Residencies

Primeros Pasos provides a wide variety of education programs in the New York City area. On this page, you will find further information about these programs, which include:

Classroom Residencies that provide in-depth programs in public schools;
Empire State Partnerships, our model residency programs; and
Extended Day Programs for after-school hours

The Ballet Hispanico Company also presents an annual series of performances for students and teachers, offering a theatrical 50-minute program of dance and narrative in a professional theater setting. For further information, click on Performances for Young People.

Ballet Hispanico's residencies meet New York State Dance Standards and complement the New York State Language Arts and Social Studies Standards.

Ballet Hispanico is a licensed vendor through the New York City Board of Education: Vendor No. BAL 065, Contract No. 6197785.

CLASSROOM RESIDENCIES

Primeros Pasos conducts up to 70 in-depth residencies in public school classrooms around the New York City area each year. Each residency, which can range in length from several weeks to a full year, is custom-tailored by Primeros Pasos staff members, who work together with school administrators and teachers to develop a dance education program that responds to the school's curriculum goals, while bringing Hispanic culture to vibrant life for their students.

Download: to view a list of Primeros Pasos residencies for the 2006/07 school year, please click here.

The fundamental components of each residency include planning sessions with Primeros Pasos staff for administrators and classroom teachers; weekly skills-based instruction in the classroom, in an appropriate dance style (Spanish dance, modern, Afro-Caribbean, Mexican folkloric, Latin social dance or creative movement); and a fully-costumed culminating performance by student participants.

Additional residency components can be selected from among a wide range activities, which include professional training workshops for teachers and administrators; student journal-writing, which encourages their reflection on the dance experience; supplemental classroom materials and activities, such as attendance at a company performance for young people; parental and community involvement; assessment and evaluation; and video documentation.

A model residency program, which includes all of the elements above, can be found in the next section, Empire State Partnerships.

EMPIRE STATE PARTNERSHIPS

The Empire State Partnerships (ESP) program is a joint initiative by the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York State Education Department to support outstanding, long-term collaborations between cultural organizations and schools.

Since 1998, Ballet Hispanico has conducted a partnership through the ESP program with P.S. 98. This year-long exemplary program employs the full range of Primeros Pasos residency components, using dance instruction in creative movement and Hispanic dance styles to support the students' achievement of Learning Standards in the language arts and social studies curriculum. In order to reflect the academic themes, the dance content has varied from year to year.

This ESP program emphasize collaboration between teaching artists and classroom teachers throughout the entire school year. Professional training workshops for classroom teachers and teaching artists are scheduled regularly, and parental involvement is supported. Students maintain their own weekly journals, which, together with video documentation and testing data, provide ongoing evaluation and assessment tools. To further their professional development, program participants attend a Summer Seminar each year, which is sponsored by ESP.

The Empire State Partnerships program also maintains a web site at www.espartsed.org.

The Empire State Partnership is funded in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAMS

Ballet Hispanico's in-school programs include a series of classes that use after school hours for academic enrichment. These classes provide skills-based instruction in creative movement and Hispanic and ethnic dance forms, set in the context of the language arts and social studies curriculum. Primeros Pasos staff collaborates with school personnel in planning and monitoring the program.

Each session begins with a half hour for snack and preparation for class, followed by a one hour and 15 minute dance class. A concluding 15 minutes is used for student reflection and/or journal-writing, which incorporates vocabulary words related to dance and Hispanic culture, written reflections with drawings and the use of "movement sentences" to describe simple choreography.