Dance Educators Training Institute

Summer 2025

Transform Your Teaching with Dance: Join DETI 2025!

Are you looking to provide your students with a transformative dance experience and don’t know where to begin? Do you want to immerse yourself in dance styles from diverse cultures—all in one place? Then join us for the Dance Educators Training Institute (DETI) in June 2025!

Why Attend DETI?

DETI 2025 introduces a dynamic, revamped format featuring:

  • Six Dance Styles: From Indian dance traditions to Southern Hip Hop and Caribbean Social Dance
  • Workshops: Including culturally responsive teaching methods, dance composition, and mindfulness practices
  • Community-Building: Collaborate with educators, administrators, and dance enthusiasts
  • Diversity-Focused Learning: Explore racial equity and inclusion through dance

Featured sessions include:

    • Ballet/Modern for Aging Dancers
    • Caribbean Social Dance
    • Drumming
    • Cumbia
    • Indian Dance (Before Bollywood)
    • Southern Hip Hop

Engage with DEI and Self-Care

DETI’s mission goes beyond dance techniques. Each day offers workshops in:

  • Culturally Responsive Teaching
  • Mindfulness and Self-Care Practices
  • Dance History and Ritualistic Wellness

Each session culminates in activities designed to promote holistic self-care while navigating cultural differences in an ever-changing world.

Date and time

June 17 and 18, 2025

9:00am-5:30pm EDT

Location

CCBC Center for the Arts

360 Campus Drive, Catonsville, MD 21228

Join us for our 18th annual Dance Educators Training Institute (DETI) in partnership with Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) and Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC). This event embodies wellness in education by focusing on educators’ needs to care for themselves and their students. DETI 2025 will support wellbeing, broaden perspectives, and, of course, keep you moving.

Meet the Artists

Dr. Adrienne Clancy

Co-director


Dr. Adrienne Clancy is a contemporary dance artist and scholar who earned an MA in Dance History with a focus on marginalized dance cultures, an MFA and a PhD focusing on nonprofit leadership. Dr. Clancy has spent 30+ years working with under-served communities using dance as a tool for positive social change while exploring themes of social justice in dance. Prior to founding ClancyWorks, Dr. Clancy was a Company Member for Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Bella Lewitzky, Nora Reynolds-Daniel, and Bill Evans.

Bayardo Martinez Jr.

Cumbia Dance


Bayardo has an A.A. in dance performance from Montgomery College, a B.A. in dance performance, choreography, and education from the University of Maryland, and an M.F.A. in dance from Saint Mary’s College of California. Bayardo has adapted various formal dance styles into his own dance proficiency by infusing traditional, cultural, social, and western dance forms.

Clarence Brooks

Ballet/Modern Dance


Clarence Brooks (he/they), a Baltimore native, has performed with 80 plus dance companies and is currently a freelance artist with five companies. A former associate professor, published author, and the recipient of several honors, fellowships, and awards, Clarence holds two dance degrees, four somatic certifications, and sits on the boards of several non-profit dance organizations.

Darryl Pilate

Co-director


Darryl Pilate is a fifteen-year dance education and new arts administrator in the Office of Performing Arts in Baltimore County Public Schools. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Dance with a minor in Health Administration from Texas State University and a Master of Business Administration from Texas Woman’s University. He studied various dance artists in genres such as ballet, jazz, Hawkins technique, hip-hop, and contemporary.

Erica Rae Smith

Caribbean Social Dance


Erica ‘Rae’ Smith is the founder and artistic director of Raediant Movement, LLC. Erica is a Philadelphia native who received her B.F.A. in Modern Dance from the University of the Arts and has worked as a dancer with dance companies such as New LeJa Dances, Mahogany Dance Theatre, Tania Isaac Dance, Valerie Branch Dance Ensemble, and Lesole’s Dance Project. Erica has trained in many styles of dance, ranging from ballet, modern, and jazz to South African and Jamaican dancehall.

James Gummer

Drumming


James Gummer is an accompanist for the Community College of Baltimore County and the University of Maryland Baltimore County dance departments. He is a Remo Health Rhythms Drum Circle Facilitator and is the resident drummer at the Maryland Renaissance Festival.
In addition to percussion, James also teaches Tai Chi and meditation. He’s a hoodie enthusiast and huge fan of naps.

Melinda Blomquist

Co-director


Melinda Blomquist holds an M.F.A. in Dance Choreography and Performance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a Master of Arts in Dance Pedagogy from Brigham Young University. Melinda has presented her choreographic work at numerous venues nationally and internationally including the Mid-Atlantic and South-Central American College Dance Festival, Northwest Vista College, Towson University, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the Attakkalari Festival in Bangalore India.

Neo Lynch

Southern HipHop


Neo possesses more than 22 years of expertise in teaching a wide array of students, from K-12 learners engaging in recreational dance to those competing at national levels, as well as guiding pre-professional and seasoned professional dancers throughout the United States. She worked with renowned artists and producers within the music and entertainment industry to include Beyonce, Ciara, Justin Timberlake, JayZ, Chris Brown, P. Diddy, Gucci Mane, Swizz Beatz, Nelly, the Ying-Yang Twinz, Bow-Wow, The Dream, Sean Garrett, and Keri Hilson.

Sheila Oak Maggin

Bollywood Dance


A Northern Virginia native, Sheila Oak Maggin is professionally trained in many forms of dance, including Kathak (completing her Raangmunch Pravesh in 2002 under renowned Kathak Guru Asha Vattikuti), Bollywood, Hip Hop, Ballet, Jazz, Belly Dance, and Middle Eastern Tribal. She uses this diverse background to choreograph exceptional dances and to bring new and creative ideas/projects to the team. Her culture and background are also very important to her as she fully embraces her Half Punjabi, Half Marathi identity along with her newly acquired “Hinjew” culture post marriage.

Tim Cowart

Momentum-based partnering


Tim is the Director of the Dance Program at Western Oregon University. He has been traveling nationally and internationally, teaching workshops in the momentum-based contemporary partnering technique known as Kaeja Elevations. Additionally, he has infused his own choreography with momentum, and his choreography has been sought after by dance departments and dance companies around the country.

Previous DETI Photos

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