June 2, 2025 • 15 mins
2025 marks the 50th Anniversary of the National Dance Institute. Founded in NYC by the late, renowned dancer and teacher Jacques d’Amboise on the belief that every child should have access to learning in and through the arts, NDI impacts the lives of thousands of children in New York City and worldwide. Our guests are Executive Director Jermaine Jones and Artistic Director Kay Gayner. For more, including details on their Father’s Day weekend performances open to all, visit nationaldance.org.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one oh six point seven Light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thank you for listening to Get Connected. Marking the fiftieth
anniversary of the National Dance Institute, founded in New York
City by the late Great Jacques Demboise with the belief
that every child should have access to learning in and
through the arts. NDI impacts the lives of thousands of
children worldwide and for the conversation, our guests are Executive
Director Jermaine Jones and Artistic Director Kay Gainor. Thank you
(00:35):
both for being on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Thank you you.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
You can find out more about the organization at National
Dance dot org, but I will start with you, Jermaine.
Maybe you can tell us more about the organization and
a core mission of NDI.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Sure so, DII is an amazing organization. It's been a
part of my life for ooh thirty plus years. But
the core root of indiais belief is that we believe
that the arts have unique power to engage all children
and that the arts are really essential to a child's learning,
that every child deserves the right to have access to
(01:11):
music and dance, to the arts in general. You know,
our programming really has a unique way of changing children's lives,
and it's hard to really describe unless you really go
through the program itself.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
We provide skills that are critical to a child in
their life and in school.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
We send out a team of professionals, dance teachers and
musicians that really have a way of engaging children with
joy and rigor, you know, really getting the children to
commit to being excellent in their own right what they
believe their excellence is. And really, you know, the dancers
(01:50):
learn to collaboratively, think critically, and really build a sense
of community with the fellow dancers that are in the program.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
This goes back to its founder. I think a lot
of this was instilled the things you're talking about with
the founder, Jacques den Boise. Not everybody knows who that
person is, but he was an extraordinary artist. Can you
talk about Jacques den Boise and the beginnings of the organization.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
India I was founded in nineteen seventy six by Jacques
dein Bois.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
And he truly believed that.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
The art changed his life, dance specifically. He was a
New York City principal dancer with New York City Ballet.
And you know, it really started with him going to
a school and asking, Hey, would you like to have
a free dance program, And that's how we really started,
you know, forty nine years ago.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
There is a clip on I think it's CBS This
Morning that he did a million years ago. You can
find it on YouTube, and you can see that he's
really getting to your point, Jermaine, of what you were
saying a moment ago. He's really taking the kid seriously
and taking the work seriously. It's not just like a
pe activity for people to kind of like not to disspe,
for people to kind of like relax between classes. Like
(02:59):
he really leaved in it being a class that could
teach the fundamentals of so many things. You actually were
a member or a participant when you were a kid
as well.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Yes, yes, like I said a long, long time ago,
I started with Indie in junior high school back in
the late eighties and I was with the program for
four years as a dancer.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
It was amazing four years of my life.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Got to do so many things that I know I
wouldn't have done as a child who grew up in
Harlem and got.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Exposure to the many, many places in New York.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
City that I know I wouldn't have visited, got a
chance to go to Switzerland, and it was just an amazing,
amazing time of my life.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
INDII had such a big impact.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
I wanted to give back to India, so I kept
on coming back and volunteering, chaperoning children, and then went
off to college. But once I graduated, I was asked
to come and join the advisory Council to the board
of directors. So I did that for about fifteen years.
I loved it so much. I asked, you know, how
to wh I've become a board member, like this is
something that's important to me. Became the treasurer of the organization,
(04:06):
and I thought I was at the top of the world,
you know, like an organization that's been a part of
my life for so long. But the executive director who
was here before we decided to move on and I
decided to put my name Manahat, and I'm here as
the executive director of ADII.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Congratulations, It's very exciting to kind of move from where
you were as a kid all the way up to
the top of it. Our guests are Executive Director Jermaine
Jones and Artistic Director Kay Gaynor of the National Dance Institute.
You can find out more at National Dance dot org.
