Professional Development Workshops

With information gathered through years of experience in arts education, Ballet Hispanico has developed an extensive array of professional training workshops for classroom teachers and educators, teaching artists, dancers and dance instructors. Workshop facilitators include highly-skilled teachers from the Primeros Pasos staff as well as national experts in arts education funded through the DANA Foundation.

WORKSHOPS IN PREPARATION FOR A PERFORMANCE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

These workshops are held prior to the company's annual series of Performances for Young People in New York City, as well as in selected cities around the country. These sessions offer an overview of the dance forms included in the company's presentation, as well as a first-hand introduction to one of the popular Latin dance forms that students will be seeing. Educational Materials are provided to teachers who bring their students to a Performance for Young People.

WORKSHOPS FOR CLASSROOM TEACHERS AND EDUCATORS

These workshops train elementary, middle and high school teachers and other educators to integrate dance into the classroom, using the exhilaration of movement as a way to build student learning skills and enrich the academic curriculum. The sessions are most often conducted as part of an in-depth residency, and cover such topics as:

learning a basic movement vocabulary that can be used in the classroom
practicing dance-making exercises
designing a lesson plan jointly with the teaching artist who will be working in the classroom
getting practical tools and models for an interactive, hands-on classroom program
tips on using the Primeros Pasos program to meet New York State dance standards and New York State standards in language arts and social studies

WORKSHOPS FOR TEACHING ARTISTS, DANCERS AND DANCE INSTRUCTORS

These workshops train dance artists to use their knowledge of the art form in the classroom environment. Workshop facilitators provide information on the best practices in dance education through active movement participation, dance-making, discussion, observation and practice teaching. Workshop topics include:

exploring the roots of Hispanic dance with young people
using movement vocabulary with young "non-dancers"
planning lessons and curriculum outlines
acquiring classroom management skills
integrating dance into the language arts or social studies curriculum

Individual reviews, evaluation and coaching are an integral part of the training program for dance artists.