Table of Contents
Letter from Andrea | Our Impact | Community | Financial Information | Our Partners | Farewell, Ember | Vision for the Future
Five Years of Connection
Heart of Dance isn’t just about dancing – it’s about what happens when people dance together. When Ember Reichgott Junge and I established this nonprofit five years ago, we wanted to get at the heart of what partner dance does for people – it connects them. When you tackle the challenges of learning something new together, share a laugh in a moment of awkwardness, look someone in the eye, an indelible bond is formed.
Since 2015, Heart of Dance has broken down barriers by connecting people of all ages, backgrounds, and genders through partner dance. Every culture celebrates with dance. We can always find common ground in dance. We began with Dancing Classrooms in just four schools in 2015, and by the end of the 2019-2020 school year, we reached more than 9,000 students, adults, and seniors across Minnesota.
Our shared experiences during this challenging year helped create much-needed community. Everyone has something to learn from partner dance – whether it’s respect, empathy, balance, teamwork, or confidence – so we expanded to serve senior communities, working adults, and Dancing Classrooms alumni. We were reminded that the meaningful human connection that Heart of Dance provides is critical to our collective health and happiness and, as a result, we pivoted to virtual lessons to ensure the social and emotional support of partner dance remained accessible to those who need it most, even when we couldn’t dance in person together.
Through this stress and uncertainty, our work is more important than ever. Partner dance helps us recharge and reconnect and Heart of Dance joins hearts and minds, empowers people of all ages, and is a catalyst for real change for future generations. Thank you for joining us on our journey, and for your unwavering support and belief in our mission!
Andrea Mirenda
Executive Director and Co-Founder
“More positivity, more courage, more inclusivity.”
Dancing Classrooms parent
Four Ways Heart of Dance Makes an Impact
Dancing Classrooms
DC Academy
Dance for Life
Barriers into Bridges
Dancing Classrooms
When you get into dance frame and look directly into your partner’s eyes, you understand them at a different level. Overcoming divisions of race, culture, and opportunity, in Dancing Classrooms everybody dances with everybody and students learn to work together with people who are different from themselves. Fifth and eighth graders continue to tackle this challenge while discovering more about themselves and connecting with others. More than dance steps, we’re seeing confidence, gender and culture respect, teamwork, conflict resolution, and more.
Going Virtual
Our dance partners looked a little different this spring than they have over the past five years – but nevertheless the joy of dance persisted in quarantine for students, staff, and volunteers!
DC Academy
Dancing On
For the first time, students had the chance to build on the powerful social skills and dance techniques they learned in Dancing Classrooms in our weekend dance academy. Students now have an opportunity to cultivate new friendships with youth across the metro area from fifth grade to high school. DC Academy moved online this spring to continue dancing for comfort and support.
Dance for Life
We launched our new senior wellness program this year in partnership with Friends of the Mill District and Abiitan Mill City. This first group of seniors came together to experience the healing combination of music and movement to strengthen balance and cognitive focus. Dance for Life quickly spread to White Bear Lake this spring in partnership with the White Bear Lake Community Foundation, and will continue to grow next year as we safely come together in dance frame once again.
“A wonderful opportunity for those who love to dance. I spoke with one woman whose husband had passed. Dancing was one of the things they did together and she was so happy to be able to attend and dance again, as there were others without partners as well.”
“Dance for Life has been a blessing for me. As a 69-year-old stroke survivor there are many residual effects that my body has had to adjust to in day-to-day life. Being in Dance for Life has challenged every one of those; my balance, coordination, memory and recall, stamina, and more! This was right on time for me!”
Shirley
Dance for Life participant
Barriers into Bridges
Barriers into Bridges, a single session personal and professional development workshop, engages teams in a series of collaborative exercises to encourage communication, connection, and real human interaction. As we danced through Barriers into Bridges with school partners, we also enjoyed strengthening the teams of local Rotary Clubs, workplaces, and teaching associations this year.
“Through the dance activity, we got to know each other better and even learned some sweet moves to take home to our significant others! The activity was a great way to build community through movement.”
A Community to Come Home to
Success and Safety
Minnesota Department of Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington judged our Colors of the Rainbow Team Match last fall. Commissioner Harrington spoke to our students about the emotional intelligence they’ve learned through dance and how it will lead them to success throughout their lives.
Five Years of Growth
Total Student Impact
Financial Information
Our Partners
In Gratitude
Ember and Andrea started Heart of Dance five years ago with a vision to bring the transformative power of partner dance they experienced firsthand to their community. Co-Founder Ember Reichgott Junge retired at the end of the school year and transitioned to her new role as “energetic volunteer.” Ember played a crucial role in recruiting school partners, helping thousands of students gain confidence in Dancing Classrooms, and cultivating community supporters and partners to expand our reach in Minnesota.
Our future looks bright thanks to the foundation she helped build! Special thanks also goes to our founding board members – including retiring founding board member and USA Dance Senior Vice President Greg Warner – school partners, and volunteers who have been with us since the beginning.
“The students and educators of Minnesota had never done this before, and frankly neither had we. You believed in us. And though we have thanked many of you since then, we can never do it enough.”
Ember Reichgott Junge
Heart of Dance Co-Founder
The Next Five Years
This has been a milestone year for Heart of Dance in growth and connections. You have seen where we’ve been. Where are we headed next?
Adapting our work for the online world forced us to think on our toes and paved the way to making partner dance even more accessible. We developed virtual and hybrid curriculum that have us prepared for the challenges ahead. We look forward to leveraging these new tools with DC Homeroom Edition to engage more people with partner dance and build community through movement. We’re in conversation with major community and healthcare organizations to bring Dance for Life to more active seniors and memory-care elders too.
When we can once again meet face to face, we will need the healing human connection of partner dance more than ever and focusing on relationships and respect will be vital to our recovery. As we move into this new decade, we look forward to connecting with each other and exploring our inherent assumptions about the world together through dance. We hope you’ll join us on our continued journey to bring the joy of partner dance to all!
Connect Us with Your Community
Schools | Neighborhoods | Workplaces | Senior Organizations
Come dance with us next year! Everyone is a student, everyone can dance. There’s now a Heart of Dance offering for everyone in our community. So let’s get dancing, Minnesota!
