Educate and empower at risk children through dance

Dear sponsors:

As the world population faces the challenges related to COVID-19, we have been in confinement for more than 50 days in Panama. We are staying home, but we have not stopped working! 

Our programs help us strive to sensitize and create awareness of dance through the practice, teaching, and promotion of aerial and contemporary dance. We continue to work towards our goals for the welfare of our beneficiaries and their families. We keep ourselves happy and healthy by dancing, of course!

While the quarantine lasts, we have modified our activities to better serve our beneficiaries, their families, and our workers. We continue:

• Teaching periodic contemporary dance and physical conditioning (virtual) classes to more than 40 at risk children and young people who are part of our social program DANZAREA 
• Teaching remote dance classes and generating income for our 7 teachers (dance professionals)
• Providing psychological counseling for our beneficiaries, necessary now more than ever 
• Supporting our DANZAREA students with their academic studies using remote tutoring sessions
• Taking food to 133 people including families of our DANZÁREA students and teachers, as well for our CÍA Gramo Danse (professional dancers) members
• Delivering 24 vouchers for food and medicine that will benefit 115 people
• Creating new contemporary dance pieces with our 6 professional dancers from CÍA. Gramo Danse, remotely
• Continuing with our mission to “spread” dance to every corner of our country for more than 21 years

We have proven that culture does not stop and has become a necessary tool for many to deal with the physical and emotional challenges caused by the pandemic. Dance and the arts have allowed us to deliver a message of solidarity and hope to those who need it most during this difficult time. 

We are counting on your support to continue our mission for the next 20 years and more!

Thank you

Links:

• Our Website
• International Dance Day video from DANZAREA

Dear Gramo Danse sponsors: 

2019 was an unforgettable year for us in Fundacion Gramo Danse. We accomplished many things and learned through the challenges we experienced. We welcome 2020!

We are happy to share our successes during the past year and would like to make YOU part of it:

·     With DANZAREA, our social program, more than 90 children and teenagers were granted scholarships to receive comprehensive aerial and contemporary dance training during 2019. The training is based on a well developed structured curriculum by Monica Newsam (a professional aerialist and teacher) and Nereyda Rey (Teacher and Director of DANZÁREA). All our teachers received training to acquire the skills necessary to implement this efficient and precise teaching/learning tool. Also, Ruby our new psychologist joined our team to work with all our students individually and cooperatively. 

·     We celebrated Panama City’s 500th anniversary with the creation and staging of the multidisciplinary piece MORPHO, la psique de una ciudad, starring 6 aerial and contemporary dance professionals, with the collaboration of the choreographer and Colombian dancer Ana Prada, and the music of several talented Panamanians. This two part piece was a celebration of our identity and traditions. It also carried a message of loving and caring for nature and our animal species. 

·      We took our art throughout the country as every year with the GRAMOGIRA 2019, mostly to children. We conducted 2 workshops on movement and environmental conservation for 150 children, and 16 performances of MORPHO, la psique de una ciudad, from which 9 were made free of charge for students of public schools in our country. We reached a total audience of 3,650 people (88% students). We believe art is essential to children´s education.

·      CIA. Gramo Danse’s members had the opportunity to dance in different spaces both local and international FESTIVALS. The piece a modo de empleo was presented at the “Festival de Artes Escénicas” in Panama and in “La Machine” in Costa Rica. They were also at the “Fragmentos de Junio” Festival, in Guayaquil, with the dance-theater play Apuntes sobre los amores ridículos.

We are starting 2020 with full force. We are sending four DANZÁREA students to Costa Rica, to an intensive contemporary dance training (1 week) called Revés. They will be training with great teachers from different countries and sharing experiences with young people from at least 100 countries.

Of course, DANZÁREA will continue the work that has been carried out for more than 10 years, with our children and young people who are socially at risk. The great news is that we are expanding our program. We will add two new groups of 20 children in two schools in at risk communities.

This year we will also organize and carry on the sixth version of BRÍO, a children's and youth choreography festival in Panama, where various groups of young dancers will have a platform to create and express their ideas and thoughts through dance.

CIA. Gramo Danse, winner of the IBERESCENA 2020 Fund will be working on the creation and staging of  K. i r o s (morpho se fue). This new piece is a continuation of MORPHO, la psique de una ciudad. This year we are taking it to new heights literally. Our professionals will perform vertical dance as a means of expression. This play will also be taken on tour through Panama, hoping to reach an audience of more than 3,500 people.

We hope to continue counting on your support on 2020 and the years to come, and that you’ll be partakers of all the achievements that we will surely achieve.

 Greetings and congratulations this new year, 2020!

Links:

• Our webpage

On September 7th, Danzarea’s students once again demonstrated their talent in the air and on the dance floor.

