DiscoverDance
Reaching out to the community to . . . DiscoverDance
Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet understands the impact the arts, and more specifically, dance can have on a child. CPYB previously partnered with the General Mills Foundation to create a tuition assistance program known as the General Mills Scholarship. This program provided tuition assistance to 131 children in the central Pennsylvania region until General Mills closed its local plant and funding was discontinued. At that time, CPYB instituted an extension of that scholarship by implementing a program that broadens the reach to at-risk and underpriviledged students in the Carlisle and Harrisburg School Districts. This program is designed to provide students with an opportunity to learn dance and to further develop their artistic talents.
CPYB’s DiscoverDance program focuses on at-risk and underprivileged students in first and second grade providing the opportunity to study ballet. The program is free to participating schools and is divided into four educational outreach tiers.
Tier I
Give at-risk children in the Carlisle and Harrisburg areas exposure to professional, theatrical performances such as Hansel & Gretel, George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker™, and Swan Lake in a theatre such as the Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts in Harrisburg. (October through April)
Tier II
Provide children the opportunity to move their own bodies in small, interactive dance classes in the comfort of their own schools. (November through January)
Tier III
Bring interested and potentially talented children into the more formal dance studios at CPYB in Carlisle for 15-week workshops of dance and ballet. (February through June)
Tier IV
Provide selected students the opportunity to study classical ballet on full scholarship in one of the finest training centers in the country, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet. (July through September)
The DiscoverDance program is funded through a combination of local, state and national grants. Each year, the DiscoverDance program changes and grows with input from members of the educational community and the staff and faculty who teach its new and returning students.
