Mindshare client Keshet Dance Company honored by Michelle Obama

Mindshare Studios’ client the Keshet Dance Company, a non-profit youth dance organization in Albuquerque, NM has been given a National Award by Michelle Obama.

L to R - Shira Greenberg, Keshet Dance Company Founder and Artistic Director; Elianna Boswell, Keshet Arts Education Student Representative; First Lady Michelle Obama, Honorary Chair of the President's Committee for the Arts and the Humanities.

Keshet Dance Company has been nationally recognized as one of fifteen youth arts and humanities programs to receive the prestigious 2009 Coming Up Taller Award. Shira Greenberg traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend a White House ceremony yesterday, where she accepted the award from the First Lady Michelle Obama.

Keshet received the Coming Up Taller Award for its work with the YDDC, New Mexico’s state juvenile detention facility. Outreach facilitators teach daily dance classes as part of the high school curriculum on site at YDDC, using dance to teach literacy skills, math skills and conflict resolution skills. Keshet then incorporates a pre-release and post-release program to continue mentoring students while they transition out of the facility, providing a structured mentorship program through the parole and reintegration process.

Coming Up Taller is a national initiative that recognizes and supports outstanding out-of-school and after-school arts and humanities programs for children, especially those with great potential but who have limited outlets for creative expression. A project of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH), in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the Coming Up Taller Awards honor programs that offer exceptional learning experiences in the arts and the humanities and that have a tangible effect on the lives of young people as evidenced through improved academic scores, enhanced life skills, and positive relationships with peers and adults.

“We are incredibly honored to receive this prestigious recognition from The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. The power of the arts to change people’s lives is something that we believe in whole-heartedly, and we strive to actuate these changes on a daily basis. This recognition brings new exposure to the work of Keshet so that our programs can serve more people and more lives can be positively affected in the coming years, building a stronger community one life at a time,” said Shira Greenberg, Keshet founder and artistic director.