'Planets of Our Solar System' with Harlan Brownlee
August 12, 2025 - May 31, 2026 | 60-minute workshop
Program cost: $100 per classroom. Scholarships and discounts available.
Grades 6 – 8
Recognizing the powerful engagement and educational benefits of dance and creative movement, Harlan Brownlee integrates dance with STEM education. He leads residencies for K-12 students, and presents workshops, teaching demonstrations, and professional development sessions for teachers. He also provides coaching for teachers and has led training seminars for teaching artists nationwide.
Focusing on the planets of our solar system, in “Planets of Our Solar System,” students will create movement themes and variations related to planetary motion, environmental characteristics, and literary mythology for the eight planets.
Harlan Brownlee understands the transformational power the arts have to improve the quality of life for individuals and the community. He possesses a passion for the arts, guided by a disciplined approach to change. Brownlee has worked in the field of arts integration for more than 40 years, beginning with Kansas City Young Audiences in 1984.
Since 2000, Brownlee has been a National Teaching Artist with the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He holds a BFA degree in dance with an emphasis in performance and choreography and a MA in Educational Research and Psychology. In 2019, Brownlee joined the Focus 5 team, a National Arts Integration Consulting Firm. That same year, he was awarded a Young Audiences National Residency Teaching Artist Credential.
Recognizing the powerful engagement and educational benefits of dance and creative movement, Brownlee integrates dance with STEM education. He has presented at Project Lead the Way’s (PLTW) National Conferences, showcasing his expertise in blending STEM curriculum with creative movement and dance.
In addition, he has designed and implemented hundreds of lesson plans over 35 years of instructing a weekly class at Community School #1 that integrated dance and movement into the general curriculum with an emphasis on the subject areas of science and literacy. Brownlee has been an adjunct professor for Rockhurst University’s School of Education and the University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Education. He also is a past associate editor for the Teaching Artist Journal.
For 13 years, Brownlee was one of the artistic co-directors choreographing and dancing for City in Motion Dance Theater, a professional dance company that toured the Midwest and was featured at the World Expo in 1992 in Seville, Spain.
Classroom Workshop available for the 2025-26 school year. For grades 2-6.