Studio Visit appears first in print, in Sunday editions of The News-Gazette. Here, Melissa Merli visits with dance teacher Kate Kuper. In the Jan. 22 newspaper, a visit with graphic designer Vanessa Burgett.

Q: You seem really big into teaching dance. Do you perform much any more?

A: My performances consist of particular programs now, often with (her husband and percussionist) Rocky Maffit, what I would call family-friendly, interactive events.

Q: What do you do here at the University of Illinois?

A: I'm a visiting lecturer in dance. The bigger picture is I do a lot with community engagement. I run the Creative Dance for Children program. This is the studio in which I teach that. For OSHER Lifelong Learning, I do a lecture series called Viewing Dance. What I do is a lecture prior to each of the four Department of Dance concerts. They learn about the process and the intent behind the choreography, and then we go see the concert and have a talk back with the artists. The next lecture is Feb. 3. Going back to Creative Dance for Children, those classes start Jan. 28. The classes are for 4- and 5-year-olds, 6- and 7-year-olds and 8- to 10-year-olds, and we have two consecutive seven-week sessions this spring.

Q: That program has been around for a while, hasn't it?

A: Since 2003, when I revived it. I've been teaching it continuously since. It's a program in which I mentor college students on how to teach children dance.

Q: What else do you do?

A: Through Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, I teach a class called Dance for People with Parkinson's disease, and that generally meets the third Friday of the month at 10 a.m. I teach it with Marianne Jarvi, and we have live accompaniment by Beverly Hillmer.

Q: Then you have these in-school residencies, too.

A: Currently, I'm doing a lot with early childhood in Champaign County. Right now, I'm at the Washington Early Childhood Center through an Urbana Arts Grant, which I think is a great program.

I work with all the children there. We're doing three participatory family events in the course of six weeks, so I'm seeing every child five times, and there are 24 groups. It's really pretty intense. And then right after that, I'll start at Head Start in Savoy, doing classes there. Washington Early Childhood is a brand-new relationship; it's my fourth year with the Savoy site. These are ongoing, working relationships. One of the things that makes them effective is I can leave them with materials. I have a CD-DVD-book package coming out in February called "Songs for Dance." It offers creative movement and activities for children in preschool through second grade. I did that in collaboration with (musician) Neal Robinson and Rocky. This is our fourth project together. It's being published by Heritage Press in Dayton, Ohio.

Q: Why teach children dance or creative movement?

A: More and more, what I see is children needing to learn how to work together and how to access their imagination and how to train themselves to make choices and, of course, just how to move their bodies. Nobody has to tell anybody about juvenile obesity. So dance accesses social skills, creative expression, emotional development and just pure physicality. Rather than emphasize one technique and style, we work under a general appreciation of dance and dance making. I also teach a Dance 100 class at the UI in the Access and Achievement Program. It's a bridge program for students who need a little bit of scaffolding into their college experience. I get athletes in that class. I teach them how to look at dance. I feel like I am in essence serving as an interface between the nondance and dance community at all these different levels and age groups. I'm really fortunate.