In the sanctuary of the dance studio, Arts Ed Now advocate and Dance Educator Claudine Ranieri has been dancing since her youth and teaching for over three decades. Classically trained and an alumni of the LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts in NYC, Claudine graduated from Brooklyn College's Dance program and dove into a life dedicated to the arts, arts advocacy for all, and sharing a passion for dance that she lives and breaths. Her insights abound... from creating an environment of trust for her students, the joy and grind of rehearsals, the switch to performance preparation, and the profoundness of sharing what is done in the vulnerability of the studio for the public. She has easily brought together a profound collection of repertoire from the history of dance for her students with the improvisation of contemporary dance as it discovered in her classroom. Claudine is a powerhouse whose personal dance career outside of education is exhaustive, but she describes performing "All That Jazz" in three and a half inch heals at age 39, at 40 putting her point shoes on again, and performing an original choreographed piece for Maya Angelou as the highlights so far. She reminds us that dance is what we do when we don't have words, what we do to connect people, to express what is within, and with that it speaks for issues of justice, hope, planting seeds, and the connection of souls.
