Piedmont Arts hosted the Southwest Virginia Ballet’s Dance Espanol as part of its educational outreach programming this week in area elementary schools. The program, designed for fourth graders, blends dance education with Spanish vocabulary, to help students learn Spanish through movement. This fall, students from Axton Elementary School and G.W. Carver Elementary school participated in the program. They spent this week learning from Pedro Szalay, the artistic director of Southwest Virginia Ballet. Their lessons culminated in a performance on Friday afternoon for parents, teachers, administrators, and their classmates.
On Friday morning at G.W. Carver, Szalay addressed the crowd prior to the performance starting. He spoke about the mission of the program: to teach children to feel comfortable in their bodies, how to respect others and be self-aware, and the importance of learning new languages. Szalay also spoke on how important it is to keep arts in the schools and how opportunities like this foster relationships and build important skills for the future. Three Carver Elementary students who participated in the program, Sadie Morris, Kayla Ayers, and Ella James all agreed. They gushed about the friendships they made in the program, how they were excited about the new vocabulary they learned, and how they are excited to continue dancing. Morris and Ayers expressed how nervous they were to perform, but James mentioned that she had been dancing for years and doesn’t get stage fright anymore. Morris and Ayers said that seeing their families and friends in the audience helped ease their nerves.
In addition to new skills, friends, and vocabulary words, all participants in Dance Espanol get a t-shirt to commemorate their participation in the program. These shirts, representing the hosting school’s colors, are a great source of pride amongst the students. Dance Espanol will be coming to Martinsville City Schools in the spring.
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