Arts Learning

We removed barriers by bringing our program to people. Most of our participants do not have the physical stamina to attend arts programming in their community. Very few would create art if it were not for their involvement with the dancing heart. We did weekly evaluation with site staff and teaching artists. We used our evaluation tools. At Struthers we used their evaluation tools and met their objectives. At Heartland we met with the director to deal with cultural issues and language. They serve a Russian population so we adapted each program to reflect their cultural heritage. Monthly meetings happened with staff to address themes for the programs and to evaluate how the program was affecting their community. Teaching Artists utilized such measures as individual mastery in the language of dance, engagement with music, participation and initiation. These were all adapted from the evaluation form created with the assistance of Saint Catherine master's program students. 2: We increased the number of dancing heart sites during the grant period by 25%. Director Maria Genné provided a series of presentations on arts engagement using clips from the documentary Arts and The Mind by PBS. The dancing heart and our performance company are featured in the documentary. After her presentations she was inundated with people interested in bringing the program to their facility or individuals wanting to become involved on their own. We are continuing to offer presentations in an educational effort in order to help people connect the value of arts learning across the lifespan to personal fulfillment and health benefits.