Students are engaged in an intensive and enjoyable three weeks of performing and visual arts classes taught by a staff of gifted arts educators from around the country. YAP is a full-day (9am to 4pm) non-residential program.
Applications are open!
This summer will marks the 25th year of our Youth Arts Program (YAP), a community outreach program that brings youth from our community, and their families, together with world-class artists to experience dance, music, visual and literary arts firsthand. YAP engages young people grades 2-10 in an intensive and enjoyable three weeks of arts classes taught by a staff of gifted arts educators. YAP is structured as a full-day (9am to 4pm) non-residential program. During the three-weeks students experience a range of dance/movement styles — from modern and ballet to hip hop, social dance and yoga– as well as musical genres from around the world, theater, storytelling, poetry, writing and visual arts. The arts offer meaningful ways to engage children in healthy, creative and expressive ways. Our mission is to enrich children’s lives through the arts.
Bates Dance Festival hosts the Youth Arts Program (YAP), a community outreach program that brings youth from the Lewiston/Auburn, Maine community, and their families, together with world-class artists to experience the arts firsthand. YAP engages young people ages 6-17 in an intensive and enjoyable three weeks of dance and music classes taught by a staff of gifted arts educators. YAP is structured as a full-day (9am to 4pm) non-residential program.
Research shows that study in the arts:
Youth Arts Program will take place from Monday, July 18 through Friday, August 5, from 9am to 4pm at the Mays Center on the Bates College campus. Morning drop off begins at 8:40am. A mandatory orientation meeting for all participants will be held on Sunday afternoon, July 17. A final performance will take place Friday, August 5 in the late afternoon.
For more information email or call the Admission Director, Alexandra James at the Bates Dance Festival office, dancefest@bates.edu or 786-6381.
The program fee is $750 plus the non-refundable $10 application fee. The program cost covers the three-week program including lunch in the Bates Dining Common, daily snacks and complimentary tickets for select Festival events. Family discounts are available for full tuition paying students.
There are a limited number of aftercare spots available. Aftercare is available Mon-Fri until 5pm at a cost of $50/week and will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.
Children with no experience or lots of experience can participate, gain new skills, and HAVE FUN!
Bates Dance Festival
Attn: YAP Scholarship Committee
Pettigrew Hall
305 College St.
Lewiston, ME 04240
Registrations are processed on a first-come, first-serve basis until all age groups are filled. A waiting list will be maintained in the event that space becomes available.
If notified by Thursday, July 3 a full refund will be made less a $50 processing fee. No refunds will be made after this date.
Youth Arts is made possible with generous support from: Leonard C. and Mildred F. Ferguson Foundation, Morton-Kelly Charitable Trust and the Sequoia Foundation.
Rob Flax (music instructor) is an award-winning multi-instrumentalist, composer, and educator from Evanston, IL with a playful heart and an open mind. He has performed nationally and internationally with groups of many different styles, including opening for B.B. King and Tower of Power, playing viola and violin with the Trans Siberian Orchestra and YouTube star Jacob Collier, upright bass in an Argentine tango ensemble, mandolin and fiddle in various bluegrass bands, electric violin in several rock bands, collaborations with modern dancers, and more. As a composer Rob has written music for choreographers, film (including work on the soundtrack of James Franco’s film As I Lay Dying), and several original projects. Rob is a recent graduate of the New England Conservatory (M.M. 2012 – Contemporary Improvisation, Music In Education), and he currently lives in Boston, MA.
