McCallum Theatre (Friends of the Cultural Center)

An important outreach project of Palm Desert Choreography Festival, East Valley Dance Project has served students in Thermal for the past 16 years. Originally a partnership with Desert Mirage High and Toro Canyon Middle Schools, the Project now also includes students from Coachella Valley High School. East Valley Dance Project engages youth in dancemaking under the artistic direction of multiple Festival award-winner Jennifer Backhaus. It includes residencies by professional dancers in high school dance classes, an audition workshop and six intense project rehearsals. The culmination is a performance of an original piece of choreography at the close of the Sunday performance of Palm Desert Choreography Festival at McCallum. While participating in the process of crafting a dance, students develop an understanding of its potential as a form of expression, develop life skills, and gain access to McCallum Theatre. This Project continued during the pandemic with dances created for alternate spaces. Reverie, a dance for the screen created in 2020-21 filmed at the Salton Sea and GROW created for the outdoors at The Gardens on El Paseo in 2021-22 can be viewed on McCallum’s YouTube channel. In fall of 2022, the Project successfully returned to the McCallum stage.