Photos: 92nd Street Y
New York, NY — September 22, 2022 — The 92nd Street Y, New York (92NY) announced a highly anticipated free screening of the new documentary PS DANCE! THE NEXT GENERATION accompanied by a panel discussion with filmmakers Jody Gottfried Arnhold and Nel Shelby, featured faculty member Ann Biddle, and other esteemed guests on Friday, September 30, 2022 at 5pm at Kaufmann Concert Hall. Bringing together the entire dance community – from choreographers and dancers to educators and aficionados – the evening is a don’t-miss event that explores the future of dance education in America and beyond. Register for free at 92ny.org/event/ps-dance-the- next-generation.
The event will begin at 4:30pm with a reception at 92NY’s Weill Art Gallery and will feature opening remarks from NYC Department of Education Chancellor David C. Banks, and a dance performance by members from the Brooklyn High School of the Arts senior class.
“It has been an honor to create PS DANCE! THE NEXT GENERATION,” said Jody Gottfried Arnhold, Dance Education Laboratory (DEL) founder and 92NY Board Chair. “Our newest documentary showcases the DEL model and the power of dance education in public schools. The film follows middle and high school students who have been immersed in DEL and are empowered to plan, design, and teach dance to classrooms of elementary students. Everyone is choreographing and performing dances. As the process unfolds, transformational changes occur. Students learn meaningful life skills, educators find inspiration, school administrators benefit from a renewed sense of energy in the halls, and families watch their children grow and thrive in phenomenal and unexpected ways. We see how the DEL model can be adapted for every educational and artistic environment. When dance is integrated into curriculum, inspiring stories like these are possible in every school. We are thrilled to share this film with the NYC dance community this September.”
About PSDANCE! THE NEXT GENERATION: The makers of New York Emmy Award-nominated documentary PS DANCE! (2015) are back to prove that with ingenuity and commitment, every school can be a dance school. PS DANCE! THE NEXT GENERATION shows what happens when students become the teachers. When Ann Biddle, founding faculty of the Dance Education Laboratory (DEL), moved to Northampton, MA, she was determined to bring dance education to the schools in her new town. She turned to her students to make it happen. High school and middle school dance students were immersed in the DEL teaching methods to teach elementary school students dance. Students emerged inspired and empowered to become the next generation of dance educators.
Created by Jody Gottfried Arnhold and Nel Shelby, PS DANCE! THE NEXT GENERATION follows the journey of Ann and her students as they build confidence, learn responsibility, and find their passion through the DEL model.
Each year, DEL dance mentors from Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Public Charter School in South Hadley, MA put into practice what they’ve learned by leading students at Leeds Elementary School in Northampton, MA in a three-week dance intensive. The program’s unique combination of community service, mentoring, collaborative teaching, and high-level training is nothing short of transformational, all beautifully captured in PS DANCE! THE NEXT GENERATION.
DEL started in New York at 92NY, and since the onset of the pandemic, teachers across the nation and the world have received support from virtual learning with DEL. Now, there is tremendous opportunity for expansion of this powerful method. Currently, there are close to 400 dance teachers serving New York City’s 1,800 public schools, 192 of whom hold a New York State dance teacher license. With a significant new education budget allocation to support arts in schools, this is a definitive moment in New York City arts education history. Dance teachers are now listed as a high-need subject area, and this film shows us why.