Jermaine Jones was appointed executive director of NDI in March
twenty twenty three. A lifelong advocate for the arts, he
(04:41):
brings a unique blend of professional management acumen and a
deep rooted passion for dance to his leadership role. Jones'
relationship with NDI began at age eleven as a student
participant in Harlem, later performing with NDI Celebration Team and
studying at the Alvin Ailey School. Kay Gaynor is the
artistic director of NDI. She began teaching for National Dance
Institute in two thousand, after having served as assistant to
(05:04):
joc Dembois previously. She is responsible for the direction of
ndii's in school program, which currently serves approximately sixty five
hundred children in New York City public schools. You're listening
to get connected on one six point seven light FM.
I'm Nina del Rio and Onto UK. Let's start maybe
with a little bit about where you got started with
this organization.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
I often say it depends on how you calculate how
long I've been here, but it is true. NDI was
my first job, my first real job out of college.
I moved to New York with a group of friends
who we all came here to be performers. I was
involved in very much involved in dance and music and
(05:46):
acting at the time, and I answered an ad in
art search this is true and got a job at
NDI and became very quickly Jacques's assistant, which at the
time dy I was very small at the time, so
at the time it meant everything from teaching with him
at the University of Utah and going to what was
then the Soviet Union to secure visas and teach children there,
(06:09):
to filing.
Speaker 6 (06:10):
His insurance claims.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
It was kind of everything, all inclusive, and I did
that for three years, and Jacka and I got very
close during that time, and I think I was pre
in love with the mission of NDI before Shaka and
I ever met, but certainly being around him and working
side by side with him for those three years, I
(06:31):
learned so much.
Speaker 6 (06:32):
He became deeply truly a mentor for me, but.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Also the imagination and the wild adventurousness of the man
and really his genius as a teacher and his love
for children, his passionate about the arts, and as Jermaine
said before, he really felt that his being able to
participate in high quality arts programming, first through his one
(06:57):
of his first ballet teachers, Madam Seda, then through Sab
and George Balancin, changed his life utterly and thoroughly and
made him a whole different person than he imagined he
could be.
Speaker 6 (07:12):
And he wanted, as.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
His career in New York City ballet was coming to
a close, he wanted every child in his path to
have the same opportunity. So, you know, early on first
job out of college, that just resonated so deeply with me,
and I learned so much about what it means to
make that a reality for children and for everybody. You know,
(07:34):
that kind of philosophy transforms not just the children, but
also every person who works for this organization, because it's
built on passion and that belief that the arts really
are essential not just to children's education, but to the
education of every human being. So I was his assistant
for three years and I left to have a career
(07:56):
as a performer, but always.
Speaker 6 (07:57):
Stayed very connected to NDI.
Speaker 5 (07:59):
And then as you ment earlier, came back in two
thousand to be a teaching artist and was mentored by
Buzz Jacques and Ellen Weinstein, who was.
Speaker 6 (08:07):
My predecessor as artistic director.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
And then similarly worked my way up through the chain
and I became artistic director here in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So the style of education, can you talk a little
bit how it's different for an NDI class versus the
traditional dance class setting, and you know sort of that
public school setting, right, it's not exactly ton dues and
PLA's and all those things.
Speaker 5 (08:30):
No, that's a very great question because we are not
strictly technique oriented when we go into a school. We
are performance based and Jock really believed and we really
believed that having kind of the end goal. We sometimes
say it's like the real world reason for a year
of hard work is the payoff of performing in front
(08:52):
of an audience all the things that you've learned throughout
the year. So we have a curricular theme every year,
and the dance and the choreograic we create especially for
the children and adapt it to who is exactly who
is in front of us, and we're able to engage
every child as deeply as we can. Another thing that
(09:12):
makes us different is for every single class we teach,
there are three teaching artists in the room. There are
two dance teaching artists and a musician playing. Usually it's
piano or keys, sometimes drumming, but it's essential.
Speaker 6 (09:29):
We really feel that, like live.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
Music changes the energy in the room and the flow
of the class, so it deeply enhances the way we
are able to differentiate education but also reach every child individually.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Since you bring that up, you also work with kids
who have physical disabilities or who identify as neurodivergent. Can
you talk about that and how that you know how
it works for them.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
This is my experience that what is now known as
dream which is dancers realize excellence through arts and movement.
