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While Dancing Classrooms has been hailed as an effective program for teaching social dance, the program provides many other benefits. A Dancing Classrooms residency creates a learning atmosphere that engages all of the intelligences — inspiring students who may be typically introverted and reserved, to step out and shine.
Engaging in dancing focuses children’s physical energies and increases health through the joy of movement. In a school, a Dancing Classrooms residency builds community among its participants and within the school community as a whole.
Our renowned program develops the best of what academics call Social Emotional Learning or SEL, life skills like motivation, collaboration and listening that help us develop into empathetic and compassionate human beings in a coarsening world.
Year after year, school principals, teachers and families have witnessed the elevated self-esteem, connection and engagement of each Dancing Classrooms student that propels enhanced performance in- and out-of-school in the semesters that follow.
Even in virtual and socially-distanced environments, we’ve heard time and again that our programs result in better student performance and community in the classroom and beyond.
Students and teachers learn social dances over the course of the semester, including the Merengue, Foxtrot, Rumba, Tango, Swing and Waltz. Our teaching artists work with each teacher to integrate Dancing Classrooms topics with a wide range of standard educational subjects including: reading, writing, math, social studies, geography, music, physical education and visual arts.
The arts light your brain. Participating in the arts for 10 weeks or more has been shown to increase the resiliency and neural connectivity of the brain, making for increased self-awareness and better memory processing. Taking part in the arts can help you be more present, and it activates a variety of networks, including a relaxed reflective state and focused attention.
Dancing Classroom’s program allows children another avenue to be physically active in addition to physical education classes. This contributes to helping children meet the necessary 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day and encourages healthy, lifelong habits.
The Dancing Classrooms program was launched in 1994 by world-renowned ballroom dancer Pierre Dulaine as a not-for-profit project of the American Ballroom Theater Company (ABrT). What began over 25 years ago as an arts-in-education program teaching ballroom dance to 5th graders in NYC has grown to be a world-renowned organization that brings the joy of social dance to elementary, middle and high school students in- and out-of-school.
Your donation will help Dance For Joy SWFL bring the renowned Dancing Classrooms program to Southwest Florida students and provide training for our Teaching Artists.
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