The Dance Program at P.S. 506 recognizes that all students have the right to an arts education as a fundamental part of their basic education. It enables students to discover their own innate capacity for communicating ideas, thoughts, and feelings through dance, recognizing dance as a powerful educational device for meeting the physical, intellectual, emotional, and social needs of all students. As a participant in the Dance Program, each student understands the value and importance of group work and cooperation.
The goal of the Dance Program at P.S. 506 is to cultivate learners who can demonstrate through the aesthetic process of dance-making (choreography) that they are able to master their own learning experiences by engaging in meaningful and sequential dance learning, which promotes interaction with peers, the community, and their environment. The goals and indicators of the curriculum are arranged sequentially for all grade levels to include creative work, dance forms and techniques, dance history, performance and production, aesthetics, and criticism.
Students in grades Kindergarten through Grade 5 embody the artistic roles of dancer, choreographer, performer, researcher, and dance author. They learn about many forms of dance, including creative movement, modern dance, ballet, jazz, tap, ballroom, hip-hop, and cultural and folk dance. During each academic year, the students present at least one informal showing of their work and one formal performance at one of the monthly themed school wide assemblies. Students also have the opportunity to participate as a member of the technical crew in order to learn about lighting, sound, prop management, and stage management.
The Dance Program is aligned with the N.Y. State and National Standards in Dance, with the New York City Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in the Arts (Dance), and with theoretical and practical applications of the work of dance master, Rudolf Laban. The Dance Program has been the recipient of the Capezio Ballet Makers' Grant for five years in a row and has seen many professional performances in New York City, such as, Untapped at the New Victory Theater and Fridays at Noon at the Harkness Center.
PS 506’s Dance program has been chosen this year to participate in the 5-year grant, Arts Achieve. The goal of the grant is to improve student achievement in the arts through the development and implementation of balanced arts assessments that are aligned to high student content and academic achievement standards. This grant will also enable technology to be introduced into arts classroom practice to facilitate art creation, documentation, research, feedback, reflection, collaboration and file-sharing within and beyond the schools: Student-to-student, student-to-teacher, student-to-parent, and student and teacher to partnering arts institution. As such, Arts Achieve puts formative and summative assessment to work to empower students to reflect, direct and enhance their experience and performance in the arts and to connect to resources that these high-need students could not otherwise access.