Performing Arts Workshop is a nonprofit organization established in 1965 with a mission to help young people develop critical thinking, creative expression and essential learning skills through the arts. Today, the Workshop brings sequential arts instruction grounded in inquiry and reflection to more than 4,200 students ages 3-18 each year. Our artists conduct 11-60 session residencies in world dance, music, spoken word poetry, and theater arts. To advance equity in education, we prioritize working with communities with fewer arts education resources available to them.
Performing Arts Workshop provides rigorous arts programming to San Francisco Bay Area youth. Our professional teaching artists teach at preschools, public schools, community centers, transitional housing facilities, and juvenile halls.
Through our pioneering artists-in-residency model, the Workshop provides long-term, sequential instruction in dance, theater, spoken word, creative writing, and music education for more than 4,200 young people a year.
Workshop artists meet weekly with students at our partner sites to teach semester-length or yearlong residencies in their art form. Together with site staff, teaching artists set learning goals for students that go beyond technical training in a particular art form. Our methodology-the cycle of artistic inquiry-prioritizes creative student expression, reflection, and revision, turning Workshop classrooms into laboratories of deep engagement with the creative process.
