Leaps Outreach Program

Education Programs Coordinator Colleen Lahti shares an insider’s look to one of Tulsa Ballet’s most successful outreach programs. Thanks to our generous supporters, including many Sinatra Ball guests who recently helped us raise more than $18,000 for outreach programs during the event’s live auction, Tulsa Ballet is able to educate local school children about the beauty, discipline and fun in dance.

Leaps Outreach Program is in full swing!  What does that mean exactly?  It means that three mornings a week, nearly 200 students travel from their elementary schools to Tulsa Ballet for ballet class!  The morning starts out when the students from Marshall Elementary and Wright Elementary arrive and make their way into the student locker rooms to change into their ballet uniform (provided by Tulsa Ballet).  Then it’s around the corner into their assigned studio –Pam Cameron teaches the girls’ class and Andrea Wamble teaches the boys’ class.   For the next forty-five minutes, the students are intensely focused on the different and challenging movements being demonstrated first by their instructors.  Even the accompanying school teachers join in when it’s the students’ turn!  After class, it’s back out to the locker room to change back into their school uniform before heading out the front doors and back to their schools. 

Our first week was a little different from the normal routine, as Tulsa Ballet staff and volunteers took several students at a time out of class and administered tests in jumping, sit-ups, flexibility and balancing to all participants.  At the end of the six week program, we will do another set of the same tests to show students how their ballet classes have helped them improve in these foundational areas!

 I love seeing this program come to fruition since this may be the only exposure to the art of ballet that hundreds of children receive every year.  Each student’s family also receives a voucher for free tickets to one of the Tulsa Ballet’s performances at the Tulsa PAC, broadening even more the horizon for appreciation of dance beyond the individual student.  I have had the pleasure of seeing over the years several of our TBCDE students start out in the Leaps Outreach Program and continue to nurture their love of ballet right here in the Tulsa Ballet studios.  -Colleen Lahti

Marshall Second Grade Boys

Marshall Second Grade Girls