Panarama was the name chosen for this work of aerial and contemporary dance directed by Teacher Nereyda Rey, who is also the Director of Danzarea, Fundacion Gramo Danse´s social program. 

Panarama arises from a research process by our children and teachers in the Biodiversity Museum, designed by Frank Gehry and located in Panama City. Within the different rooms of this museum, our students learned about the formation of the Isthmus of Panama, and how it divided two oceans by joining two continents. The museum also offered information on the construction of the magnificent Panama Canal which caused a cultural and natural exchange. The exhibits inspired each one of the groups to create their own choreographies.

Using their skills in contemporary dance as well as and in aerial dance (trapezes and aerial hammocks), the students of DANZAREA, portrayed the problem of plastic in our oceans, the coexistence between Panama´s first settlers, and other important issues. The research and the creation of this dance piece provided a great learning experience for our students and the public that attended the performance. Panarama brings an awareness of the respect and care that we must have towards our environment, since we cannot survive without it.

YOUR SUPPORT allowed us to provide the opportunity for the children to learn about their history and culture through the creative process of dance. Panarama also allows children and teenagers of the program to reflect on all their year-round work.

Photos by Armando Millán and Ximena Varela

Thank you all! 

Last June, the team of Fundación Gramo Danse and its students celebrated DANZÁREA’S anniversary with an afternoon of games, magic and fun. We are very proud of our achievements for the past 11 years, and we are excited on what is yet to come, thanks to your support!

Since our last report in April, many things have happened and we are happy to share them with you:

APRIL:

We held “Beauty without Filters”, a fair for our students and their families. We worked with the children and young people to reinforce their self-esteem, their perception of themselves, and the value of the inner beauty that each person possesses.

DANZÁREA participated in the celebration of the International Dance Day. A group of our students danced for a large audience at the Balboa Theater. We are very proud of them!

MAY:

May 17th is National Recycling Day. We walked, researched, and learned about our environment and our city with visits to the Biomuseo (Biodiversity Museum) and the ruins and museum of Panama Viejo, the cradle of our city 500 years ago.

As it could not be missing, DANZÁREA takes a delegation of students to perform at the National Recycling Day Fair organized by FAS Panamá, where they had the opportunity to dance before the visitors of this celebration.

Our friends from the TV channel TVN visited our space. They produced and presented a report on DANZÁREA, in their segment "Gente que Inspira" (People who Inspire). They featured teacher Nereyda (DANZÁREA’S director) and Meibys, a student who has been part of our program for several years. (to see the video in Spanish, look for the link at the bottom of this report)

JUNE:

On June 14^th , DANZÁREA opened its doors to family and friends, so they could appreciate the progress our students made during the past four months in the program. Parents and friends were surprised by all the new skills acquired.

Fundación Gramo Danse joined the 5th Reforestation Day nationwide, in an effort to plant 1 million hectares throughout the country in the next twenty years. Employees, volunteers, teachers and students of DANZÁREA worked in groups, to plant around 11 species of trees, from loggers to fruit trees in parcels of land at Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá (UTP) in Chorrera.

To close the month of June, we also had DANZÁREA’S teachers evaluations, who are currently implementing the new aerial and contemporary dance fusion curriculum created last year.

What comes next:

We are in the process of planning the third quarter and most importantly, the students´ annual show. This year it will be about the Isthmus of Panama and its biodiversity. SPOILER ALERT: It will be called "PANARAMA"!

We cannot say goodbye without announcing that on July 18^th we will participate in a great Bonus Day, in which GlobalGiving will match donations over $100 received on that specific day. We would love to continue counting on your support, so if you want to join us in this campaign, do not forget to SAVE THE DATE: JULY18th!

Links:

• TVN Report
• Website

During the month of February, 45 students participated in our intensive summer course, in preparation for the year-round program 2019.

On March 18th, we initiated our year-round program in DANZÁREA. We have had significant progress in our effort to reach our goals for this year.

• We held our first auditions for the year. As a result, 20 new students will be joining our program.
• We also trained our instructors. The first stage of the training included teaching tools and techniques, and conflict management based on the Social Circus program from Cirque Du Soleil. During the second stage, teacher Monica Newsam, who came from the United States, trained our instructors in the application of our academic curriculum of aerial dance that was developed during 2018 together with DANZÁREA’s director, Nereyda Rey.
• During March, we also had an interactive workshop on "Bullying" organized by our social worker and led by psychologist and volunteer Ana Raquel Ramsey. She shared her knowledge and experience with the children, to help them recognize problems of harassment, how to defend themselves and how to avoid being victims of bullying.
• Also in March, we carried out, together with actress and theater teacher Mariela Aragón, a theater workshop for our children and parents, in which the students were able to share their love for art and culture with their families, and learn in a playful and safe environment.

Beginning this month, we will begin the process of formal registration of students, and we hope to keep the positive energy by working more and more for our youth.

Thank you all for your support