PROGRAMS
What students have to say
Hispanic Culture Arts brings in-person and virtual programs to schools in Manhattan, Bronx, Westchester and Rockland County, serving all students both in community and specialized schools. We offer a range of artistic residencies and school assemblies.
Please reach out to us with your program needs, for dates that you want to highlight at your schools such as Hispanic Heritage Month, Women's History Month, Black History Month, World Book Day, International Education Day, Human Rights Day, International Dance Day and World Theatre Day.
Artistic residencies
An artistic residency is a collaborative program during school hours, where professional artists work directly with students and teachers for a set period, providing immersive, hands-on arts experiences. These programs, often lasting weeks or months, integrate arts into the curriculum, boost student creativity, and produce final culminating showcase for the school community.
School assemblies
Our school assemblies is a live and interactive educational performance—with music, dance, and storytelling—designed to bring, cultural, and artistic enrichment directly to students. Lasting about 60 minutes, Hispanic Culture Arts offers presentations that are curriculum-aligned, by professional artists, with aiming to engage students using interactive Q/A’s and dance and music demos in order to expose them to the diverse artistic expressions found in the Hispanic World.
Residency
Museum Education Series
El Patio de mi Casa
Introduction to song and dance from Puerto Rico, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Spain, with instruction in hand percussion instruments such as the clave, pandero and pandereta for elementary school aged children. This curriculum supports Social Studies, as well as leading students to explore the meaning of community, and their place within it. Our essential question of "How am I a citizen of the world?" is the guiding thought through this fun and interactive program.
Elementary school
Residency
Museum Education Series
El Sombrero de Tres Picos
This bi-lingual arts residency is inspired by the 20th century ballet masterpiece, "El Sombrero de Tres Picos" or "The Three-Cornered Hat." With libretto by early 20th-century playwright María Lejárraga and music by Spanish composer Manuel de Falla, students will become cultural interpreters of “El Sombrero de tres picos,” finding personal relevance with this work to modern-day life in New York City.
Middle school, High school
Residency
Museum Education Series
!Anda Jaleo! & the Art of Storytelling
A bi-lingual arts education program that highlights music, dance, visual arts and storytelling, set in the region of Spain known as Andalucía. Workshop participants learn to sing, dance and make art, culminating in a final showcase where they will display their art work and perform for their peers.
Elementary school
Residency
Museum Education Series
I, Juan de Pareja
Utilizing the Newberry Medal winner novel of the same name as inspiration, this workshop explores the life of Juan de Pareja, slave and master apprentice to 17th century Spanish painter Diego Velázquez. The workshop incorporates baroque dance, music and painting, using social equality themes contextualized in 17th century Spain and Italy. Pareja was a master painter in his own right, and continued to paint after his manumission from Velázquez.
Middle school, High school
Assembly, Residency
Museum Education Series
¡Viva la Zarzuela!
Zarzuela is a Spanish musical theater genre that alternates between spoken dialogue and sung scenes. It incorporates operatic and popular songs as well as dance. Comparable to American operetta and musical theater, zarzuela features music and dance rooted in Spanish traditions, with stories that reflect life in Spain. This program is a “Broadway…or Zarzuela Review,” showcasing some of the greatest hits from the zarzuela repertory.
Elementary school, High school, Middle school
Residency
Museum Education Series
Our Avenue of the Americas
Teaching artists lead students in their own cultural walk down “Our Avenue of the Americas” and explore the dances and songs from four countries: Colombia, Mexico, Dominican Republic and Brazil, celebrating the diversity of culture that we are part of in our great city and creating a performance platform and opportunity for students to experience pride in the Hispanic heritage of New York City.
D-75, Special needs
Residency
Museum Education Series
El Amor Brujo
Inspired by the Spanish ballet, this bi-lingual arts residency combines poetry, music, dance and flamenco culture. Based on the poetry and songs of María Lejárraga’s libretto and the music by Manuel de Falla, students explore themes of power, obsession and freedom while exposed to the rich flamenco culture, and have the opportunity to explore poetry, music, dance, and visual arts. The residency culminates with a reconstruction of scenes from El Amor Brujo with a NYC twist.
Middle school, High school
Residency
Museum Education Series
Playing on the Borderline
Playing on the Borderline: Music, Visual Arts, Movement & Global Citizenship is an arts residency inspired by the musical work in the video “Borderline: Batucada with Orchestra” by Spanish born and lifetime New Yorker, composer Ricardo Llorca. Infused with the “Batucada” rhythms of Bahia (Brazil), Llorca created his work as a reaction to the global inequities protests occurring in Madrid in 2010.
Middle school, Elementary school
Assembly
Museum Education Series
Folklore y Arte: Songs & Dances from the Hispanic World
A performing arts showcase presenting songs and dances from the Hispanic World that come from "folkloric" roots. Songs and dances can have humble beginnings, but they are still very much an art form, and can travel from a small village, to the living rooms where we make music with our families, to the world's largest theaters, all the way to our own school auditorium here in New York City!
Elementary school, Middle school, High school
Assembly
Museum Education Series
A Vision of Spain
Inspired by Joaquín Sorolla’s panels of the same name, this workshop offers an exploration of spirited folkloric costumes, music, and dances from the Iberian peninsula.
Middle school, High school, Elementary school
Assembly, Residency
Museum Education Series
Music & Dances from the Spanish Americas
Taking the Codex Martinez Compañón (also known as the Trujillo Codex) from Peru, we look back to life in Spanish America in the 1700s. Containing over 1,000 watercolors and twenty musical scores documenting life in the Trujillo region of Peru, the Codex depicts dancers in colorful costumes and musicians playing all types of instruments, including European, Native American and African wind and percussion. The assembly also showcases the “habanera” from Cuba and baroque dance from Spain and Mexico.
Elementary school
Residency, Assembly
Museum Education Series
Three Hispanic Women
Three notable Hispanic women from the 18th century whose portraits are on display at the Hispanic Society of America Museum & Library are experienced through the lense of music, dance, and geography: "La Duquesa de Alba," (Spain) "María Catalina de Urrutía," (Puerto Rico) and the lady in the family portrait painted by Juan Rodríguez Juárez (Mexico).
Elementary school
Residency
Museum Education Series
Danzas de Ida y Vuelta
A dance and music workshop that invites students to embark on a round-trip voyage, which begins in the Old World, making its last stop at your school in NYC!
Elementary school
Assembly
Museum Education Series
Fiesta Zapateo
Students will watch, listen and participate in an interactive, bi-lingual assembly of music and footwork dances from Spain and Latin America titled ¡Fiesta Zapateo! Traveling Footwork Dances from the Hispanic World.
Elementary school, Middle school, High school
1-day
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Performance by HCA Artists
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Workshops in Music/Song, Dance, Visual Arts/Production where students collaborate to recreate a scene from a Zarzuela
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Students will have the opportunity to perform for each other and reflect on their experiences
5-day
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Day 1: Performance by HCA Artists and Introduction to Music, Dance and Production teams
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Days 2-3: Teams work separately on assigned tasks, coming together for reflection at the end of each contact session
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Day 4: Dress rehearsal
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Day 5: Performance and Reflection
10-week
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Week 1: Performance by HCA Artists and Introduction to Music, Dance and Production teams
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Weeks 2-6: Teams work separately on their assigned tasks, coming together for reflection at the end of each contact session
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Weeks 7-9: Teams come together to start putting all of the pieces together onstage, with some time for teams to work separately to iron out any problem areas
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Week 10: Dress rehearsal, performances and reflection