About Allegra

Allegra Lillard began dancing in her home state of Texas and attended Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Massachusetts. She received further training in New York City at The School of American Ballet and American Ballet Theater summer programs and in Canada at the Banff Centre. Dance has taken her throughout the U.S., Canada and Asia. In her professional career, she was featured in solo and principal roles in the Atlanta Ballet, Ballet British Columbia, Ballet Hawaii, Hawaii Ballet Theatre and the Oregon Ballet Theatre. 

Allegra and her husband Mark Morgan moved to Santa Fe in 1996. From 1997-2004 she worked with NDI New Mexico in positions including Residency Director, Associate Artistic Director and Master Teacher. Allegra was the Founding Director and Operator of Dance for Joy, a dance school that offered creative movement and ballet for all levels from 2004-2011. In 2011 she returned to NDI New Mexico as The Dance Barns Artistic Director where she held that position until August 2018. She is currently the Director of Young Children’s Curriculum.

In 2020-21 Allegra wrote Dance for Joy, A Creative Movement Curriculum for Ages 3-5 Years. Based on movement, rhymes, and music this guidebook is designed to provide teachers with resources, strategies, and activities that can be used in the classroom to support physical, mental, social, and emotional development in young children.

Allegra continues to teach and to share her experience and knowledge with those who work with children.   

Life is miraculous and full of twists, turns, ups, downs, silver linings, open doors, love, joy and the sparkle in a child’s eye! Allegra is grateful for the abundance.

About Dance for Joy

I had magical and imaginative teachers as a young child who instilled in me a passion for dance. That passion propelled me into my life’s work as a dancer and a teacher. 

Through dance I have learned that teaching is about sharing, observing, doing, experiencing, and passing down information infused with joy. 

I have no doubt that when joy is included in education a foundation of curiosity, energy, and happiness is created and the potential for growth is limitless. 

With this belief, I set out to document ideas and activities I have discovered, developed, and experimented with while teaching young children.

This collection became Dance for Joy, A Creative Movement Curriculum for Ages 3-5 Years. It is not a curriculum in the traditional sense, but rather, a guidebook or toolbox. Just like dance, the concepts, strategies, and activities are meant to be fluid and evolve. 

  • Consider what you, as an educator or caregiver, can bring from your own life experience?

  • Can the age or dynamic of the children in your care inform how an activity is introduced and performed?

  • Can you mix, match, share, and augment to meet your needs or your children’s needs on any given day?

  • The ultimate idea is to create a solid movement foundation that supports the children on many different levels.

“The primary goal of this guidebook is to use DANCE, MUSIC, SONG, and RHYME as catalysts for life lessons and school readiness.”

— Allegra Lillard, author of Dance for Joy

What is Creative Movement?

At the tender ages of 3 -5 dance is not about classical training or the aspiration to be a dancer. Instead, teaching movement in these early years is critical for a child’s physical, emotional and social development. Communication and expression through movement occur before we can even speak. Movement is a universal language, so naturally, creative movement is an accessible choice for young children. 

The teacher guides with love and joy in an environment that feels safe for exploration and where the emphasis is not on being “right” or “wrong” but rather on gently encouraging and guiding children to be “on task” and not “off task.” Channeling a child’s energy in a positive direction stimulates imagination and creativity and facilitates learning on many levels. 

Why Incorporate Creative Movement?

  • A child can utilize dance to express and embody experiences when verbalization is not yet possible. 

  • You can also use movement to explore cross-curricular concepts. At first one might assume the obvious – dance addresses the physical and artistic development. Yes, it does, but if you dive a little deeper you discover how movement exploration can encourage the use of letters, words, shapes, numbers, scientific concepts, qualities, emotions, etc. 

  • Moving and dancing with others make our bodies and our minds healthy and alert and thereby facilitate social and emotional development and well-being. This learning easily translates from the classroom into everyday life and other social and cultural settings.

  • Joyful bonding through movement is a great equalizer and creates lasting positive relationships. Teachers need to move too. Sharing a movement segment in the school day gives that much-needed physical outlet to all, students, and teachers alike.

  • The joy of creative movement is accessible, inclusive, adaptable, and beneficial for children and adults with physical challenges and learning differences. Each exercise can be modified and executed with one or more helpers, in a chair instead of on the floor or standing, using an interpreter, and any other additional support necessary. I encourage you to think out of the box and use creativity to remove the barriers that prevent  accessibility while dancing. 

  • This guidebook gives you more resources and tools for your toolbox. It is comprehensive and allows for picking and choosing activities that can effectively support the delivery of many learning opportunities. These activities also provide opportunities for observation and documentation of a child’s development.