10HL Partners With Elizabeth Public Schools/3rd Consecutive Year

10 Hairy Legs will provide the Dance to Learn program to all second grade students at iPrep Academy and George Washington School #1 in Elizabeth, NJ in Fall 2018. The Creative Movement Residency includes 14 consecutive weekly classes during the school day taught to 100 students by 10 Hairy Legs Teaching Artist Shawn Brush. Brush works actively as a professional dancer as well as a Teaching Artist. Brush graduated Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University earning BFA's in Dance. The professional company will perform at Jerome Dunn Academy on Thursday, December ­­20 at 9:30 am with students participating in the program. The performance is free and open to the community.

10 Hairy Legs Executive Director Elizabeth Shaff Sobo noted, "We are pleased to return to Elizabeth Public Schools for the third consecutive year to provide Dance to Learn. Our commitment to dance education is an important component of our work, and we applaud that Elizabeth Public Schools embraces the values that dance brings to student achievement in all academic areas, in addition to cultivating our next generation of arts enthusiasts."

Tracy C. Monteiro, Supervisor for Art for the district stated, "Dance has been a creative outlet in the lives of the Elizabeth Public School students for many years. Each year, our graduating students have moved onto dance related professions post-secondary, proving that the program has made a difference in their lives. Dance enrollment has flourished exponentially, allowing our district to explore the expansion of the program to our younger students. By allowing our second graders to participate in the study of dance, they learn perseverance and self-motivation. The Dance to Learn program has helped us to encourage the children to experiment and find different paths to solving problems. It is vital in our students' education and personal development - they learn the importance of trial-and-error and that, "if at first you don't succeed, try and try again." The sense of success and accomplishment they are experiencing with these dance professionals, has helped our students to master complicated movemen that will encourage them to transfer this ambition into other aspects of their lives moving forward."

School #8 Principal Lawrence Roodenburg added, "We are very excited to have 10 Hairy Legs come into our school and work with our students in regards to dance. Dance is something that our students normally do not have the ability to take in school and only a small amount of our students are exposed to dance outside of school. We are only two weeks into the program and the students have loved their experience so far."

Classroom Teachers Joseph Catena and Robyn Schwartz expressed their enthusiasm - "IPrep Academy's 2nd-grade students have been very fortunate to be the recipients of instruction by Dance to Learn. This program has been enjoyed by our students and gives them an opportunity to experience the creative arts directed by experts in dance. Not only are our children learning dance, they are also learning the various disciplines and philosophies associated with dance. This is a wonderful chance for them to apply their cognitive skills and appreciate the art of dance. It is so important for our students to experience a wide variety of arts and culture. Dance to Learn is something they look forward to and appreciate."

The Geraldine R Dodge Foundation partners with Young Audiences, Dance New Jersey, professional dance companies and teachers to promote the Dance to Learn experience. 10 Hairy Legs was awarded a grant from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation for the fourth consecutive year to deliver the program. Dance to Learn is a four-year interdisciplinary and inclusive dance curriculum with the goal to advance dance education in schools and community settings. It is a model of dance education that meets or exceeds the NJ Department of Education Core Curriculum Standards for Dance and the National Core Arts Standards in Dance.

The Dance To Learn curriculum is both arts-based and truly arts-integrated because it encourages students to explore, internalize and transform classroom learning and the elements of dance while developing their individual creative voices, offers opportunities for students to reflect, critique and connect personal experiences to their learning of dance and in their classrooms, is adaptive to any dance style, genre, or culture, provides an inroad to kinesthetic learning and connects to language arts, mathematics, science and social studies, physical education and music curriculums and offers formative and summative assessment and documentation tools to help measure the effectiveness of student learning and facilitator impact.

About 10 Hairy Legs

10 Hairy Legs is an all male repertory dance company performing newly commissioned and curated works. Since our founding in 2012 we have commissioned 16 works from choreographers Doug Varone, Doug Elkins, Tiffany Mills, Manuel Vignoulle, Julie Bour, Megan Williams, Al Blackstone, Raja Feather Kelly, Nicholas Sciscione, Yin Yue and founder Randy James. We have served more than 80,000 patrons, students, artists and educators throughout the NY/NJ region, in NYC at Baryshnikov Arts Center, BAM Fisher/Fishman Space, New York Live Arts, The 92nd Street Y, Brooklyn Dance Festival, Modern Dance at Bryant Park, Dixon Place, Gibney Dance, Joe's Pub, West End Theatre, Fire Island for the DRA Benefit Week End, Dance at Socrates, Koresh Come Together Festival, DanceFest Milford; on tour to the Choregus Dance Festival in Tulsa, OK and as a guest artist at its Benefit Gala in July 2017, appearing with Joffrey and Geneva Ballets, Seattle, WA, The Cayman Islands, New England; and Rhode Island and in 2017-2018 toured to 10 states outside of NJ; broadcast nationally and internationally on NJTV's State of the Arts, The Meredith Vieira Show and Nick Cannon's Red Nose Dancathon, and in residence at the Kaatsbaan International Dance Center. In December 2016 we were the only American dance company appearing at the Cape Town (South Africa) International Dance Festival. We provide a wide range of education programs for all ages exemplifying the many facets of maleness as expressed through dance to more than 4,500 students and educators each year.

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