Battery Dance of New York and Canadian partner organizations Canada’s National Ballet School and Toronto District School Board celebrated the themes of international cooperation, human rights and security, the bedrock of NATO, in order to bring attention to the alliance during its 70th Anniversary in November, 2019.

Thanks to the grant from NATO on this special anniversary year, Battery Dance was able to bring its arts and social/educational programming to Canada. The Company ran workshops with mixed groups of students from eight public high schools, collaborated with local teachers as well as staff and volunteers from the National Ballet School, implementing its acclaimed Dancing to Connect methodology.

The workshops culminated in two performances at the Betty Oliphant Theater for audiences of parents, teachers, classmates and the general public; and were live-streamed to a national Canadian audience. The studios and the theater itself, as well as the technical and video crew, were all generously provided in-kind by the National Ballet School.

Participants ranged in age from 14 – 20 and represented a diverse group of ethnicities and economic strata. They were recruited by the school board and some came from schools far from the center city. The school board covered the cost of transporting students to and from the workshops and performances.