ums engaging dance audiences impact (pae sept 2015)

Engaging Dance AudiencesIMPACT

S e p t e m b e r 2 9 , 2 0 1 5

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Engaging Dance Audiences (EDA)

Main program components for UMS:

• UMS Night School: Bodies in Motion (mix of conversation, movement, special guests; 9 sessions)

• You Can Dance (community movement workshops, led by visiting artists, in partnership with the Ann Arbor Y)

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Engaging Dance Audiences (EDA)

• 104 unique participants in UMS Night School: Bodies in Motion; 58%, attended more than one session.

• 34% attended 4 or more sessions.

• 136 attendees for You Can Dance at the Ann Arbor Y

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Engaging Dance Audiences (EDA)

• Events are free and open to the public; no ticket purchase or pre-registration required.

• Night School and You Can Dance are generally low-cost events; we have partnership agreements for using space, pay facilitators/workshop leaders an honorarium. Main cost is staff time for planning and implementation.

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Goals

• Encourage audience members to make personally meaningful connections to dance.

• Provide a diversity of ways for audience members to learn about dance that privileged peer-to-peer learning, social interaction and dialogue, and worked against the idea that you have to be an “expert” to have a meaningful experience with dance.

• Through movement exercises, encouraged audience members to learn about dance by moving themselves.

You Can Dance – Ballet Preljocaj

You Can Dance – Kyle Abraham

UMS Night School – Movement Exercise

UMS Night School – Kyle Abraham

You Can Dance – Kyle Abraham

What participants said…

 “Before Night School, we weren’t big

dance people. We wouldn’t have come (to this performance) if not for Night School.

It has been our entry port to the whole genre.”

“I have a much better appreciation of the work that goes into a dance performance.

You know, the choreographers, the dancers, and the people who basically put the ideas together. It’s a lot more concrete for me now than the way I thought about it

before.”

“My knowledge of dance was very minimal. I’d gone to a number of shows and all that. I knew

something was there, I knew people worked very hard at it. It’s just I just never knew what

was under the hood. And this was a good peek under there. And there’s certainly a lot more there than I ever thought…than I ever even

imagined. It’s truly a big discipline that I didn’t understood fully before.”

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What Night School participants said…

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Actions taken as a result of participating in Night School

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Motivations to Attend Night School

You Can Dance – Compagnie Kafig

“I’m looking forward to the next season. I feel like I’m invested in it now.”

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Other resources

• UMS Lobby Recaps from 14/15:http://bit.ly/1HNZbyt

• Night School “syllabi” for 13/14, 14/15 (handout)http://bit.ly/1JzXnYHhttp://bit.ly/1LiOPgj

• You Can Dance workshop prep sheet for visiting companies (handout)http://bit.ly/1KHSUXQ

• You Can Dance participant feedback, Abraham.In.Motionhttp://bit.ly/1IpIb5g

• Email me! Jim Leija, UMS Director of Education & Community Engagement, jleija@umich.edu