Education & Community Engagement
Tools for Educators: Dancing in the Schools
To view the latest pictures of students who participated in The Joffrey Ballet’s Education & Community Engagement school programs, pleaseclick here.
Middle School Dance Clubs
The Middle School Dance Clubs (MSDC), The Joffrey Ballet’s longest-standing program, is a bi-monthly classroom learning and dance education program. Participating students and teachers learn about ballet by attending three Joffrey performances, creating original dances and working with The Joffrey’s Teaching Artists to learn modified versions of ballets from The Joffrey’s repertoire. The program culminates with 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 3,500 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
This dance education and enrichment program provides guidance and insight to schools with existing dance programs. Instructors 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 newly-acquired skills.
Curriculum Based Programs
Our curriculum based programs are designed to meet the specific needs of each school and classroom, helping teachers to infuse their curricula with the performing arts and obtain all the benefits that accompany a non-traditional learning environment. Our staff works closely with teachers to create and refine a program designed to satisfy Illinois State Goals and meet every teacher’s unique objectives for his or her students. The programs incorporate reading, math, social studies, language arts and more.
Read My Hips™
A Reading Initiative
Read My Hips™ is a brand new addition to The Joffrey Ballet’s Education & Community Engagement Program that will run as a pilot in the fall of 2006. This educational and interactive program will bring together the vivacity of live dancing and the kinesthetic stimulation of movement workshops with the academically engaging reading curricula individually crafted by teachers for their students.
Intended to improve literacy in dance and in the language arts, Read My Hips™ will introduce students in grades K-12 to both renowned ballets and literary masterpieces. As dance and literature converge throughout the integrated classroom activities, students will become aware of connections between books and ballets while exploring the process of translating from one expressive medium to another. Additionally, students involved in this program will realize how the stories that have been told and retold throughout history—in either writing or dance—pertain to their lives and cultures today.
Read My Hips™ brings literature to life through dance, allowing words and images to leap off the page as the students become actively engaged and enthusiastic about the learning process.
The American Square Dance Program
The American Square Dance Program is an attractive curriculum based program involving history, math, language arts, visual art, reading and music. Students learn the history of square dancing in America, relate the dancing to mathematical problems, reflect on their learning experience with journal writing and visual art projects, and even choreograph their own square dance sequences.
The Nutcracker Program
Each year, children from across the city enjoy the artistry, music and dance fused 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 can now become actively involved in this holiday classic while exploring and discovering their passion for the arts.
The Shakespeare Program
The Shakespeare Program is a curriculum based residency that allows teachers to tie Romeo and Juliet, a traditional ballet from The Joffrey’s repertoire, to William Shakespeare’s timeless work. Students will view and analyze a recording of a live Joffrey performance and learn modified Romeo and Juliet choreography, integrating physical experience into their studies of history, literature and more.
Teacher Development Workshops
The Joffrey Ballet’s informative professional development workshops allow educators to earn Continuing Professional Development Units (CPDUs) while refining their educational techniques. Designed to help teachers integrate the performing arts into their academic curricula, these interactive sessions bring life and energy to school subjects such as reading, math and history. Our staff works individually with educators who choose to design a custom-made program appropriate for their group’s individual needs.
Scheduled Workshops
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Increasing Literacy: Expanding Definitions Earn three CPDUs at this workshop addressing how to improve literacy by using the performing arts as a classroom tool. January 26, 2007 12:00 – 3:00 pm Location TBD Registration: $10 |
Arts Integration Made Easy Earn three CPDUs during this reflection on arts integration and incorporation of dance into your classroom everyday. April 13, 2007 12:00 – 3:00 pm Location TBD Registration: $10 |
If your school would like to order a custom-made Teacher Development Workshop, please e-mail [email protected] with your request.
Advanced Arts Education Program
The Advanced Arts Education Program is a Chicago Public Schools partnership providing classes for artistically-talented, ambitious high school students every school day from 2:00 to 4:00 pm at the Gallery 37 Center for the Arts. Students receive advanced placement credit for attending daily classes where they study a rigorous curriculum of dance technique, history, terminology and performance. With an eye toward students striving for a career in dance, instructors lead exercises attempting to simulate the atmosphere and experience of working in a professional dance company to ensure graduating students are adequately prepared for what they will pursue in their futures.
To learn more about our school programs and to view a list of fees and detailed program information, click here.
To learn more about how you can get involved, please e-mail [email protected] or call Pierre Lockett at 312.386.8931.