Mark DeGarmo Dance to Receive $40,000 Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts - Mark DeGarmo Dance

Mark DeGarmo Dance (AKA Dynamic Forms, Inc.) has been approved for a $40,000 Grants for Arts Projects award from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to support Partnerships in Literacy through Dance and Creativity©. This project will support a year-long dance program for youth in New York City public schools. Mark DeGarmo Dance’s project is among 1,130 projects across the country, totaling more than $31 million, that were selected during this second round of Grants for Arts Projects fiscal year 2023 funding.



“The National Endowment for the Arts is pleased to support a wide range of projects, including Mark DeGarmo Dance’s Partnerships in Literacy through Dance and Creativity©, demonstrating the many ways the arts enrich our lives and contribute to healthy and thriving communities,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “These organizations play an important role in advancing the creative vitality of our nation and helping to ensure that all people can benefit from arts, culture, and design.”



“This grant from the National Endowment for the Arts will provide much needed support for some of New York City’s and the USA’s most vulnerable, disenfranchised, and marginalized communities, public schools, teachers, and elementary students,” Mark DeGarmo Dance Founder, Executive, & Artistic Director Mark DeGarmo, PhD observed. “Dance education is an accessible and equitable low-cost path for New York City’s youth to heal, learn, contribute, and achieve their full potential.”



Partnerships in Literacy through Dance and Creativity© is MDD’s “evidence-based” multi-year interdisciplinary education program that empowers under-resourced, disenfranchised, and often overlooked New York City Asian American, Pacific Islander, Black, Indigenous, People of Color, Latinx, and other elementary students from pre-kindergarten to grade five to use dance, movement and creative writing as lifelong tools to fulfill their highest potential. A 2018 published study is the first research in the scientific literature of an embodied cognition program sustained over many years with New York City public school students. Conducted by Johns Hopkins University, it indicated “promising evidence” that MDD’s fourth-grade students’ state reading scores increased by “a statistically significant amount.”



To access the study see: An embodied cognition approach to enhancing reading achievement in New York City public schools: Promising evidence. For more information on Mark DeGarmo Dance’s dance and literacy education program, visit https://markdegarmodance.org/education/. Follow Mark DeGarmo Dance on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter



For more information on this National Endowment for the Arts grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.

Our programs are supported, in part, by private funds from Friends of Mark DeGarmo Dance and by public funds from the NYC Council Member for District 2, the Honorable Carlina Rivera; Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation CARES relief funding supported by National Endowment for the Arts; National Endowment for the Arts; the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.


Salary: Grant announcement