School Arts Partnerships
BAX is a longtime Arts Services vendor with the New York City Department of Education and provides a range of in-school and out-of-school services for Pre-K through 12th grade. Working with professional artists & educators and drawing from our established studio curriculum in dance/movement, drama, and tumbling, BAX works in close collaboration with our partners to provide customized programming that meets the needs of your school community. BAX school partnerships build performing arts techniques while putting special emphasis on creative choice-making, social justice, and the celebration of individual identity within the context of a whole community. BAX residencies typically culminate in a performance opportunity, with a range from informal classroom shares to fully realized productions, to encourage young artists to engage performance and audience reflection as a critical part of an ongoing performing arts practice. Read more about BAX’s mission working at the intersection of performance, education, and social justice and about our arts education philosophy & core teaching and learning values.
What makes BAX School Arts Partnerships unique?
Drawing on explicitly anti-racist and inclusive teaching practices, BAX performing arts residencies provide embodied experiences that help to build individual confidence and voice through empathy, collaboration, creativity and play. BAX’s accessible, flexible, and affordable programming meets children & school communities where they are to ensure that all kinds of learners are engaged. As an intergenerational organization, BAX programming is also available to whole school communities including professional development opportunities for school educators and family engagement workshops.
“BAX is knowledgeable of, and really lives and breathes equity work. It’s interwoven well, and exploring it via the arts is fabulous… Thanks for all that you do. This is a life giving and enriching partnership, for me, for our teachers, for our families, and most importantly, for our kids.”“BAX is knowledgeable of, and really lives and breathes equity work. It’s interwoven well, and exploring it via the arts is fabulous… Thanks for all that you do. This is a life giving and enriching partnership, for me, for our teachers, for our families, and most importantly, for our kids.”
See below examples of BAX’s residency programs. Submit an inquiry about an arts partnership residency at your school.
In School Residencies
Residency Spotlight: Brooklyn New School
Working through PreK to 5th grade, BAX teaching artists bring movement/dance, music, and drama programming to the entire school community through 12 week session residencies with each grade over the course of the school year. BAX Teaching Artists make creative, age appropriate, connections with school curriculum and engage students in fun embodied activities. The program includes a well-established 4th Grade Musical Production that brings together elements of the residency and serves as an opportunity to engage the wider school and family community in a performance celebration.
“Nearly every teacher in our school would be pleased if a BAX teaching artist were part of their educational team every day of the school year and truly appreciate the depth of the relationship and its value to their teaching practice.”
After School Enrichment Programming
Bring BAX to your after onsite school program! With engaging teaching artists, customizable curriculum, and affordable pricing, BAX is an ideal partner for enrichment as part of your school’s onsite after school programs.
“I so appreciate [BAX] being here with us and keeping our kids engaged and excited.”
Interrupting Bigotry (Intergenerational)
Founded in collaboration with BAX Education Department and longtime BAX Teaching Artist José Joaquin Garcia, BAX’s Interrupting Bigotry program draws upon Augusto Boal’s powerful and interactive Theatre of the Oppressed (Forum Theater) model of performance to engage students in discussions around bias and bigotry, build ensemble, and develop ways of becoming upstanders. Last year BAX worked in collaboration with Ella Baker School (EBS) 6th grade students as well as 5th grade students at the Brooklyn New School (BNS) to develop original “Interrupting Bigotry” scripts, which the two ensembles shared with each other in a spring performance exchange. Building on these cross school collaborations, this fall new Ella Baker and BNS ensembles, again under Garcia’s direction, will come together for a drama workshop exchange. It is our goal to bring the groups together again when their “2023 Interrupting Bigotry” scripts are developed for a performance exchange.
Gender Expression Workshops (Intergenerational)
Building on BAX/PS 261 School Arts Partnerships & Gender Expression Programming since 2021, this spring BAX will facilitate an After School Drama & Puppetry Program starting April 3-June 14 on Tuesdays (for grades K-2nd) and Wednesdays (for grades 3rd-5th) as well as a series of in-school workshops for students and after school workshops for families. Programming is for LGBTQIA-identifying and non-LGBTQIA families, alike, and uses dramatic play to deepen understanding of gender identity and to explore ways we can express our fully liberated selves and expansive gender identities. Links to sign up for the workshops below. (Sign up for the after school program through the school.)
After School Pickup
BAX offers after school pick up service to select local schools. Learn more by clicking the button below.