Project Grant

1. As our mission statement says, one desired outcome is for MDE to provide an artistic outlet for dancers to train, teach, and grow artistically. In this performance, the individual dancers have the opportunity to choreograph as well as dance, which will allow them to grow artistically. 2. Another part of our mission statement says our goal or desired outcome is to allow dancers "to collaborate with local artists to create innovative entertaining production for the community; and to provide outreach and dance education opportunities for St. Cloud and the surrounding communities." 3. If our audience grows year over year, then that is an objectively measurable outcome everyone wants. However the audience grows only if they liked the show. 1. Improvements in dancer knowledge and attitudes will be assessed by a survey given to all MDE dancers at the end of April. See Dancer Survey in "Dancer+Audience Surveys.docx" uploaded below. In particular the dancers' responses to this survey led MDE to change from two artistic-director-choreographed dances per year to one dance (October) choreographed exclusively by the artistic director and this second dance (April) choreographed by dancers as well as the artistic director. 2. Number of collaborations with other dance organizations and the number of non-MDE dancers in the performance will determine how well we reached out to other community members and how welcoming we were. This is the first project with concerted effort to involve youth dance companies and studios, so this will provide the baseline for us to see if the number of collaborations increase over time. Also we have had community dance organizations such as Radiant Moon Belly Dance Company, the local Boys and Girls Clubs, Whitney Senior Center, and various St. Cloud State dance clubs participate in our performances, so a baseline number already exists which we plan to exceed this year. 3. Audience growth is an objectively measurable outcome, however the April 2020 version of this show was cancelled due to the pandemic, so we do not have sufficient data to assess audience growth for this proposal. Nevertheless attendance growth results from a change in the audience's knowledge, attitude, and appreciation of what they see on stage. To assess how we impacted the audience, MDE has always put a survey questionnaire in the program for each performance (see Audience Survey in "Dancer+Audience Surveys.docx" uploaded below). The Paramount collects and tabulates the results from the survey and provides MDE with the results. From the last version of this performance in April 2019, the audience was impressed by the variety of the dances, and so we have tried to expand the variety even more this year. In addition, after the show the dancers and board members have a "meet and greet" with the audience to assess their response to the show and get a subjective measure of if the audience's attitude, knowledge, experiences, etc. have changed. 1. Improvements in dancer knowledge and attitudes will be assessed by a survey given to all MDE dancers at the end of April. See Dancer Survey in "Dancer+Audience Surveys.docx" uploaded below. In particular the dancers' responses to this survey led MDE to change from two artistic-director-choreographed dances per year to one dance (October) choreographed exclusively by the artistic director and this second dance (April) choreographed by dancers as well as the artistic director. 2. Number of collaborations with other dance organizations and the number of non-MDE dancers in the performance will determine how well we reached out to other community members and how welcoming we were. This is the first project with concerted effort to involve youth dance companies and studios, so this will provide the baseline for us to see if the number of collaborations increase over time. Also we have had community dance organizations such as Radiant Moon Belly Dance Company, the local Boys and Girls Clubs, Whitney Senior Cente