Flex Dance Program Inc

History: In 2014 – FDP was endorsed by Sonia Galarza, Director of Programs and a 35-year veteran at the Department of Juvenile Justice (now part of the Administration for Children’s Services). FDP began teaching at Crossroads Juvenile Detention Center (Brownsville, Brooklyn), one of the City’s two secure juvenile detention centers. Programming at the City’s other secure juvenile detention center followed in 2015 at Horizon Juvenile Detention Center (Mott Haven, Bronx). In 2018 - FDP won the Atlanta Action Accelerator Festival, a national competition for creative ideas that use elements of Hip-Hop culture to advance justice. Since incorporation, FDP has served hundreds of youth across New York City. We are honored to have been included in Beyonce’s 2020 Black Business Directory and to have featured at the 2023 Roc Nation United Justice Conference.

Flex is Brooklyn: We primarily concentrate on the instruction of Flex: a unique form of street dance that originated in Brooklyn in the 1990s. With Flex having its roots in the Caribbean, it is a culturally relevant outlet for many, given NYC's extensive Caribbean community. Two documentaries; “Flex is Kings” (Schoo & Nichols, 2013) and “Lords of BSV” (Soccor, 2014) highlight some of the major Flex events, and continuous evolution of the dance style.

Mission: At the core of our work is the fundamental belief that no youth should be in detention! Facing recidivism rates of 80% and higher - it is clear that the system is broken, and we believe that instead youth should be granted increased access to recreational programs like art, dance and mentoring as well as other resources. We believe that dance is an instrument for change, a powerful tool to break conformity, and that dance and movement is a part of the solution to a system that is stuck. Our mission is to foster growth among young people in difficult circumstances through dance and creative mentorship. By providing positive outlets for self-expression, FDP offers participants healthy solutions to avoid conflict and foster growth.

Population: In New York City’s poorest communities, young people are going to detention at a rate of close to 70%. Nationally, 70% of detained youth are accused of nonviolent offenses. FDP’s primary audience are the estimated 1,000 - 5,000 youth in detention and foster care facilities in NYC. Most FDP’s students are African American and Latino, and low-income, with limited access to both art and mental health services. According to OCFS

• 80% of youths released from detention centers return within three years.
• 95% of youths entering detention are of African American or Latino descent.
• 83% percentage of youths in detention require mental health services [MMR08]
• 68% = percentage of youths came from areas where poverty rates are between 32% and 46% [DHMH].

Detained youth suffer disproportionately from: lack of access to mentors and the arts (platforms to express and create); lack of positive community engagement; stigma, including low self-esteem and prevents access to jobs; and lack of engagement with school. FDP believes in building access for youth to develop their artistic talents and professional skills through internships and opportunities to perform.

Some of our Project Goals: The Flex Program provides sessions where storytelling is activated through movement and freestyle performance. Many adolescents are dealing with challenges in expressing themselves. Through our movement and freestyle sessions, we aim to introduce the youth to various ways of communicating individual stories, and transforming emotional material that might be challenging to express verbally.

• Alleviate stress and tension the youth might experience throughout the day in the Correctional Facility
• Foster social and emotional competencies and physical well-being in a safe and nurturing environment.
• Provide opportunities for youth to explore their interests and creativity.
• Build skills that support academic achievement and raise participant expectations, confidence and collaboration with other residents and staff.
• Cultivate youth leadership and community engagement.
• Strength teamwork and critical thinking skills through dance and freestyle performance.

Programs & Services: FDP improves young people's lives through high quality programming while supporting local artists through meaningful work. FDP operates with a dual model: Flex serves about 30 youth each week, and approximately 100 monthly through dance battles. These events have different themes like breast cancer awareness, and women's empowerment. We wish to do more targeted workshops for youth, seniors, and toddlers in the community. There is also an identified need for dance studio equipment plus compensation for teaching artists and performers.

Flex In: On-site program for youth in secure detention centers, foster care, and other facilities in New York. As an alternative to incarceration - we provide dance and mentoring opportunities to justice-involved youth in New York City, including opportunities to develop dances that tell their unique stories, perform at events, and join our team as youth ambassadors/interns. Since our founding, FDP has provided hundreds of justice-involved New York City youth with opportunities for growth, healing, and creative expression through dance.

Flex Out – We provide free dance workshops for high school students in underserved neighborhoods and performances that transform public spaces through the arts. From 2017 to 2019, FDP was honored to receive several grants to provide services in secure detention and community centers. The Flex Out pilot was an important initiative to realize our vision of community building and provide creative alternatives to recidivism. We partnered with the Brooklyn Children´s Museum, Crown Heights Mediation Center, Battlefest League and others with the aim of inclusion and artistic development for youth.

Flex World – In 2020, Flex Dance Program moved sessions online due to COVID-19, providing lessons across the globe. As our style of dance continues to grow internationally, we hope to capitalize on our role as originators while keeping in focus the core of our mission; to serve youth in difficult circumstances and to help transform negative into creative and positive energy. The Academy of Extraordinary Dancers will offer weekly dance and mental health counseling for low-income Brooklyn youths via zoom - Mondays through Saturdays. Our dance program will help our students improve their self-esteem, work-ethic, flexibility, muscular strength, self-discipline, reflexes, memory, self-efficacy, and mental function all while having fun. Dancing allows you to healthily express your emotions through movement, it allows you to feel confident, it increases your imagination, it relieves stress and offers a feeling of freedom. Our mental health courses will include topics like healthy coping mechanisms, meditation, positive affirmations, self-awareness, importance of healthy sleep & diet, healthy depression relief tactics, management of negative emotions and more.

FDP partnered with NEBHDCO in early 2020 to use their community spaces to provide free dance mentoring sessions to their community as well as the population FDP already serves. NEBHDCO provides space (including, without limitation, access during Fridays 6pm - 10pm, and monthly events to restrooms and community space) and staff/personnel to help with recruitment and to facilitate sessions/workshops. Our teaching artists are trained through PREA and the Institute for Transformative Mentoring at The New School which provides trauma informed classes for mentors. We are also building our partnership with The New School Psychology Department where mentors/teaching artists will have the opportunity to get certified as Counselors and receive counseling and supervised sessions upon request.