Terrence Karn (Music Director/instructor) is a dance and musical artist/composer/educator. He began his career as a dance musician in 1971 at the Minnesota Dance Theatre. During the 1980s, Terrence taught character dance at Houston Ballet Academy and was a dance accompanist for over nine years. He was a resident Dance Musician/ Composer in the School of Theatre and Dance at the University of Houston (1999-2007), Denison University’s Department of Dance (2007-2011) and at The University of Wisconsin Eau Claire (2012-2015) Terrence has performed with the Houston Grand Opera, Karen Stokes Dance, and Core Performance Company and has had a long-time affiliation with Jane Weiner and Hope Stone Dance company as an educator and musician. Terrence is the cofounder of Gypsy Dance Theatre, a Texas-based world music and dance ensemble. He was a member of Black Isles Belly Dance Theatre and The Fandazzi Fire Circus based in Minneapolis, MN 2015/2016. Currently, Terrence works in Houston, TX in the Fall, at Houston Ballet, The High School For Performing and Visual Arts, The University of Houston, Hope Stone and The Texas Renaissance Festival. In the winter and spring Terrence lives Lewiston, Maine and accompanies dance at Bates College and Bowdoin College. Karn will return to the Bates Dance Festival for his 21st. year as Musical Director for the Youth Arts Program. Terrence has recorded six all original music CDs. He has composed numerous works for dance companies on planet earth and has played for over 20,727 dance classes and counting.
Annalyn Lehnig is an actress and writer based in San Diego, CA. Prior to the pandemic, her one woman show, LAMB/WOLF was presented by Triskelion Arts in Brooklyn. The Circus Lovesick, her first one woman show, has been presented in New York, Minneapolis, New Orleans, and San Diego. The Annalyn Lehnig Channel on Youtube is home to Annalyn’s improvisational videos and developmental performance material. Annalyn Lehnig is a voice over artist and on occasion reads poetry to plants. More at www.annalynlehnig.com.
Tawanda Chabikwa (Hip Hop Dance Instructor)is a Zimbabwean-born dancer, artist-scholar who’s work combines theory and practice-based research through interdisciplinary, transcultural creative collaboration. Current research and creative practice investigate comparative African diaspora studies, contemporary African theatrical dance, Africana religions/spiritualities and philosophy, performance of postcolonial modernities and embodied research methodologies. Tawanda holds a B.A. in Human Ecology from the College of the Atlantic, an M.F.A. in Dance from Southern Methodist University. He was interim artistic director of Tumbuka Dance Company in Zimbabwe (2011), before leaving to pursue doctoral studies that culminated in a Ph.D. in Africana Studies from the Department of African American and African Studies at The Ohio State University. He also works with storytelling, performance art, and visual art (most recent exhibition was at the William H. Thomas Gallery in Columbus, Ohio 2017), and creative writing (first novel Baobabs in Heaven published in 2010). In addition to performances and lecture demonstrations, Tawanda has presented research at the conferences of the Dance Studies Association (formerly CORD and SDHS), and the National Association of Ethnics Studies (NAES). He has extensive experience teaching studio and lecture courses, along with facilitating sensorimotor workshops, dance master classes, and interdisciplinary creative practice in K-12, colleges, university and community settings.
Priscilla Rivas (YAP Director) is a dancer and educator in Houston, Texas. She is the artistic director of the Colombian Folkloric Ballet and a performer/choreographer with the Global Dance Theatre. Priscilla holds a BS degree in Early Childhood Education, a master’s degree in Educational Leadership, and a Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction in Urban Education (specialization in Learning, Design & Technology.) She has been an elementary classroom teacher for 8 years, a vice principal for 4 years and is now the principal of the nationally renowned High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, also known as Kinder HSPVA. She joined the YAP family in 2009 and serves as both the director and visual arts teacher.
Madeline Warriner (choreography instructor) is a movement artist, educator, and advocate residing in Brooklyn. She graduated from Rutgers University with a BFA in Dance and an MEd in Dance Education, where she received university, state, and professional awards. She has performed works by Doug Elkins, Manuel Vignouelle, and Robert Battle, Stephan Koplowitz, and more. She was a company member with The Equus Projects for 5+ years and is currently working with Shantelle Courvoisier Jackson in the movement collective loveconductors. She has taught dance outreach throughout NYC and the tri-state area, Vermont, Maine, and D.C. She also teaches yoga and pilates and created Harlem Yoga Studio’s Kids Yoga Teacher Training. She has shared her research and practice on movement, mindfulness, and cognitive development in various education professional development workshops and conferences.
© 2022 Bates Dance Festival.
