Dynamics of Dance: Nutcracker preview for Congreso!
Today, RockReach will be bringing the Nutcracker to over 200 inner-city students from three different schools. Our dancers will be performing segments of our Nutcracker 1776 at the Julia de Burgos school for students from the Fairhill School, the Pan-American school and JDB’s own students. These schools will get a special performance, just like the 2000 students we had come to our RockReach performance at the Merriam Theater last Friday, December 3rd. It was a full house, and we had Swoop, the official mascot of the Philadelphia Eagles, pay us a visit.
These three schools and many more are helped by Congreso de Latinos Unidos, an organization that brings activities like dance and music to after-school programs. Through Congreso programs, Philadelphia students are exposed to the arts and given opportunities that weren’t available to them before. Here’s an article by Temple’s MURL program that details Congreso’s after-school program “North Star” at the Fairhill School.
The Rock School’s RockReach program works with Congreso to bring dance to charter schools throughout the Philadelphia region. Our RockReach faculty regularly teach ballet and dance at schools like Russell Byers Charter School, Issac Sheppard School, Gesu School, Ludlow James R School, Chester Community Charter School, Fairhill School, Pan-American School, and JDB! Our RockReach faculty includes Gabrielle T. Tesfa Guma, Gina Grace, Christina Patchell, Meghan Braun and our RockReach Director, Sarah Cooper. These teachers have residencies at these Philadelphia schools to bring dance to students on a regular basis. Students at JDB will probably recognize RR teacher Meghan Braun, who teaches them dance weekly.
The Rock School’s RockReach program regularly gives free performances to the schools involved with our RR residencies and other schools in the Philadelphia region. Students involved in our RR residences even get the opportunity to perform! Here is an article about our dancers and RR residency students performing at the Kimmel Center! If residency students fall in love with dance RockReach also gives City Dance scholarships to students so they can come dance at The Rock school!
We can’t wait for the performance this afternoon and we hope the students at all three schools are as excited as we are!
Here are photos that RR teacher Christina Patchell took at Chester Community Charter School. Her students there made these beautiful Nutcracker tributes!
We’re Nutty for Nutcracker too!
