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!
Christina Patchell
Christina Patchell is a member of The Rock School staff both at Rock Center and Rock West, but during our year-round program she is primarily at Rock West. Here are some photos of Ms. Patchell getting our students energized in a jazz class during our summer intensive program.
During the regular academic year, Ms. Patchell is also a teacher for The Rock School’s outreach program, RockReach. She is involved in our Residency RockReach program, which offers weekly instruction in a variety of dance forms to schools in and near the Philadelphia metropolitan area.
Here’s a photo of Ms. Patchell teaching a first grade class at Russell Byers Charter School: 
Christina Pastras Patchell was born and raised in Philadelphia. She attended such schools as The Holiday Ballet Theater, The Rock School, Joffery Ballet, Governor’s School for the Arts and The Philadelphia High School for the Performing Arts. Ms. Patchell performed in showswith Will Smith and also performed in Elvis Nights and Somewhere Over Time with Pembrua Productions in Japan. She received her B.F.A. inBallet Education from the University of the Arts. Her choreography was recently featured in the opening for the Kimmel Center as well as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