Speaker 6 (10:00):
It was built into.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
The NDI program vision from the very beginning, Like when
I was Jack's assistant, there was a class at what
was then Lighthouse for the Blind for children who were blind.
There was a school for the deaf where we had
a program and everybody all came together for the big
performances at the end of the year. You know, we really,
(10:22):
very thoroughly believe that every child can dance and if they.
Speaker 6 (10:27):
Want to and all that is needed.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Is if you can move your body, if you can
blink your eyes, you can dance. And so in many ways,
it's the same set of teaching techniques, the same approach
to creating choreography that amplifies what the children can do
as well as building skills and using that using the
unique ways every child moves or interacts with the world
(10:54):
or processes information as a springboard for creative choreography, for
generating creative choreography.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Do you know there are.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
Ways we differentiate the teaching techniques that you know again,
all the way from the beginning, Jacque used to say,
all the time, the child who struggles or needs extra
time to learn is the most important person in the room.
So that the NDI method is rather than teaching to
the most talented and eager and hoping it trickles down,
(11:22):
we sort of flip that pyramid on its end and
teach to the ones who need the most extra time
and then really take the time to teach them and
everybody comes along. We also do training for teaching artists
in how we work with children with disabilities, and one
of the big things that I often start with is
the idea of creating the choreography first for a child
(11:46):
who uses an assistive device, or for a child who
has a unique movement quality, and really looking at what
they can do and creating steps or chunks of choreography
or staging ideas that really highlight the abilities and the
unique You know, a wheelchair user, if they're going across
the stage using their wheelchair, there's a gliding quality to it,
(12:10):
and so starting this choreography with steps that really amplify that,
and then translating out to the dancers who are standing
dancers or more quote unquote general education dancers, so that
everybody is really involved and you're seeing a kind of
dance and movement vocabulary that you don't see anywhere else.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Jermaine, again, we're celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of NDI. You've
been in this role about two years, but now you
have the task of deciding what's going to happen in
the next fifty years. So where would you like to
take the organization? What do you see coming up in
the near future.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
So I would say India has been you know, started
with one class and now we're in fifty one plus
schools and we want to continue to grow, but we
want to grow strategically. We want through a strategic plan
to think about what does growth truly mean for the
organization and doing it in a smart way. I would say,
you know, we always want to be in more schools,
but we also need more more administrative folks to support
(13:09):
the growth, and we want to do it specifically in
areas and neighborhoods that really need it, the underresourced communities.
That's where we're you know, true to India's mission that
all children deserve that right of having access to music
and arts, So you know, looking at neighborhoods where they
wouldn't have necessarily a dance program in the neighborhood, or
(13:29):
their families cannot would not be able to afford to
send their children to a program that's in their neighborhood.
We provide our services free of charge to our children
and our families. We're working directly through the schools for
funding on that. But I think we want to continue
to grow in that way. That's smart and something that
we can support as we continue to grow.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
And as a nonprofit, how are you funded and how
can listeners get involved to support?
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Yes, so as a nonprofit, as you are awhere. The
majority of our funding is coming from anthropy. We have
individuals foundations that we reach out to that help support
the organization, some long lasting relationships we have for many,
many years. But you know, donations are key for an
organization like us. So if anybody is interested, you can
(14:16):
visit our website National Dance dot org and you can donate.
Far I would say if you want to become more involved,
definitely come and see us. We have our big end
of year performance that's happening Father's Day weekend that's June
fourteenth through the sixteenth, and that show is at NYU Scareball.
It'll be an amazing weekend. We have over almost two
(14:37):
hundred children that's going to be on stage throughout multiple pieces,
at least ten plus pieces, and it's an amazing event
that we.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Do every year.
Speaker 5 (14:45):
And the show is celebrating rock music through the ages,
so there'll be a huge live band as part of it.
And Instrumaine said, two hundred children dancing and it's just
a joyful extravaganza. So yeah, if you want to know NDI,
the best way is to come and check it out.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
You can also find out more at National dance dot org.
