ON YOUR FEET! And Living Healthy RBTL and R-Centers Partner For Healthy, Active Lifestyle Education Program

The Rochester Broadway Theatre League's ON YOUR FEET! and Living Healthy Education Program, sponsored in part by Glover Crask Charitable Trust, is a partnership between Rochester Broadway Theatre League (RBTL) and the City of Rochester's Recreational Centers (R-Centers), integrating the arts and Touring Broadway into a dual-language theater arts physical fitness program in connection with the ON YOUR FEET! touring production. With over 200 participants, this program will promote ways to build a culture of healthy living and advocates physical well-being through active participation in the performing arts; specifically the music, dance and story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan. Participants will exercise together, acquire the tools to design a healthy lifestyle plan, receive resources and engage in a Broadway theater experience, together as a family.

R-Centers' students will attend pre-show workshops addressing issues of cultural identity, immigration, overcoming both social and physical challenges and acquiring the tools to maintain optimum physical well-being. Participants will make personal connections around the concepts of making healthy choices, good nutrition, positive mental endurance and how to overcome challenges. A clear focus will be placed on how the arts can inspire healthy living. These workshops will be dual-language. RBTL will be teaching along with the R-Centers' Staff as a part of this collaboration; sharing resources, skills and expertise. The vision of this program is to mold and change lives thru active arts participation by having highly interactive, dual-language, arts-rich programming where whole families are encouraged to work together. In these workshops, students will closely read and analyze song lyrics from ON YOUR FEET!, discuss show themes, write dual-language song lyrics, perform in their R-Centers, create artwork and learn about cultural competency.

Based on a national study, Active Living Research (2015), active kids learn better. Obesity can have serious ramifications for kids' cognitive development and affect school attendance. Regular daily activity can help increase physical activity and alertness, improve academic performance, and improve behavior and attitude overall. The music of ON YOUR FEET! provides a creative way to get physically active, play and learn together as a family and deepen cultural pride and connections. This program support students and their parents in designing a strategic plan to combat the health issues prevalent in our community.

The R-Centers are committed to this partnership of using the performing arts to inspire healthy lifestyles along with growing theater going families who understand and have an appreciate for the performing arts. A city-wide Jordan Health Fair with local health related resources will take place February 3, 2018 at the Thomas P. Ryan Recreation Center. Youth Rec Center Ambassadors will work with RBTL and the R-Centers' staff to learn and teach a choreographed dance/exercise routine to the ON YOUR FEET! soundtrack, led by a dual-language aerobics instructor. Families will then participate in health-assessments, engage in exercise activities, learn about ON YOUR FEET!, design a health plan and receive local health resources.

While ON YOUR FEET! is playing at RBTL's Auditorium Theatre February 6-11, 2018, participants will attend a performance as the culmination of the program. The R-Centers' staff will then host post-show assessments and follow-up workshops to check participant progress and reaffirm the wellness plans for the participating students. In these workshops, students will discuss and reflect on their show experience and the shows themes, review their wellness plan and share healthy snacks.

For more information about ON YOUR FEET!, and RBTL's Arts Education Programs, please visit www.rbtl.org.

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