FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 28, 2003

CONTACT: Mark Fleisher [ Mfleisher@festivalballet.com ]

Festival Ballet Providence, 401.353.1129

Festival Ballet Providence Receives Access Grant from
The National Endowment for the Arts

Providence, RI - Festival Ballet Providence Managing Director Lisa LaDew announces the award of an Access Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The award of $10,000 will be used to support an interactive educational performance designed to reach under-served elementary school children and their teachers throughout Rhode Island.

The project, to be lead by Festival Ballet Providence Education Outreach Program Manager Marrie Hadfield, will encourage school children to learn about dance through "Learning Through Dance", a program Ms. Hadfield has developed. The program introduces young students to the art of ballet, generates an appreciation for dance, and supports the core curriculum, particularly through literacy, in the elementary grades. The project dates are July 2003 to June 2004.

This in-school interactive program includes: student participation; demonstrations of ballet technique; methods of communicating without words; a performance of excepts from the classical ballet "The Sleeping Beauty"; teacher-in-service sessions; classroom materials to support literacy; and student interaction with professional dancers. Each school is directly served by the Program Manager, five (5) professional dancers and one 8-10 year old student from the Festival Ballet Providence Center for Dance Education.

Teachers receive resource packets of information on dance including: A brief history of Ballet; topics to generate discussion of dance; information on Festival Ballet Providence; theatre etiquette; glossary of ballet terms; illustration of ballet steps; notes on "The Sleeping Beauty" ballet and story by Charles Perrault; music notes on Peter Tchaikovsky and a selection of his music notation; art projects and activities tied to core academic subject requirements; pantomime activities; and evaluation forms.

Schools benefiting from this program include Title I schools. These school children will also be invited to attend a fully staged performance of "The Sleeping Beauty" by Festival Ballet Providence in the spring of 2004.

Festival Ballet Providence Artistic Director Mihailo Djuric, a strong advocate of educating all youth about dance noted, "My desire to share the thrill of dance with young children across Rhode Island is a step closer to reality. This program will affect over 4,500 children throughout the state, and their teachers. My ultimate goal for this program? If only we can someday have the funding to reach all the school children in the state!"

A one week pilot program for "Learning Through Dance" was conducted in April 2002 for over 3,000 students and their teachers in Providence and Pawtucket elementary schools. In follow-up evaluations, 96% of teachers rated the program excellent to superior for the quality of the learning experience. Festival Ballet Providence promotes the nationally recognized research that arts in education enriches and broadens the academic achievements of students exposed to arts programs.

Lisa LaDew, Managing Director of Festival Ballet Providence is excited to have received the grant, saying "It is thrilling for the company to receive it’s first NEA grant. The award means that Festival Ballet Providence is clearly on the national map of arts and cultural organizations, another step closer toward our goal of being a nationally recognized force in dance."

Pending additional funding, Festival Ballet Providence hopes to reach over 22,000 children in Kindergarten through 6th grade in under-served urban and rural Title I schools.

For further details about Festival Ballet Providence outreach, or about the Festival Ballet Providence Center for Dance Education and the Festival Ballet Providence performance season, please call 401.353.1129, or visit www.festivalballet.com.

Festival Ballet Providence
825 Hope Street
Providence, RI 02906
401.353.1129
info@festivalballet.com

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This grant was preceded by a site-visit to the Festival Ballet Providence Center for Dance Education in August 2002 by Douglas Sontag, Dance Director of the National Endowment for the Arts.

For further information about the NEA, see www.arts.endow.gov