SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — The South Orange Performing Arts Center received a $75,000 grant from the William Randolph Hearst Foundations to advance its arts education program. The funds will be used both at the center and in the South Orange and Maplewood communities.
The William Randolph Hearst Foundations are two nonprofits that work together to “ensure that people of all backgrounds in the United States have the opportunity to build healthy, productive and inspiring lives,” according to the foundations’ website, www.hearstfdn.org. The organizations focus on the culture, education, health and social services fields. With the grant, SOPAC will work with the South Orange-Maplewood School District to bring a dance program to South Orange and Maplewood middle schools in partnership with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
“It’s notable because this is a national foundation,” SOPAC Executive Director Mark Packer said in an April 20 phone interview with the News-Record. “It’s highly competitive, so it’s very prestigious to win.”
Though the competition was fierce, Hearst Foundations leaders said that SOPAC’s plans were excellent and pushed the performing arts center above its competitors.
“We were very impressed with SOPAC’s compelling grant application and delighted that our board made this first-time award in support of SOPAC’s comprehensive education programs,” Ligia Cravo, Hearst Foundations senior program officer, said in an April 18 press release. “The funding recognizes SOPAC’s high quality instruction and leadership and is especially timely in that it will enable SOPAC to initiate expanded programming in the 2018-2019 school year and beyond.”
The program will begin during the 2018-2019 school year and will allow the district’s middle school students to participate in a 10- to 15-week dance program with two classes each week during the schools’ arts periods at school. They will be able to learn about dance and theater from the professionals at Alvin Ailey, and the courses will culminate in a performance at the end of the program.
According to Packer, working with the school district was one of his goals when applying for the grant.
“Every child has an innate right to artistic expression,” he said. “And in many districts, they’re shortchanged with arts funding. So we went to the district and said, ‘Where can we help you? Where are your gaps?’”
In response to these questions, SOMSD fine arts supervisor James Manno told Packer that the district lacks a dance program for students in kindergarten through grade eight.
“The target is at the middle schools, even though there’s no dance or drama from K to eight,” Manno said in an April 19 phone interview with the News-Record. “The idea is to build a program and to grow the programs like at the high school.”
Packer also wants to see younger students able to participate in the activities offered at Columbia High School; this grant will help make that possible.
“It’ll help create greater longevity as (the students) move through middle school toward high school,” he said. “And they can continue that education.”
Manno said the program with SOPAC and Alvin Ailey came at the perfect time, as financial constraints in the district are making it difficult to start a dance program without community assistance. Many students, he said, might not otherwise have the chance to perform or learn about dance.
According to Packer, the program is aimed at seventh- and eighth-graders at both district middle schools. Focusing on modern dance, the students will have a chance to perform on the SOPAC stage at the end of the program to show off their work.
South Orange and Maplewood are not the only communities that have benefited from working with SOPAC; the performing arts center is facilitating a collaboration between Orange Public Schools and Juilliard to bring instruction to classical-music students in Orange.
“We want to expand our outreach to communities that have limited access to arts resources,” Packer said. “There’s a burgeoning of performances where they can (be involved) and we want to engage the communities in this program.”
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