Purpose in Motion with Mary Bawden

Purpose in Motion with Mary Bawden

From The Ballerinatist by The Ballerinatist

July 25, 2025 · 32 min · Season 6 · Episode 4

About this episode

Mary Bawden discusses her journey in dance education and her advocacy for protecting children in the dance community.

I speak with Dance educator and author Mary Bawden, founder of Dance Awareness: No Child Exploited (DA:NCE). Mary received a BA in modern dance from the University of California Riverside, a MA in worship (emphasis in dance) from Hope International University in Fullerton CA, and a California secondary teaching credential. In 2003, she founded Soul to Sole Choreography and released a book, Dance is Prayer in Motion , in 2016. Mary began to notice the culture around children’s dance moving toward an unhealthy trend: sexualizing children in adult-style costumes, sexually provocative choreography, and music with sexual content and/or themes. She began to advocate for healthy, age-appropriate guidelines to protect children and the art of dance. In 2016, she founded DA:NCE (Dance Awareness: No Child Exploited), a non-partisan organization, to create awareness through the collaboration of credible experts with excellent research to provide free evidence-based educational materials for dance educators, parents, and concerned adults, inside and outside the dance studio. She has spoken at numerous conferences from NDEO (National Dance Educator’s Organization) to CESE(Coalition to End…

People in this episode

Host: Melissa

Guest: Mary Bawden

Topics covered

  • dance education
  • child protection
  • choreography
  • advocacy

Keywords

  • Dance Awareness
  • No Child Exploited
  • Dance is Prayer in Motion
  • Soul to Sole Choreography

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Dance is Prayer in Motion

Books & works: Purpose in Motion, Dance Awareness: No Child Exploited, BA, MA, Dance is Prayer in Motion

Places: Fullerton, CA, California

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