What people are saying about PS DANCE! THE NEXT GENERATION:
“PS DANCE! is awe-inspiring! To see these children receive encouragement and confidence through meaningful storytelling through dance should be an integral part of all learning. As evidenced in this film, dance opens minds and creates leaders, and this is why it’s so vital to our education system.” – Misty Copeland, American Ballet Theatre
“There are everyday unseen miracles that occur in our world. DEL unveils the power of the miracle of dance passed from leader to teacher to student to create dance leaders. This film is inspiring! It provides a joyous path to what is possible through dance education. What is wondrous is that DEL exists. What the world needs is this miracle of dance education. We really need this!” – Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Urban Bush Women
“PS DANCE! The Next Generation helps us to understand the importance of Dance. Dance allows for us to express our emotions and increase our awareness of ourselves and others through creative movement, DEL is the light that we need for our children of the next generation!” – Linda Celeste Sims, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
“I absolutely loved PS DANCE! and learned so much from it myself. There are tons of things the DEL program has that I can adapt to my own creative process in storytelling. PS DANCE! showed me that not all kids are the same or learn the same. So when teaching in a way where they can learn what they need to learn but also express themselves in a unique way at the same time is very important for everyone’s unique process of learning.” – Lil Buck
Film Credits
Produced & Directed by Nel Shelby
Executive Producer Jody Gottfried Arnhold
Edited by Ashli Bickford
Supervising Editor Nel Shelby
Music composed by Punchandice (Alba S. Torremocha & Lillie R. McDonough)
Cinematographers Ashli Bickford, Nate Reininga & Nel Shelby
Drone Operator Nate Reininga
On-location sound Jim Petty
Audio Mixer Donovan Dorrance
Color Grading Cody Buesing
Graphic Design Nate Reininga
Copywriting Amy Jacobus
Photos by Shana Sureck
Events are for fully vaccinated audiences. For more information, including purchasing tickets and COVID-19 protocols for in-person performances, please visit https://www.92ny.org/concerts.
Jody Gottfried Arnhold (Executive Producer)
Jody Gottfried Arnhold, MA, CMA, Founder of Dance Education Laboratory (DEL) at 92Y, is a luminary in dance education and an advocate for dance. She created DEL in response to the need for a practical and focused dance pedagogy program. Through DEL, Jody aims to inspire and prepare teachers to work with children and teens. She continues these efforts as Executive Producer of the NY Emmy nominated documentary, PS DANCE! Dance Education in Public Schools, to raise awareness and advocate for her mission, Dance for Every Child.
Teaching dance in NYC public schools for more than 25 years, has provided Jody with the experiences that continue to guide her dance education efforts including supporting the dance program at the New York City Department of Education, creating the Arnhold Graduate Dance Education Program at Hunter College, and serving as the visionary benefactor behind the Doctorate in Dance Education and the Arnhold Institute for Dance Education Research, Policy & Leadership at Teachers College Columbia University. Jody supports and champions many NYC dance companies including Ballet Hispanico where she is Honorary Chair. She also supports and mentors countless dance teachers many of whom now lead the field.
Jody serves on the Advisory Committee for Arts Education at the New York City Department of Education and was Co-Chair of the Committee that created the Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in Dance K-12. She is on the Board at 92Y, Hunter College, Harkness Foundation for Dance, and on the Advisory Committee of Dance/NYC. She has received National Dance Education Organization’s Visionary Award, Education Update’s Distinguished Leader in Education Award, and Teachers College Distinguished Alumni Award. Jody has received the Floria V. Lasky Award, Dance Films Association’s Dance in Focus Award, and the New York State Dance Education Association Outstanding Leadership Award. She has been honored by Lincoln Center Education, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Jose Limon Dance Foundation, Dancewave, American Dance Guild, and NYC Arts in Education Roundtable for her contributions to dance and dance education.
Jody holds a BA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, an MA in Dance Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and is a Certified Movement Analyst (CMA).
DEL has been named an Outstanding Program by the National Dance Education Organization.
Nel Shelby (Producer & Director)
Nel Shelby is dedicated to the preservation and promotion of dance through excellent documentation of live performances, high-quality production of livestreams and virtual programming, the creation of smart and engaging marketing videos, and the making of original documentaries and films covering a variety of topics in the field.
Her New York City-based video production company, Nel Shelby Productions, has grown to encompass a diverse list of dance clients. The entire team has training in movement, so they understand dance from both sides of the lens.
