CityStep Columbia

in New York City since 2022

10 college-student teachers | 1 community partner | 50 kids

CityStep Columbia partners with Inwood Academy for Leadership Middle School, serving the entire fifth grade, with children hailing from Washington Heights, Harlem and the Bronx. See the video below of the Spring 2024 End of Year event at Harlem School of the Arts!

In 2022, our pilot year, we partnered with Harlem School of the Arts to create two pieces in an evening-length celebration of Duke Ellington's masterwork Such Sweet Thunder, directed by CityStep Founder Sabrina Peck. Guest artists included Mercedes Ellington, LaTasha Barnes, Omar Edwards, Derek Brockington, Orlando Hernandez --and CityStep Alums Madelyn Ho and Maria de Lourdes Davila! See below a slide show of our first year, followed by the short documentary about CityStep Columbia's work with the HSA Juniors in Such Sweet Thunder: A Columbia-Harlem Concert Dance. And Read the article

The Co-Executive Director team with CityStep Founder Sabrina Tracy Peck, guest teacher Flor Quispe, MS245’s principal, and a teacher

“Passing the energy” with students in their Spanish classroom at MS245

CityStep Music Director, Sam Pottash, drums the rhythm of the class

The teaching team trains to engage others in the CityStep method during their first full school year

The Harlem School of the Arts contemporary dance teen group, along with student teacher Annelise (Barnard College ‘25), take on The Forum stage in Such Sweet Thunder as Duke Ellington’s “The Telecasters”

Harlem School of the Arts juniors, along with student teachers Audrey (School of General Studies ‘23) and Sarina (Barnard College ‘25), personalize the power of storytelling as they channel Othello in the opening piece.

The dancers embody the witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Iago in Othello.

In moments of synchronization, dancers drew from their own relationship to Duke Ellington’s work and life.

Dancers set the scene as the boat and waves for Mercedes Ellington and featured dancers.

The team tours Harlem to inspire and expand their understanding of Duke Ellington, the jazz renaissance and local history

And elsewhere in New York… We hope to expand CityStep to other colleges and communities in the five boroughs of New York City, so we can bring children together from across the city in creativity, collaboration and mutual understanding.

Help us engage more city schoolchildren in more communities in need!
Have ideas? Email contact@citystep.org. And if you can, please Make a Donation.

CityStep Columbia

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