Executive Assistant to CEO & Founder: New Ballet Ensemble and School (NBE) is a Creative Youth Development Program focused on setting high expectations for young people, encouraging positive risk-taking, promoting leadership development, and offering real world opportunities to contribute to social change.
The organization’s mission is to bring together children from all backgrounds by providing a professional standard of training,regardless of the ability to pay. Using conservatory training as a model, NBE instills knowledge of West African dance, Hip Hop, and Flamenco alongside Ballet training so young people have access to the disciplines present in BFA programs today.
Educational outreach is a major component of New Ballet’s mission fulfillment to create access to dance to those who otherwise would have none. The Pathways Program is NBE’s largest outreach initiative involving MSCS as partners. Additionally, we operate satellite programs and perform school shows and conduct in-school workshops as a part of our extended outreach in Memphis and the surrounding area. Pre-COVID, NBE would reach approximately 200 students all over the city at least once a week through weekly dance classes and several thousand students with our school shows, annually. Students engaged in community programming are invited to participate in the programming of our main facility if they want to dive deeper into dance. Access is facilitated through active recruitment and scholarship support offered on an annual basis.
NBE was awarded the 2014 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award from the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, First Lady Michelle Obama (Chair), recognizing the program for using engagement in the arts and the humanities to increase academic achievement, graduation rates, and college enrollment. The award also recognizes NBE for improving literacy and language abilities, communication and performance skills, and cultural awareness. NBE has been featured in the NY Times, prominent dance publications and has performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. NBE is the home of dance sensation, Lil Buck.