Our guests have been Jermaine Jones and Kay Gaynor of
the National Dance Institute. Thank you for being on Get Connected.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 6 (15:15):
We're thrilled to be here.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
This has been Get Connected with Nina del Rio on
one oh six point seven light Fm. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you missed any part of our
show or want to share it, visit our website for
downloads and podcasts at one o six to seven lightfm
dot com. Thanks for listening.
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one oh six point seven Light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thank you for listening to Get Connected. Marking the fiftieth
anniversary of the National Dance Institute, founded in New York
City by the late Great Jacques Demboise with the belief
that every child should have access to learning in and
through the arts. NDI impacts the lives of thousands of
children worldwide and for the conversation, our guests are Executive
Director Jermaine Jones and Artistic Director Kay Gainor. Thank you
(00:35):
both for being on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Thank you you.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
You can find out more about the organization at National
Dance dot org, but I will start with you, Jermaine.
Maybe you can tell us more about the organization and
a core mission of NDI.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Sure so, DII is an amazing organization. It's been a
part of my life for ooh thirty plus years. But
the core root of indiais belief is that we believe
that the arts have unique power to engage all children
and that the arts are really essential to a child's learning,
that every child deserves the right to have access to
(01:11):
music and dance, to the arts in general. You know,
our programming really has a unique way of changing children's lives,
and it's hard to really describe unless you really go
through the program itself.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
We provide skills that are critical to a child in
their life and in school.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
We send out a team of professionals, dance teachers and
musicians that really have a way of engaging children with
joy and rigor, you know, really getting the children to
commit to being excellent in their own right what they
believe their excellence is. And really, you know, the dancers
(01:50):
learn to collaboratively, think critically, and really build a sense
of community with the fellow dancers that are in the program.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
This goes back to its founder. I think a lot
of this was instilled the things you're talking about with
the founder, Jacques den Boise. Not everybody knows who that
person is, but he was an extraordinary artist. Can you
talk about Jacques den Boise and the beginnings of the organization.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
India I was founded in nineteen seventy six by Jacques
dein Bois.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
And he truly believed that.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
The art changed his life, dance specifically. He was a
New York City principal dancer with New York City Ballet.
And you know, it really started with him going to
a school and asking, Hey, would you like to have
a free dance program, And that's how we really started,
you know, forty nine years ago.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
There is a clip on I think it's CBS This
Morning that he did a million years ago. You can
find it on YouTube, and you can see that he's
really getting to your point, Jermaine, of what you were
saying a moment ago. He's really taking the kid seriously
and taking the work seriously. It's not just like a
pe activity for people to kind of like not to disspe,
for people to kind of like relax between classes. Like
(02:59):
he really leaved in it being a class that could
teach the fundamentals of so many things. You actually were
a member or a participant when you were a kid
as well.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Yes, yes, like I said a long, long time ago,
I started with Indie in junior high school back in
the late eighties and I was with the program for
four years as a dancer.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
It was amazing four years of my life.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Got to do so many things that I know I
wouldn't have done as a child who grew up in
Harlem and got.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Exposure to the many, many places in New York.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
City that I know I wouldn't have visited, got a
chance to go to Switzerland, and it was just an amazing,
amazing time of my life.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
INDII had such a big impact.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
I wanted to give back to India, so I kept
on coming back and volunteering, chaperoning children, and then went
off to college. But once I graduated, I was asked
to come and join the advisory Council to the board
of directors. So I did that for about fifteen years.
I loved it so much. I asked, you know, how
to wh I've become a board member, like this is
something that's important to me. Became the treasurer of the organization,
(04:06):
and I thought I was at the top of the world,
you know, like an organization that's been a part of
my life for so long. But the executive director who
was here before we decided to move on and I
decided to put my name Manahat, and I'm here as
the executive director of ADII.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Congratulations, It's very exciting to kind of move from where
you were as a kid all the way up to
the top of it. Our guests are Executive Director Jermaine
Jones and Artistic Director Kay Gaynor of the National Dance Institute.
You can find out more at National Dance dot org.
