Middle School Dance Clubs
Designed for grades 5-8
Program runs for one academic year      
The Middle School Dance Clubs (MSDC), The Joffrey Ballet's longest standing program, is a weekly classroom learning and dance education program.  Participating students and teachers learn about dance through a syllabus incorporating assessments based on Illinois Fine Arts and Social Emotional Learning Standards.  MSDC students attend three Joffrey performances and work with Joffrey Teaching Artists to create original dances. The program culminates with two major events, the Spring Concert in March, where all MSDC schools join together in a single showcase, and the Intensive in May, where students travel to participating MSDC schools for a week of performances.  To date, more than 4,700 Chicago youths have directly participated in the MSDC, with thousands more having attended Joffrey performances associated with the program.

PLIÉ 101: Presentation, Learning, Inspiration, Excellence
Designed for grades 5-12
Program runs for 10 hours
This dance education and enrichment program provides guidance and insight to schools with existing dance programs.  Joffrey Teaching Artists focus on fostering discipline and developing essential life skills through improving performance quality, expressiveness and artistic presentation. The students present a dance concert at the conclusion of the program to demonstrate their refined skills.

Residency Programs
Designed for grades 5-12
Program runs for one academic year
Joffrey residency programs are ideal for schools looking for in-depth, student-centered dance training that lasts a full year and focuses on multiple styles of dance.  A Joffrey Teaching Artist comes to your school to offer classes twice each week and guides the students through structured units to build a strong foundation of understanding about dance.  Instruction focuses on ballet, modern, jazz, student choreography and more.

The American Square Dance Program
Designed for grades 1-5
Program runs for 12 hours
The American Square Dance Program is an attractive, curriculum based program involving history, language arts, visual art, reading and music.  Students learn the history of square dancing in America, reflect on their experience with journal writing and visual art projects, and even choreograph their own square dance sequences. 

The Nutcracker Program
Designed for grades 5-8
Program runs for 10 hours
Each year, children from across the city enjoy the artistry, music and dance in Robert Joffrey’s production of The Nutcracker.  As participants in this arts integration residency, students incorporate the historic elements of this ballet with their lives today through role playing, classroom discussion and dance workshops facilitated by a Joffrey Teaching Artist.  Rather than simply witnessing a performance, students are actively involved in this holiday classic— exploring and discovering their passion for the arts. 

Read My Hips®
Read My Hips® is a series of curricula bringing together the vivacity of live dancing with developmentally-appropriate English Language Arts content.  As dance and literature converge during integrated classroom activities, students become aware of connections between great books and great ballets while translating from one expressive medium to another.  Read My Hips® brings literature to life through dance while engaging students in the learning process.

The author of Read My Hips®, Kathleen Isaac, is a licensed dance educator in New York City with more than 25 years of experience teaching in New York Public Schools.  Ms. Isaac wrote Alvin Ailey’s renowned educational program, Revelations - An Interdisciplinary Approach, as well as co-authored the New York City Department of Education’s Blueprint for Dance.  The Joffrey Ballet is thrilled to have Ms. Isaac as a contributing member to the Community Engagement team.

Dancing in the Skin We Live In
Designed for grades K-2
Program runs for 5 hours
Participants in this residency engage with Joffrey Teaching Artists in a fun investigation of movement and emotion as dance and literary connections are made.  The curriculum explores The Skin You Live In, a Mom’s Choice Award™ book, and the Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker.  Activities include learning dance skills, creating dance steps using emotion and motion word cues, and choreographing cooperative dances with a beginning, middle and end in small groups. 

What’s Your Rhythm?
Designed for grades 3-5
Program runs for 10 hours
This component of Read My Hips® introduces students in grades 3-5 to both dance and literature, respectively the South African Gumboot Dance and the award-winning children’s publication I See the Rhythm.  Program participants explore the concept of rhythm as well as its importance in our lives and ability to unite diverse cultures and historical periods.  Additionally, students realize how the stories that have been told and retold throughout history—in either writing or dance—pertain to their lives and cultures today.

Mangos and Tangos
Designed for grades 6-8
Program runs for 10 hours
Through the study of The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, and Flames of Spain, choreographed by Gerald Arpino and Louis Johnson, participating students will examine the Latin Diaspora and assimilation.  The curriculum is centered on the exploration of dance as a cultural medium and the connections between gesture and figurative language.  Integrated activities help students understand how adolescents’ engagement in the arts has shaped American social and political trends throughout history.

Moving Through Motown
Designed for grades 9-12
Program runs for 10 hours
While exploring themes of race, class and gender in this residency, participants investigate authentic connections between text, dance and the teen’s search for identity.  Simultaneous study of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, written in the Civil Rights era and set in the 1930s, and choreographer Donald Byrd’s Motown Suite, choreographed in 2006 and set in the Civil Rights era, provides the framework for this interdisciplinary program.