Hubbard Street Dance's 'Movement as Partnership' Program Receives NEA Art Works Grant

National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Acting Chairman Joan Shigekawa announced today that Hubbard Street Dance Chicago is one of 817 nonprofit organizations nationwide to receive an NEA Art Works grant. Hubbard Street is recommended for a $70,000 grant to support Movement as Partnership (MAP), a research-driven residency program focused on long-term school partnerships, supported by extensive professional development. Hubbard Street's MAP partner public schools are located in Chicago and Oak Park, Illinois.

The MAP program is a national model for dance education and a standard for collaborations between performing -arts organizations and public schools. Each MAP school's principal, classroom teachers and specialists work with Hubbard Street staff and teaching artists to guide curriculum planning, ensuring the program's connection to school-specific goals. This team meets four times throughout the academic year, with planning culminating in ten-session residencies. These residencies include: 40-60 minutes of dance instruction per session, a final sharing at the residency's conclusion, a Family Workshop in conjunction with the school's community programming, scholarships for select students to Hubbard Street's Youth Program for further study, and opportunities for students to attend performances, both at Hubbard Street's home venue, the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Millennium Park, and in the MAP schools themselves.

Says NEA Acting Chairman Joan Shigekawa: "The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support these exciting and diverse arts projects that will take place throughout the United States. Whether it is through a focus on education, engagement, or innovation, these projects all contribute to vibrant communities and memorable opportunities for the public to engage with the arts."

Says Kathryn Humphreys, Hubbard Street Director of Education, Youth and Community Programs: "The NEA grant is vital to Hubbard Street's ability to continue these groundbreaking partnerships with Chicago-area schools. Explorations in the choreographic process encourage and strengthen creativity and personal expression. Such opportunities are and will continue to be key components of a 21st-century education."

In August 2012, the NEA received 1,547 eligible applications for Art Works grants requesting more than $80 million in funding. Art Works grants support the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with diverse and excellent art, lifelong learning in the arts, and the strengthening of communities through the arts. The 817 recommended NEA grants total $26.3 million and span 13 artistic disciplines and fields.

Applications were reviewed by panels of outside experts convened by NEA staff and each project was judged on its artistic excellence and artistic merit. Visit arts.gov or a complete listing of projects recommended for Art Works grants.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, under the artistic leadership of Glenn Edgerton, celebrates its 36th season in 2013 and 2014. Among the world's top contemporary dance companies and a global cultural ambassador, Hubbard Street demonstrates fluency in a wide range of techniques and forms, and deep comprehension of abstract artistry and emotional nuance. The company is critically acclaimed for its exuberant and innovative repertoire, featuring works by master American and international choreographers. Hubbard Street's artists hail from four countries and 12 U.S. states, and comprise a superlative ensemble of virtuosity and versatility.

Since its founding by Lou Conte in 1977, Hubbard Street has grown through the establishment of multiple platforms. Each is dedicated to the support and advancement of dance as an art form, as a practice, and as a method for generating and sustaining communities of all kinds.

Hubbard Street 2 cultivates young professional dancers, identifies next-generation choreographers, and performs domestically and abroad, in service of arts education, collaboration, experimentation and audience development.

Extensive Education, Youth & Community Programs are models in the field of arts education, linking the performing company's creative mission to the lives of students and families. Hubbard Street also initiated the first dance-based program in the Midwest to help alleviate suffering caused by Parkinson's disease. Youth Dance Classes at the Hubbard Street Dance Center include Creative Movement and progressive study of technique, open to young dancers ages 18 months to 16 years.

At the Lou Conte Dance Studio, directed by founding Hubbard Street Dancer Claire Bataille, workshops and master classes allow access to expertise, while a broad variety of weekly classes offer training at all levels in jazz, ballet, modern, tap, African, hip-hop, yoga, Pilates and Zumba.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago is located at 1147 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois. Call 312-850-9744 or visit hubbardstreetdance.com, Facebook.com/HubbardStreetDance, Twitter.com/HubbardStreet, or Pinterest.com/HubbardStDance for more about Hubbard Street.