Jermaine Jones was appointed executive director of NDI in March
twenty twenty three. A lifelong advocate for the arts, he
(04:41):
brings a unique blend of professional management acumen and a
deep rooted passion for dance to his leadership role. Jones'
relationship with NDI began at age eleven as a student
participant in Harlem, later performing with NDI Celebration Team and
studying at the Alvin Ailey School. Kay Gaynor is the
artistic director of NDI. She began teaching for National Dance
Institute in two thousand, after having served as assistant to
(05:04):
joc Dembois previously. She is responsible for the direction of
ndii's in school program, which currently serves approximately sixty five
hundred children in New York City public schools. You're listening
to get connected on one six point seven light FM.
I'm Nina del Rio and Onto UK. Let's start maybe
with a little bit about where you got started with
this organization.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
I often say it depends on how you calculate how
long I've been here, but it is true. NDI was
my first job, my first real job out of college.
I moved to New York with a group of friends
who we all came here to be performers. I was
involved in very much involved in dance and music and
(05:46):
acting at the time, and I answered an ad in
art search this is true and got a job at
NDI and became very quickly Jacques's assistant, which at the
time dy I was very small at the time, so
at the time it meant everything from teaching with him
at the University of Utah and going to what was
then the Soviet Union to secure visas and teach children there,
(06:09):
to filing.
Speaker 6 (06:10):
His insurance claims.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
It was kind of everything, all inclusive, and I did
that for three years, and Jacka and I got very
close during that time, and I think I was pre
in love with the mission of NDI before Shaka and
I ever met, but certainly being around him and working
side by side with him for those three years, I
(06:31):
learned so much.
Speaker 6 (06:32):
He became deeply truly a mentor for me, but.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Also the imagination and the wild adventurousness of the man
and really his genius as a teacher and his love
for children, his passionate about the arts, and as Jermaine
said before, he really felt that his being able to
participate in high quality arts programming, first through his one
(06:57):
of his first ballet teachers, Madam Seda, then through Sab
and George Balancin, changed his life utterly and thoroughly and
made him a whole different person than he imagined he
could be.
Speaker 6 (07:12):
And he wanted, as.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
His career in New York City ballet was coming to
a close, he wanted every child in his path to
have the same opportunity. So, you know, early on first
job out of college, that just resonated so deeply with me,
and I learned so much about what it means to
make that a reality for children and for everybody. You know,
(07:34):
that kind of philosophy transforms not just the children, but
also every person who works for this organization, because it's
built on passion and that belief that the arts really
are essential not just to children's education, but to the
education of every human being. So I was his assistant
for three years and I left to have a career
(07:56):
as a performer, but always.
Speaker 6 (07:57):
Stayed very connected to NDI.
Speaker 5 (07:59):
And then as you ment earlier, came back in two
thousand to be a teaching artist and was mentored by
Buzz Jacques and Ellen Weinstein, who was.
Speaker 6 (08:07):
My predecessor as artistic director.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
And then similarly worked my way up through the chain
and I became artistic director here in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So the style of education, can you talk a little
bit how it's different for an NDI class versus the
traditional dance class setting, and you know sort of that
public school setting, right, it's not exactly ton dues and
PLA's and all those things.
Speaker 5 (08:30):
No, that's a very great question because we are not
strictly technique oriented when we go into a school. We
are performance based and Jock really believed and we really
believed that having kind of the end goal. We sometimes
say it's like the real world reason for a year
of hard work is the payoff of performing in front
(08:52):
of an audience all the things that you've learned throughout
the year. So we have a curricular theme every year,
and the dance and the choreograic we create especially for
the children and adapt it to who is exactly who
is in front of us, and we're able to engage
every child as deeply as we can. Another thing that
(09:12):
makes us different is for every single class we teach,
there are three teaching artists in the room. There are
two dance teaching artists and a musician playing. Usually it's
piano or keys, sometimes drumming, but it's essential.
Speaker 6 (09:29):
We really feel that, like live.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
Music changes the energy in the room and the flow
of the class, so it deeply enhances the way we
are able to differentiate education but also reach every child individually.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Since you bring that up, you also work with kids
who have physical disabilities or who identify as neurodivergent. Can
you talk about that and how that you know how
it works for them.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
This is my experience that what is now known as
dream which is dancers realize excellence through arts and movement.
Speaker 6 (10:00):
It was built into.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
The NDI program vision from the very beginning, Like when
I was Jack's assistant, there was a class at what
was then Lighthouse for the Blind for children who were blind.
