. She is currently the Director of the Credential Task Force for CDEA. With CDEA, she has organized many professional development conferences in dance education and has worked on several arts education bills. In 2016, as CDEA’s Co-President, she helped to pass legislation to update our state Visual and Performing Arts standards and reinstate the single-subject credentials in Dance and Theatre.

Ms. Kronenberg is the recipient of the 2016 Executive Director’s Award from the National Dance Education Organization for Excellence in Advocacy for the Field of Dance Education in recognition of her work to pass SB 916, the Theatre and Dance Act-- TADA!. In May 2017, Ms. Kronenberg was honored by the EdFund of WCCUSD with a Teaching Excellence Award. Ms. Kronenberg has presented at state-level dance education conferences and in 2018 she presented on the Gaucho Dance Company as a vehicle for leadership training at the annual conference of the National Dance Education Organization. She believes that all of California’s school children have the right to high quality arts education, and that arts educators have the right to be recognized as specialists in their disciplines.