“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” -Albert Einstein
For more than 20 years, the Kravis Center has helped students of all ages fuel their imaginations and expand their lives through comprehensive arts education programs. Last season, nearly 45,000 children from Palm Beach, Broward, Martin, St. Lucie and Okeechobee counties attended performances, such as Stuart Little, presented by the Dallas Children’s Theater in Dreyfoos Hall, through the S*T*A*R (Students and Teachers Arts Resource) Series. The Center’s Admission Waiver Program ensures that no child is denied access to a performance based on ability to pay. Also last season, about 3,000 adults attended ArtSmart continuing education classes and lectures, with topics ranging from Marilyn Monroe to Cuban folklore music.
Get to Know Kravis Center’s Arts Education Program
The innovative Kravis-On-The-Road series takes performances from the stage to the schools and to off-site venues such as the Dolly Hand Cultural Arts Center in Belle Glade, which last season hosted Step Afrika!, the first company devoted to the African-American ritual of stepping. The Center spends over $100,000 a year on field-trip transportation so that Palm Beach County schoolchildren can attend performances. The Center also provides many opportunities for young performers to interact with visiting artists, such as Master Classes, ArtScholars and Kravis On Broadway Student Workshops, and the newest addition, The Broadway Artists Intensive. The three-week summer course, which requires an audition for admission, immerses 75 career-track students ages 12 to 20 in acting, voice and dance with seasoned professionals of the Great White Way. Another training program is the De George Academy for Performing Arts, which delivers dance, theatre and vocal performance instruction to economically disadvantaged children in third through sixth grades, along with coaching for students who may want to attend an arts-based high school or college.
Since opening in 1992, the Kravis Center has provided access to the performing arts for approximately 2 million schoolchildren.
Learning is a lifelong endeavor at the Center, which offers Beyond the Stage pre-performance discussions with arts experts as well as The Writers’ Academy at the Kravis Center, a series of sessions designed to develop and nurture adult creative writing skills. Professional Development Workshops, meanwhile, provide teachers with tools and instructional strategies that can be used to integrate arts into the other academic areas of the curriculum.
“I believe arts education in music, theatre, dance and the visual arts is one of the most creative ways we have to find the gold that is buried just beneath the surface,” former U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley has said. “(Children) have an enthusiasm for life, a spark of creativity and vivid imaginations that need training — training that prepares them to become confident young men and women.”
The Kravis Center offers this essential arts training to students of all ages and economic levels, along with exposure to world-class entertainment and acclaimed performers.
To learn more, please call the Education and Community Outreach Department at 561-651-4251 or visit the Kravis Center’s official website, kravis.org, and click on Education and Community Outreach, where in August you also can view and print a 2014-2015 Kravis Center Education Brochure.
Help support the Center’s education mission. Please call the Development Department at 561-651-4320 or visit the Kravis Center’s official website, kravis.org, and click on Ways to Give.
For more than 20 years, the Kravis Center’s Arts Education Program has Helped Students of all Ages fuel their Imaginations. Learn More About this Program.