International Dance Exchange Program • 2014-15

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Movement Exchange

MISSION:

Movement Exchange provides dance education to at-risk youth and marginalized communities, and uses dance as a tool for community empowerment.

We want to bridge the gap between the U.S. and India through the vehicle of dance, nurturing cross cultural understanding, creative expression and civic engagement.

Table of Contents

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4–5Creating Sustainability•

6–7Serving India//Expansion•

8 Let’s Connect•

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Dance Education/

At 25, and working in community

development in Panama, Central

America, Anna Pasternak (founder of

Movement Exchange), dreamed of a

dancer’s version of Doctors Without

Borders. She asked, “How can dance

education reach underserved populations,

and how can trained dancers use their skill

set to give back to the world?”

Movement Exchange uses dance as a

tool for community empowerment. Our

program mobilizes U.S. dancers to travel abroad

and engage in a 2-week cultural immersion trip

that is focused on dance and service.

Creating Sustainable

Indiana University teaching at our partner orphanage Malambo in Panama. Movement

Exchange supports year-round education at Malambo Orphanage, housing hundreds of at-risk women.

Education: Peer Collaboration

Our dance diplomats collaborate with local professional artists abroad, teaching dance, learning classical and contemporary forms, and cultivating an

experience founded on dialogue, cultural immersion and peer exchange.

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Outreach: Teaching Youth

Movement Exchange creates dance education programs in orphanages

and at-risk youth foundations.Through volunteer service at these institutions,

our outreach efforts empower youth with values of empathy, leadership, team cooperation, self-confidence, critical

thinking and health.

Sustainability: Community Impact

Movement Exchange supports dance education year-round by financially supporting our partners, employing local dance instructors to give back to their own community. Our dance diplomats also return from their experiences as global citizens committed to helping in their own community.

Movement Exchange uses dance as a tool for community empowerment. Through outreach, education and sustainability, we are pioneers in “dance diplomacy.”

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University Support/

Who are our dance diplomats?

Alumni of our program have included

professional dancers, educators, health

professionals, and most actively, university students.

These students have established dance education

programs in their own communities, spreading

the mission of Movement Exchange across 27

universities.

W ith years of training, curriculum

development, pedagogy and research,

our university chapters are redefining the dancer’s

role in the global context of human development,

cross-cultural understanding, and the dance

community.

Impact of Sustainable Dance Education

Witnessing what this program provides first-hand makes it impossible to remain inactive or apathetic.— Movement Exchange Dance Diplomat

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Partnership/

In January, 2015, Movement Exchange

will expand its program to India. Our goal

is to develop long lasting partnerships with

community and arts organizations, in order

to create a sustainable model where dance

serves year-round as a vehicle for cross-

cultural understanding, civic engagement,

and creative expression.

Outreach US dancers will give back as they extend their experience upon the local Indian community for the first time. This time around, in Mumbai and Kolkata.

Education In the same vein, our dancers will work alongside the local dance community extending curriculum, pedagogy and re-search, in collaboration with local dancers.

Sustainability Our community work continues long after we come home by financially enabling local instructors to teach year-round in the communities we serve, while at the same time, our US dancers extend outreach work in the global dance community.

Active since 1960, SEC educates and rehabilitates children and adults with physical disabilities from underserved populations. They provide educational, medical, and vocational services to 700 students every year.

A growing

Development

Mumbai & Kolkata/

A growingA growing

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Mumbai Outreach Active since 1960, The Society for the

Education of the Crippled (SEC) educates and rehabilitates children and adults with

physical disabilities from underserved populations. They provide educational,

medical, and vocational services to 700 students every year.

Movement Exchange will bring a holistic approach to dance education, giving these

children strength drawn from a natural inclination to move. www.secindia.org

Kolkata Outreach Ek Prayaas—“an effort” in Hindi—

supports, educates, and develops the lives of underprivileged children in West Bengal. Housing 130 children between the ages of four and fourteen, Ek Prayaas offers both academic and vocational training, with a

mission to advance “literacy into learning.”

Movement Exchange will provide dance education to Ek Prayaas in alliance with

the local Kolkata dance school, DNA Danceworks. We believe the best way to immerse our sustainable model into new communities is by first developing

partnerships with local established dance leaders.

Map of the 1st Movement Exchange India - January 2015

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Curriculum DevelopmentWe are committed to the research required to provide sensitive and customized dance education that is relevant to the physical, developmental, and emotional needs of our participants.

Ensuring SustainabilityIn the same way we have established our Panama program, Movement Exchange maintains sustainable impact as the number one priority. Not only will we bring dance diplomats to new communities in India for outreach and exchange, but we will ensure sustainable dance education for at-risk youth in two main ways:

Empowerment & Financial Support

We are committed to empowering relationships between local Indian dancers and the communites we serve, by creating dance education programs that didn’t previously exist, and donating to these very partners.

India/Partner Development

Movement Exchange empowers communities

through the universal language of dance.

Become a partner invested in human development

through the arts, integrating the individual and the

community with an empathetic exchange of artists to

unite dance, service, collaboration, cultural immersion

and sustainability.

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Mei-Ling Murray Nisha Singh

E: mei-ling@movementexchanges.org E: nisha@movementexchanges.org

www.movementexchanges.org

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