There was a school for the deaf where we had
a program and everybody all came together for the big
performances at the end of the year. You know, we really,
(10:22):
very thoroughly believe that every child can dance and if they.
Speaker 6 (10:27):
Want to and all that is needed.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Is if you can move your body, if you can
blink your eyes, you can dance. And so in many ways,
it's the same set of teaching techniques, the same approach
to creating choreography that amplifies what the children can do
as well as building skills and using that using the
unique ways every child moves or interacts with the world
(10:54):
or processes information as a springboard for creative choreography, for
generating creative choreography.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Do you know there are.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
Ways we differentiate the teaching techniques that you know again,
all the way from the beginning, Jacque used to say,
all the time, the child who struggles or needs extra
time to learn is the most important person in the room.
So that the NDI method is rather than teaching to
the most talented and eager and hoping it trickles down,
(11:22):
we sort of flip that pyramid on its end and
teach to the ones who need the most extra time
and then really take the time to teach them and
everybody comes along. We also do training for teaching artists
in how we work with children with disabilities, and one
of the big things that I often start with is
the idea of creating the choreography first for a child
(11:46):
who uses an assistive device, or for a child who
has a unique movement quality, and really looking at what
they can do and creating steps or chunks of choreography
or staging ideas that really highlight the abilities and the
unique You know, a wheelchair user, if they're going across
the stage using their wheelchair, there's a gliding quality to it,
(12:10):
and so starting this choreography with steps that really amplify that,
and then translating out to the dancers who are standing
dancers or more quote unquote general education dancers, so that
everybody is really involved and you're seeing a kind of
dance and movement vocabulary that you don't see anywhere else.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Jermaine, again, we're celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of NDI. You've
been in this role about two years, but now you
have the task of deciding what's going to happen in
the next fifty years. So where would you like to
take the organization? What do you see coming up in
the near future.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
So I would say India has been you know, started
with one class and now we're in fifty one plus
schools and we want to continue to grow, but we
want to grow strategically. We want through a strategic plan
to think about what does growth truly mean for the
organization and doing it in a smart way. I would say,
you know, we always want to be in more schools,
but we also need more more administrative folks to support
(13:09):
the growth, and we want to do it specifically in
areas and neighborhoods that really need it, the underresourced communities.
That's where we're you know, true to India's mission that
all children deserve that right of having access to music
and arts, So you know, looking at neighborhoods where they
wouldn't have necessarily a dance program in the neighborhood, or
(13:29):
their families cannot would not be able to afford to
send their children to a program that's in their neighborhood.
We provide our services free of charge to our children
and our families. We're working directly through the schools for
funding on that. But I think we want to continue
to grow in that way. That's smart and something that
we can support as we continue to grow.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
And as a nonprofit, how are you funded and how
can listeners get involved to support?
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Yes, so as a nonprofit, as you are awhere. The
majority of our funding is coming from anthropy. We have
individuals foundations that we reach out to that help support
the organization, some long lasting relationships we have for many,
many years. But you know, donations are key for an
organization like us. So if anybody is interested, you can
(14:16):
visit our website National Dance dot org and you can donate.
Far I would say if you want to become more involved,
definitely come and see us. We have our big end
of year performance that's happening Father's Day weekend that's June
fourteenth through the sixteenth, and that show is at NYU Scareball.
It'll be an amazing weekend. We have over almost two
(14:37):
hundred children that's going to be on stage throughout multiple pieces,
at least ten plus pieces, and it's an amazing event
that we.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Do every year.
Speaker 5 (14:45):
And the show is celebrating rock music through the ages,
so there'll be a huge live band as part of it.
And Instrumaine said, two hundred children dancing and it's just
a joyful extravaganza. So yeah, if you want to know NDI,
the best way is to come and check it out.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
You can also find out more at National dance dot org.
Our guests have been Jermaine Jones and Kay Gaynor of
the National Dance Institute. Thank you for being on Get Connected.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 6 (15:15):
We're thrilled to be here.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
This has been Get Connected with Nina del Rio on
one oh six point seven light Fm. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you missed any part of our
show or want to share it, visit our website for
downloads and podcasts at one o six to seven lightfm
dot com. Thanks for listening.
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