Education Outreach

DancEmPower! empowers children to enrich their lives through dance.

Free performances for schools. Through DancEmPower!, students and teachers from schools across the Midlands attend Columbia Classical Ballet’s productions of The Nutcracker and other ballets at the Koger Center for the Arts, with tickets and transportation provided free. For many students, it is their first time seeing a live ballet.

Learning before the curtain. Teachers receive lesson plans to prepare their students for the performance, aligned with the South Carolina College- and Career-Readiness Standards for the Visual and Performing Arts.

Dancers in the schools. Columbia Classical Ballet’s professional dancers teach free dance classes at Conder Arts Integrated Magnet School and Round Top Elementary in Richland School District Two, working alongside the district’s School Resource Officers to give students a healthy, creative activity.