Creative Arts Repertoire Ensemble Inc

CARE Ballet is the only non-profit performing ballet company in the Greater Grand Rapids that provides direct educational outreach free of charge to school audiences to prepare children to understand a ballet. In addition we then bring the students to the venue and expose them to a live ballet performance, again free of charge.

Since its inception CARE has reached out to schools where at least 80% of the students qualify for the Federal Free & Reduced Lunch Program. This means these students are living at or below the poverty level. Ahead of a performance we send a professional educator and a dancer into the school for an assembly where the students learn the story of the ballet they are going to see. In addition the educator/dancer team explains how dancers tell stories through mime and teach concert behaviors. The dancer leads the children through some of the actual choreography they will be seeing on the stage so they can get the “feel” of the fun and difficulty of ballet. On the Friday of the performance weekend CARE pays for the buses to bring the students to the venue for a live ballet performance and covers the cost of their tickets. Two separate performances are held with 650 students each twice a year. In the last 25 years CARE has introduced over 52,000 economically disadvantaged children and youth to live ballet. After the performances the teachers follow up with a literacy exercise where the children write about their reactions to the ballet and send them to CARE. Scholarships to study at the CARE Conservatory are offered to a limited number of students attending the targeted schools.