Nel produced and directed New York Emmy-nominated PS DANCE!, an hour-long documentary about dance education in NYC’s public schools, created with Executive Producer Jody Gottfried Arnhold and Consultant Joan Finkelstein and narrated by veteran television journalist Paula Zahn. PS DANCE! had its premiere broadcast on THIRTEEN/WNET in May 2015 and has since aired on public television networks across the country. PS DANCE! has also screened at a variety of educational and cultural panels for Dance/NYC, Teachers College at Columbia University, University of Maryland, National Dance Organization, Rutgers University, New York Historical Society, Dance on Camera at Lincoln Center and more.
A second film PS DANCE! THE NEXT GENERATION had its debut broadcast on ALL ARTS and WNET/THIRTEEN in summer 2022.
Nel’s half-hour dance documentary Where Women Don’t Dance featuring Nejla Y. Yatkin has had screenings at Links Hall in Chicago, Reston Center Stage in Virginia, Dance Place in Washington, D.C., Yonkers Film Festival and Jacob’s Pillow Dance. Nel has also created four short films for Wendy Whelan’s Restless Creature, and she collaborated with Adam Barruch Dance on a short film titled Folie à Deux, which was selected and screened at New York City’s Dance on Camera Festival and San Francisco Dance Film Festival.
Nel is Director of Media for the internationally celebrated Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in the Berkshires. Each season at the Pillow, Nel’s responsibilities include documenting aspects of festival culture in addition to its 20 mainstage dance performances, filming and overseeing documentation of more than 100 free performances and events, managing two dance videography interns and an apprentice, and educating students about the technical and philosophical aspects of filming dance.
Nel also serves as Director of Media at Vail Dance Festival where she creates short dance documentary films and marketing videos about the festival in addition to documenting performances. Her longer-form, half-hour documentary on Vail’s festival, The Altitude of Dance, debuted on Rocky Mountain PBS in May 2013.
Nel has a long personal history with movement. She has a BFA in dance and is a certified Pilates instructor. In addition to her dance degree, Nel holds a B.S. in broadcast video. She lives in New York City with her husband, dance photographer Christopher Duggan, and their two children.
To learn more about Nel and her work, visit nelshelby.com and follow @nelshelbyfilms on Instagram.
Joan Finkelstein (Dance Education Consultant)
Joan Finkelstein is Executive Director of the Harkness Foundation for Dance She has performed professionally in dance companies and in RAGS on Broadway, choreographed for the Atlanta Ballet and Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, and taught children and adults across the nation. She directed the 92Y Harkness Dance Center from 1992-2004, overseeing classes, the 92Y Dance Education Laboratory (DEL) teacher-training program, performances, workshops, lectures, and social dances. As Director of Dance for the New York City Department of Education from 2004-2014, she spearheaded the Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in Dance, PreK-12 and professional development for dance teachers. She is a writer of the new National Core Arts Standards in Dance.
Shakia Barron (Featured DEL Faculty)
Shakia Barron is a choreographer, performer, and dance educator whose work is rooted in the African Diaspora, focusing on Hip-Hop, House, and other African diasporic dance forms. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Dance at Mount Holyoke College. She graduated with her MFA in Choreography at Wilson College, she holds an Associate’s degree in dance and psychology from Dean College, a Bachelor’s in liberal arts from Westfield State University, and she received the National Dance Institute’s teaching artist certificate in 2009. She graduated with her MFA in Choreography at Wilson College, she holds an Associate’s degree in dance and psychology from Dean College, a Bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from Westfield State University, and she received the National Dance Institute’s teaching artist certificate in 2009. Her other dance training includes the Bates Dance Festival, Jacob’s Pillow, and Pioneer Valley’s Performing Arts Charter School.
