PHOTO: JOE LAMB
Dance multi-hyphenate Heather Britt has a full plate this fall: a new full-time professorship in Northern Kentucky University’s Department of Theater and Dance, where she’s teaching Jazz; choreographing student productions; and running the school’s new outreach endeavor, the Dance for Fitness Troupe. Comprised of a diverse group of dancers and non-dancers from NKU, the ensemble will visit area elementary, junior high and high schools and teach children that they can dance for fitness and simply to feel good. The curriculum also discusses nutrition — much-needed information for the growing number of obese children.
Britt also inspires devotion several times a week teaching the popular high-energy dance workout class, Rhythm and Motion. She founded a local satellite of the original San Francisco-based program in 2000 and has been expanding it ever since. She also teaches children at the Academy at Cincinnati Ballet and at Uptown Arts, an organization serving underprivileged youth.
Q: What’s the coolest thing about you?
Britt: I get to do what I love for a living. I get to work in cool places and be around cool people, including my students, my friends and of course my husband and children.
Q: What the coolest part about teaching dance?
Britt: I have to reach deep inside of myself and go back to the basics and be able to communicate those basics to the students.
And when I actually see my corrections coming to fruition on the bodies — I see the students take in the information and make the correction — that’s a really neat feeling.
It makes me feel like I’ve done a good job.
Q: Who’s the coolest person you know?
Britt: Someone that I really admire is the woman who started Rhythm and Motion in San Francisco, Consuelo Faust. She started it in 1979 with the idea that anyone can dance. She was able to fulfill people through movement but also be a great mom and find the balance of being very genuine and honest. She’s definitely a role model of mine because she was able to balance all of those things.
For a full list of upcoming NKU THEATRE AND DANCE PERFORMANCES, go to www.nku.edu/~theatre
