BAX | Brooklyn Arts Exchange is a multigenerational arts incubator that nurtures artistic practice, centers community, and advances racial and cultural justice through education, residencies, and performance.

Led by professional teaching artists, BAX’s Education Department offers expert and nurturing instruction in Dance, Theater, Drag Arts, Tumbling, Creative Movement, and Child/Caregiver classes. Our programs foster creative choice-making, collaboration, skill building, performance, and reflection while centering community and belonging.

BAX offers a wide range of youth classes, performances, and festivals. Scholarship assistance, including sliding-scale and tiered tuition options, is available across all education programs, and more than 60% of BAX students receive some level of financial assistance.

Youth Education Core Values for Teaching and Learning

BAX’s Youth Education programs are grounded in six core teaching and learning values that shape our curriculum, program design, faculty practices, and professional development.

The BAX Continuum

BAX is a multigenerational arts ecosystem where young people, artists, families, and community members learn, create, and grow together. From early childhood classes through teen leadership, artistic practice, and lifelong community participation, BAX nurtures creativity, collaboration, artistic voice, and belonging. Many participants remain connected across decades—returning as performers, teaching artists, parents, staff, and leaders who help shape the next generation of artists and communities.

One community. Many generations. Lifelong creative impact.

Creative Choice

Creative choice-making is at the heart of BAX’s approach to teaching and learning. Authentic voice and artistic expression are cultivated by supporting each student as an individual and meeting them where they are. Through improvisation, experimentation, and creative risk-taking, students are encouraged to develop their own ideas, perspectives, and artistic approaches. Students generate and share original work, affirming their capacity as artists, makers, thinkers, storytellers, and vital community members.

Community

Students, families, and faculty play a vital role in shaping the culture and values of our organization. Diverse identities, lived experiences, and opportunities for exchange among students, families, professional artists, and the broader community are celebrated and uplifted. By building class communities rooted in empathy, care, and mutual respect, students are encouraged to form meaningful connections and to see themselves as active participants in their schools, neighborhoods, and communities.

Skill Building

Artistic growth is supported through the development of technique, improvisation, artmaking, and performance skills while also attending to the social and emotional well-being of each student and the class as a whole. History, vocabulary, and discipline-specific practices are introduced through responsive teaching approaches that meet students where they are. Students are encouraged to build both artistic rigor and confidence as they deepen their creative practice.

Skill Building

Artistic growth is supported through the development of technique, improvisation, artmaking, and performance skills while also attending to the social and emotional well-being of each student and the class as a whole. History, vocabulary, and discipline-specific practices are introduced through responsive teaching approaches that meet students where they are. Students are encouraged to build both artistic rigor and confidence as they deepen their creative practice.

Performance

Opportunities to share work with audiences are valued as an essential part of the artistic process. Students practice performance as creators, collaborators, and communicators, developing the confidence to express their ideas publicly. As students hone performance skills, they also learn how to observe, discuss, and respond thoughtfully to artistic work. Performance is understood not simply as a final product, but as an essential and generative part of the creative process.

Reflection

Reflection is an essential part of artistic growth, learning, and performance-making. Through dialogue, observation, feedback, and self-reflection, students develop language for discussing their work and learn how to offer and receive constructive feedback with care, curiosity, and respect. By engaging in ongoing reflection, young artists strengthen their sense of identity, agency, and belonging, recognizing artistic growth as a continuous process of learning, exchange, and discovery.

Collaboration

Brave and supportive learning environments invite students to work independently, in partnerships, and as ensembles. Trust, communication, and shared responsibility are fostered while exploring multiple pathways into collaborative artmaking. Teaching and learning spaces are reimagined as sites of mutual exchange, collective learning, and shared creativity. Collaboration among families is also central to a philosophy of collective care and community support.