Barron has choreographed and directed more than 50 Hip-Hop, modern, African and lyrical works that have been performed at Trenton Educational Dance Institute, Rider University, the Princeton School of Ballet, Bates Dance Festival and Jacob’s Pillow. She has performed for numerous Hip-Hop events and has opened for concerts by Fat Joe, Jadakiss, 112, Charlie Baltimore, and Kima from “Total” and Omarion. In 2005, she choreographed a Hip-Hop number for the Celtics/NBA half-time show. Barron has toured nationally and internationally, dancing with Face Da Phlave Entertainment and Illstyle and Peace Productions. And recently, she made a guest appearance with Rennie Harris PureMovement. Her recent work titled “Concourse” was performed at Jacobs Pillow in October 2021.
As a dance educator, Barron spent four years teaching at the Bates Dance Festival and taught community classes at Jacob’s Pillow. Barron is a DEL faculty member who has facilitated multiple professional Development workshops around the integration of Hip-Hip dance and history in the curriculum. Her work titled “Our House” was selected to be performed for Community Day at Jacob’s Pillow in 2019. Barron was also the 2019 Arthur Levitt Jr. ’52 Artist-in-Residence at Williams College. Prior to joining Mount Holyoke College Dance Department as a full-time tenure track faculty, she served as an adjunct at UMASS Amherst, Smith, Amherst and Connecticut colleges.
Ann Biddle (Featured DEL Faculty)
Ann Biddle, M.A., has been a dance educator, staff developer, curriculum consultant, writer, and choreographer for the past 30 years. She is currently the Director of the Dance Education Laboratory (DEL) Institute – Teacher Certificate Program and the Director of DEL at Jacob’s Pillow. As the Founding Faculty of the Dance Education Laboratory (DEL) at the 92nd St Y with Jody Arnhold (1994 to present) Ms. Biddle has designed and taught multiple courses for DEL including Foundations in Dance Education, DEL Essentials, Planet Dance-Multicultural Dance Education, Dancing in Early Childhood, Dance and Nature, Teaching from Transformation to Inspiration (Tina Curran), Dance and Literacy (Barbara Bashaw), Teaching Dance Technique, DEL: The Next Generation, the DEL Facilitators Training Program, Dance for Social Change, Hip Hop to the Top (Shakia Barron & Eli Kababa), Tracing Footsteps, From Inspiration to Design and the DEL Essentials OPDI course for NDEO. In addition, Ms. Biddle, in partnership with colleague Felice Santorelli, has designed numerous courses centered on reimagining dance history as the Director of DEL at Jacob’s Pillow. Ms. Biddle has been a Dance Lecturer at UMASS/Amherst, Mount Holyoke College, Ball State University, Kenyon College and Skidmore College.
As a staff developer and curriculum consultant, Ms. Biddle has partnered with numerous cultural organizations including Dorrance Dance, Urban Bush Women, Doug Varone, Flamenco Vivo, Jose Limon Dance Company, Ballet Hispanico, New York City Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Movement Research, Jonah Bokaer, HT Chen Dance Center, and Robin Becker Dance Company. Ms. Biddle has taught overseas at the National University in Costa Rica as a Fulbright scholar and at the School of Performing Arts at the University of Ghana. Additionally, she worked closely with the late Alan Lomax as a Choreometrics analyst.
Ms. Biddle was an advisor and contributor to the NYC Department of Education’s Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in Dance, PreK-12, and has been an NYCDOE Blueprint professional development facilitator since 2005. Ms. Biddle is also a scorer for the Massachusetts Dance MTEL exam. She was the Director of Arts Programs at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter School (PVPA) in South Hadley, MA, and Director of the Dance Department from 2011-2018. She is the Director of the DEL PVPA dance mentorship program featured in the documentary film, PS Dance! The Next Generation, Executive Producer, Jody Arnhold, filmmaker, Nel Shelby.
