Dance and Dialogue Community Centered Programs

K-12 STEAM education

County of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a countywide benefit)

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

DDance and Dialogue (D&D) programs uplift youth’s needs and voices through dance classes specially designed to promote healing, beginning and ending with a council circle, where participants share personal stories, explore their feelings, listen, and learn from others. The organization was founded to address systematic access needs to arts education across LAUSD.
D&D works with many partners (artists, schools, and organizations) throughout LA with a specific focus on serving young people (ages 5-17) of historically and systemically under-resourced communities. The majority of D&D’s programming is administered in collaboration with 35+ schools, after school programs, non-profits, or with community centers. By consistently bringing D&D’s programs to places young people are already gathering, at no cost to the participants or partner, D&D is eliminating traditional barriers to access and building trust.

Dance and Dialogue (D&D) seeks funding for its Community Centered Program across Los Angeles serving youth 5-17, and its expansion into serving San Gabriel Valley communities in wake of the devastation by the 2025 wildfires.
The Community Centered Program is administered after school via two 2-hour classes/week for 10 weeks. Rooted in cultural anthropology and social-emotional learning, the program explores the complexity, variety, history, and resonance of the particular cultural dance tradition selected for the school where it is residence, with an emphasis on examination of the storytelling modes within the dances themselves. This program will focus on multicultural dance instruction, including African, Afro-Cuban, Folklórico, Salsa, and Armenia, Italian and Pacific Islander dance traditions, and uses this storytelling mode as a means of dialogue and expression to empower youth and their families to cultivate joy, cultural pride, and collaboration within their community. The program culminates in an internal community sharing for their fellow students, parents and friends, incorporating traditional costumes as available.
D&D involves teaching artists who embody not only a commitment to their craft, but also a deep sense of community and commitment to transforming the world around them. D&D teachers meet and exceed LAUSD’s requirements for arts learning, and they believe in D&D’s larger vision to cultivate joy, empathy, and build a brighter, more optimistic world.

Arts education is fundamental to developing whole, healthy, and emotionally grounded human beings. Cuts to arts funding across Los Angeles county are detrimental to the holistic education of our children and young people; D&D aims to offer arts education to those who are the most under-resourced, frequently overlooked, or do not already have access to arts programs. These are the populations most in need of arts education that offers a portal to expression and understanding.
Dance and Dialogue (D&D) believes that dance is a tool for communication that promotes personal and social change. D&D aims to support the development of individual and collective empathy, confidence, self-expression, and compassion. Above all else, D&D actively builds community and a sense of connection between the many unique cultures of the region, while simultaneously expanding access to high-quality arts programming.