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Hi there! My name is Saumirah McWoodson, founder and CEO of Dance Daze, Inc. and Dance Daze in Schools and dance education researcher and business consultant. And you are listening to The Happy Dance Podcast. Let’s dance!

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Happy Dance Podcast! This is my very first podcast ever, so it’s going to be short and sweet and I’m really just gonna be using this one as a place-holder and to make sure that I can actually successfully publish a podcast.

But, before we dive in–and we’re really gonna dive in next week, again, after I know that I can actually do this–I want to introduce myself really quickly. So, my name is Saumirah McWoodson. I’m the founder and CEO of two dance organizations. One is called Dance Daze, Inc. and the other is Dance Daze in Schools. And essentially, with Dance Daze, Inc., we provide studio classes in the Greater Sacramento Area in California, and then with Dance Daze in Schools we provide programs for kids at elementary schools also in the same area. With Dance Daze in Schools, I’m really proud that I have been able to offer programs at schools in New York City, in Washington, D.C., and at a variety of schools in the San Francisco Bay Area as well. But currently, both Dance Daze, Inc. and Dance Daze in Schools are based in the Sacramento, California area. I also recently started a dance education consulting business, and I’m doing that at DanceEdStartup.com. So that’s pretty much what’s keeping me busy.

As far as my educational background, I am a current doctoral student at the University of the Pacific, and I’m researching dance educator training and preparation in the United States and also long-term job opportunities for dance educators in the United States. So that’s what I’m working on for the purposes of my dissertation. Then, I’m a Pacific alumna a couple of times. So I have my Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from the University of the Pacific and also my Master of Arts degree in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of the Pacific, and I also have a Multiple Subject Teaching Credential from Pacific. I love that school, apparently. And I taught elementary school for six years. So I’ve taught mainly second grade. But I most recently taught kindergarten, and then several years ago I taught, I co-taught first grade as well. So that’s . . . those are the basics about me, my educational background . . . Let’s see . . . I’m also an American Ballet Theatre Certified Teacher in Primary through Level 5 of the American Ballet Theatre National Training Curriculum. And I am a proud and heavily involved dog mom of two rescues. They’re both terrier mixes, named Henry and Benji.

And I’m sure I will let you in on tons of other little tidbits about my life in future episodes. But basically, this podcast is going to focus on everything related to dance, education, and cultivating a life of happiness.

So, thank you for listening to my very first episode! And I hope to catch you again very soon! And if you want to follow me online or learn more about me, you can go to DanceEdStartup.com–thats’ my website for my digital course. You can also find my blog at DanceDaze.org/Blog. I’ll be posting a new blog every Monday with a freebie inside of every blog, so be sure to check that out. And those freebies are going to be of interest to dance educators, early career dance educators, or people running studios that want to give quick and easy products to their newer dance educators. You can find me on Instagram @DanceDazeInc–so that’s d-a-n-c-e-d-a-z-e-i-n-c. There’s also an Instagram for Dance Daze in Schools. It’s just @DanceDazeInSchools. And then my personal Instagram is MissMcWoodson, @MissMcWoodson. So I don’t think I pronounce my name the way that it’s spelled, but it’s @-m-i-s-s my last name is m-c-w-o-o-d-s-o-n.

So I think those are enough Internet links to find me for now. I spend a lot of time online, so I have a lot of ats, a lot of avatars, a lot of urls. Thanks again for listening, and I hope to catch you next week! Bye!