Kris Olson adjuncts in dance at Texas Tech University and teaches early childhood music and dance as a private contractor in Lubbock, TX.  Prior to moving to TX, Kris taught music and movement for 21 years in private, public, rural, and urban elementary schools in Minnesota.  She has an MA in music education with an emphasis in Orff-Schulwerk, an educational philosophy which integrates music and movement.  Kris studied dance through Zenon Dance Company's scholarship program in Minneapolis.  Her main area of interest was contemporary dance but she was able to study ballet, jazz, Afro-Caribbean, house dance, contact improvisation, and Haitian drum and dance in her years living there.  Kris was a founding member of Schulfunk, a performance group in Minneapolis that combined song, dance, and percussion.  She currently dances and choreographs for Flatlands Dance Theatre in Lubbock, TX and presents workshops across the U.S. and Canada, teaching the integration of movement into the music classroom.  Kris received the William D. Kerns Award for Performing Arts from the Louis Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts where she performs the family friendly “Ms. Kris and Friends” show during Lubbock's First Friday Art Trail.  Kris's other interests include learning percussion, playing for dancers, and teaching body percussion, bucket drumming, and Border Morris folk dancing.