As a writer, Ms. Biddle’s dance teachers’ curricula and training manuals include The Essence of Cool: West Side Story, New York Export: Opus Jazz the Film (NYC Ballet), Dance Motion USA Doug Varone and Argentinian Brenda Angiel’s aerial collaboration, Richard Daniel’s Dances for iPhone film series, Wonderdance early childhood curriculum, Dance Making Inspired by Langston Hughes Poetry, Re-imagining D-Man in the Waters, the DEL Facilitators Training Manual and Robin Becker’s Into Sunlight Dance Curriculum. She is a frequent presenter at NDEO conferences and was selected to pilot the Model Cornerstone Assessments as part of NCCA. In addition, Ms. Biddle has published integrated curricular units though the NYC DOE such as Dance Units Inspired by Literary Works (2016), and The Essence of Pearl Primus through Photography and Poetry: The Negro Speaks of Rivers (2018). Ms. Biddle is currently the Project Director of the DEL Tracing Footsteps: Honoring Diverse Voices in NYC Dance History curriculum project now in its third year.
She earned a B.A. in English Literature from Kenyon College, a M.A. in Dance Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and was a Fulbright Scholar in Costa Rica. Ms. Biddle is currently a doctoral candidate in the Dance Education EdD program at Teachers College and is a recipient of the Susan Furhman and Arnhold Foundation scholarships. Her research interests include teacher education and preparation in K-12, transformational leadership, educational mentoring and coaching, and dance and social justice.
Felice Santorelli (Featured DEL Faculty)
Felica Santorelli (EdM Dance Education, BFA Dance and Choreography) is a full-time dance educator at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School in Western Massachusetts. Santorelli’s teaching experience ranges from K-12 to higher education and in various styles of dance. Santorelli designs dance curriculum that blends skill-building in technique, creative dance making, improvisation, and dance history, and draws connections between dance and the world and other art forms. Santorelli is the Artistic Director of Catalyst Dance Company, offering mentorship to student choreographers whose work has been celebrated at the National and Regional High School Dance Festivals. At PVPA she also leads the DEL PVPA dance mentoring program, established by DEL Founding Faculty Ann Biddle with generous support from the Arnhold Foundation. Santorelli is featured in the upcoming film PS Dance! The Next Generation made by Nel Shelby to be premiered in 2021. Santorelli co-facilitates workshops for the DEL at Jacob’s Pillow program, leading professional development for dancers and dance educators (DEL Essentials, Dance for Social Justice, and the Delving into Dance History series). Additional work includes Pilot Teaching for the National Core Arts Standards for Dance as well as contributions to various curriculum writing projects, including a contribution to Ann Biddle’s “The Essence of Cool: West Side Story” for the NYC DOE.
Harkness Dance Center – 92Y School of Dance and DEL (Dance Education Laboratory)
We offer opportunities each year for all the artists in our performance series to connect directly with our broader Dance Center community either by leading classes and workshops for the students in our School of Dance or work closely with dance educators through DEL’s professional training programs to extend their impact and reach into the New York City public school system.
Brooklyn High School of the Arts
Brooklyn High School of the Arts is a dual-mission high school dedicated to providing aspiring artists and scholars with an academically rigorous pre-college course of study and a comprehensive, four-year pre-conservatory arts program. At Brooklyn Arts, life-long learners use their creativity to enrich their education, learning both the artistic and professional skills required in their field of study. By using the abundant resources of New York City, students are challenged to achieve their greatest artistic and academic potential. Brooklyn Arts fosters meaningful partnerships with parents, families, and the community to holistically develop global citizens who are prepared to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
The vision of Brooklyn High school of the Arts is to provide an exemplary arts and academic education to culturally and socio-economically diverse students who have a passion for the arts. Their graduates are lifelong artist scholars who will utilize the skills they have developed in the arts to go on to college, and to successful careers in a wide range of professions.
The Brooklyn High School of the Arts Dance Program strives to offer dance students the opportunity to develop their skills both in school and in professional venues. Through study in the Dance Program, students will develop their talents in classical ballet, contemporary and modern dance. Students will graduate prepared for the rigors of a Liberal Arts or Conservatory college program. Students work with professional choreographers each year to hone their skills and learn their craft.
