Community Arts

Goal 1: teach participants about rhythm, dance and music, and perform an ensemble for a live audience. Our resident artist, Giselle Mejia, worked with two groups of youth, Kindergarten – 2nd grade and 3rd – 7th grade. Youth learned of the salsa, bachata, merengue, flamenco and hip-hop dances, and the types of rhythm and music involved for each. Ms. Mejia taught the youth how current, popular dance moves originated in Latin Dance, and used them in the routines. Youth were encouraged to free style, by creating their own dance moves, which instilled confidence, artistic creativity and fun. The artist used repetition, games and drills to teach discipline in learning full-body dance moves. The youth’s rhythmic and dancing skills improved greatly over the two weeks, and they practiced dancing together to present a composed, live ensemble. Goal 2: teach youth how music and dance shapes the Latin American community and build an inclusive cultural program. Being from Latin America, Ms. Mejia shared how she learned dance in her household at a young age. Latin America is a warm and welcoming culture, as seen through the confidence of self-expressive dance, which she encouraged each youth to partake in. Ms. Mejia gave a variety of dance steps for the youth to use if they were shy. Using Spanish words as cues to signal dances and steps, Ms. Mejia exposed youth to the language. The youth also researched the dances, and made posters, murals and décor representing the culture, including making carnival masks and bright colored tissue paper flowers for decorations. The younger group performed a routine based off the annual carnival festival. This was our first Latin Dance class, and more members of our Hispanic/Latino community participated to learn about their heritage. Goal 3: reach out to family members and the community through a free performance, and bring awareness to the arts. Ms. Mejia was enthusiastic and welcoming during the event, engaging the audience in each performing piece. Ms. Mejia also performed a solo and taught the audience the merengue. Our families experienced Latin Dance for the first time, and were captivated by its vibrancy. The participants were radiating with pride from performing such a well-done ensemble, charming the audience even further. Families appreciated seeing a glimpse of the skills the youth had been learning at our summer camp and being able to learn with them. Providing this multi-faceted artistic performance showed our community a new artistic form that is captivating to both participants and audience members. Our ability to meet our artistic goals is credited to Ms. Mejia’s teaching techniques. Her talent and strong ability to work with youth was seen through her patience, understanding and flexibility in providing varying avenues for youth to rehearse and learn each dance step. In the future it would be better to offer three classes, creating a separate one for 5-8th grade youth, to accommodate all interested youth and their skills. We were successful in reaching a broader scope of youth through this program. Compared to last year, our total number of participating youth increased from 25 to 40. Throughout the two weeks even more youth tried the Latin Dance Party course, but were either unable to commit to the performance, or our class was already full. Although we had less male participants, we reached our goal of having a more ethnically diverse population, in particular the Hispanic/Latino community. Our focus in offering a residency like this was to reach out to our Hispanic/Latino population, to recognize and celebrate a prevalent culture in our community. There were Hispanic/Latino youth who participated solely because of the cultural representation, and they were encouraged by their families to learn more about their heritage. In addition, there were nine percent more Asian youth, two percent more Multicultural youth, and six percent more youth identified as “Other.” In total our youth population was 22% more ethnically diverse than last year. This year our audience member attendance increased by 37%, compared to last year. Last year our audience attendance dropped, since we offered a new type of community event, and not all families were aware when our family night was. This was also our second year introducing a new cultural performing arts opportunity. The number of audience members also increased because we had more youth participants. This in turn caused our audience to be more diverse, since our youth diversity increased. The audience appreciated the diversity of the performance, and several families who did not have youth participating, stayed to enjoy the performance. Based off other performances parents see their youth in, they had never experienced such a lively, fun performance as this. It caught their attention and will hopefully keep their interest as we continue to offer new performing arts opportunities, and introduce new cultures. This program was highly accessible for all youth in our program. The only reasons youth did not participate in the performance were schedule conflicts, fear of performing in front of others, or because we reached our capacity. No youth was turned away based on their ethnicity, financial restraints, abilities, or beliefs. Compared to last year, there were 21% more youth receiving financial assistance who participated, and seven percent more youth participants with special needs. The hands-on instruction and Ms. Mejia’s ability to meet each youth at their skill level, kept all youth engaged, and made it easy for youth to pay attention and maintain their focus. Ms. Mejia was patient and understanding working with these youth and treated them with equality. The number of ethnically diverse youth increased by 22%, and our target population of Hispanic/Latino youth increased by 10%. Youth with Special Needs and/or needing Financial Assistance grew by 27%, making this arts program our most diverse. Families surveyed showed 100% of youth experienced Latin Dances for the first time, and the event drew 220 audience members, a 37% increase from last year.