At the core of the Acosta Dance Foundation lies a profound commitment to making dance an accessible and transformative experience for all. Driving forward the Foundation’s cause of inspiring a dancer in every home are the Education and Community Engagement Programmes (ECPs). In this exclusive interview, Yma de Almeida, ECPs Coordinator, delves into the inspiration, cultural integration, and profound impact of these initiatives.
Inspiration Behind the ECPs
The ECPs were created to provide high-quality, inclusive dance education aimed at helping children and young people face personal, social, and emotional challenges. In a digital age marked by FOMO and FOBLO, these programs offer safe spaces to reconnect participants with their bodies and communities. Through dance, they promote resilience, emotional intelligence, creativity, and a strong sense of belonging.
Integrating Cuban Heritage
The ECP experience centers on Afro-Cuban dance, music, and storytelling, featuring traditional forms like Salsa, Mambo, Rumba, and Reggaeton. Participants enjoy live rhythms and Yoruba-rooted Patakies in a bilingual workshop environment, fostering cultural immersion. Students respond positively, finding new self-expression and connections to diverse cultures. Workshops help youth overcome shyness, embrace physicality, and feel empowered, while teachers note high engagement and a strong desire to continue dancing.
Fulfilling the Mission: A Dancer in Every Home
The Sunday Community-Based Performance Group embodies the ECP’s mission by bringing together individuals aged 20 to 70, including beginners and those with disabilities, to create live Tanz theatre performances. This initiative enhances confidence and resilience while fostering community and belonging. It showcases how discipline and creativity can transform improvisation into structured art, using dance for healing and communication.
Additionally, a workshop at the Acosta Dance Centre for 60 children aged 6-7 combined Afro-Cuban Dance and Ballet Creative Dance, resulting in a performance that celebrated joy and shared experiences, reflecting the ECP’s vision of dance as a bridge across generations and backgrounds.
Selection Process and Ensuring Accessibility
The ECPs prioritize human connection and openness to creativity over solely focusing on location or socioeconomic profiles when selecting schools and community partners. They engage with institutions that express a genuine interest in supporting students’ emotional well-being, identity development, and artistic curiosity, recognizing that challenges like disconnection, anxiety, or identity struggles affect all children and adolescents, not just those in underserved areas. The process involves active listening and dialogue with teachers and youth leaders, co-creating workshops tailored to each group’s needs, and ensuring a safe, accessible, and culturally rich environment. This model fosters a creative community based on shared human experience, where every child feels included, valued, and inspired to move.
Addressing the Needs of Today’s Youth
The ECPs acknowledge that today’s young people are growing up in complex environments, with pressures to perform, compare, and remain constantly “online” impacting mental health and social development. Dance offers a rare opportunity to slow down, be present, connect with others, and express oneself in a safe and embodied way. Through heritage, rhythm, and storytelling, the programmes cultivate spaces where children and communities not only learn to dance but also learn to belong, reflect, collaborate, and celebrate life together. In essence, the Acosta Dance Foundation’s Education and Community Engagement Programmes, under the guidance of Yma Almeida, are not merely about teaching dance steps. They are about weaving a tapestry of cultural appreciation, personal growth, and community cohesion, ensuring that dance becomes a universal language of connection and empowerment
