OUR COMMUNITY PARTNERS
We have learned alongside our Community Partners as they have faced challenges, overcome barriers, and achieved extraordinary successes. Find out more about each project and the outcomes below.
YEAR
2009
GRANT CATEGORY
Culture
GRANT AMOUNT
$102,000
Organization:
Ballet East Dance Company
Project Title:
Eastside Dance Academy
Project Description:
The Eastside Dance Academy program is a two-year program that will create a structured and transformative dance program at Eastside Memorial High School.
The program will help draw and hold approximately 400 students in school by offering them the opportunity to connect to a positive group activity, attract attention by acquiring the self-discipline, skills, and confidence to perform, and help them see and plan beyond their present circumstances. Dance professionals who have made important careers for themselves will provide instruction in contemporary, jazz, hip-hop, and theater dance, and students will work toward presenting their own performances. Additional instruction in nutrition, fitness, and health, together with etiquette and comportment as audience members, performers, partners, and in groups will be provided as additional opportunities.
Grant Status:
The total enrollment for the Eastside Dance Academy was 180 students per year. Eastside Dance Academy presented its end-of-semester productions to large audiences. At the fall 2010 production, Eastside is Rockin’, students entertained some 300 family, friends, and members of the community. Almost 150 students danced, including five with special needs, who, according to Program Coordinator Rodolfo Mendez, performed with infectious exuberance.
As hoped, word-of-mouth awareness of Eastside Dance Academy spread during the grant period, and many students entered Eastside Memorial High School already knowing they wanted to participate in the program.
Eastside Dance Academy students, many of whom had never seen live professional performances, had attended performances in Austin and San Antonio where they saw their teachers and other dance professionals perform, and where they could practice their newly learned skills in audience behavior and etiquette.