February 25-29, 2008 over 1,200 K-12 students in Missoula County Public Schools danced in school during the Making Connections: Dance and Learning Festival. 
Classrooms and gymnasiums were grooving with creative movement, modern dance, jazz, hip hop, African, choreography, and classes that learned about the movement style of professional dance companies.
Sponsored by the Montana Arts Council, The CoMotion Dance Project, and The University of Montana, the week-long festival began with a Montana Theater performance of A CoMotion in Motion, a 50-minute school dance performance integrating dance with the laws of motion. Student audiences learned first-hand about gravity, friction, and acceleration through participating with talented dance performers.
Over the next five days 23 dance educators visited 10 schools. The 52 events were taught in 25 classrooms. Elementary students experienced creative movement classes that integrated the math, science, communication arts, and health enhancement curriculum. Middle school students were treated to salsa, African, jazz, modern, hip hop, and video/participatory classes linking dance with sculpture. High school drama students enjoyed intensive work creating and sharing original choreography.
Developed by Karen Kaufmann, professor of Dance at UM and director of The CoMotion Dance Project, the festival was organized by recent UM graduate Jordan Dehline who received a UM undergraduate research award to be the festival coordinator.
The Making Connections: Dance and Learning Festival served as a barometer for measuring educators’ interest in a multi-year dance project in Montana schools. The response was overwhelmingly enthusiastic and was hailed by principals, teachers and students as a much-needed addition to the curriculum. As a result the festival served as a precursor to a multi-year project entitled MoDE (Montana’s Model Dance Education Project).