BalletMet inspires and educates Central Ohio youth to excel – in school studies including dance, health and wellness, and in life. Dance-in-Schools programs invite students and teachers to experience dance in meaningful and culturally relevant ways through:
The Wiggle Jig PreK classroom residencies with professional development for teachers
Moving Into Literacy grades 1-5 classroom residencies
Yoga, Meditation and Mindfulness classes for middle and high school students
Together We Dance interactive, in-school lecture performances
Morning at the Ballet theatre performances for K-12 students and teachers
Other Partnership Opportunities – BalletMet will design programming to fit your needs
RECENT PROJECTS: Adapted Wiggle Jig program for Columbus City Schools’ Special Needs Preschool classrooms.…
Cynthia Amoah
Creative Writing: Poetry & Spoken Word
Cynthia Amoah is a spoken word artist, educator, and mentor originally from Ghana. Since the onset of her career, Cynthia’s dynamic voice has captured diverse audiences and her authentic stage presence has left them inspired after every performance. Her literary pieces often highlight the forgotten stories of the world, while transcending the oftentimes marginalized groups she delineates in her work. Her writing and performances also concern the foraging questions that have to do with identity and belonging, with displacement, migration and uprootedness.
Cynthia completed her MFA at The New School and has been featured on the stages of TEDxDrewUniversity, TEDxOhioStateUniversity, and the United Nations Information Center in Accra, among many.…
Miriam Baranov
Visual Arts: Drawing, Painting, & Portraiture
Miriam is a visual artist specializing in classical realist painting and drawing, with additional expertise as a portrait artist, muralist, and educator. She has had multiple apprenticeships with amazing artists, including a rigorous atelier program at the Golden Gate Atelier, which focused on classical training for realist artists. Miriam’s work spans various genres, including still life, landscape, portraiture, and figurative art. Her artwork has been exhibited internationally and nationally in galleries and published in magazines both nationally and internationally.
Miriam’s goal is to influence and educate others in the field of figurative realism, guiding them on a path to success.…
Ginny Baughman
Visual Arts: Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Chalk, Ukrainian Egg Decorating, Scenic Painting, & Fiber
Ginny Baughman was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio. She received a BFA from the University of Dayton and an MA in art education from the Ohio State University. Ginny has also attended a variety of professional workshops, seminars, and conferences including the Kennedy Center’s National Seminar for Teaching Artists in Washington, D.C.
Ginny has been a teaching artist for more than 25 years. She has taught art in many different venues in central Ohio and Dayton. She began her art career almost 30 years ago selling prints of her drawings and paintings in her then hometown of Westerville.…
Andrea Belser
Musical Theater, Dance/Movement, & Acting
Andrea McCormick is a performing artist and instructor from Cleveland, Ohio who has received her Bachelor of Arts from Wright State University in Theatre Studies, with an emphasis on Dance and Applied Voice. Beginning with ballet at three years of age, she also continued her studies in various dance forms, including tap, African folk dance, liturgical/spiritual, jazz, musical theatre dance, modern/contemporary, hip hop, and Latin ballroom.
Post college, under the stage name “Andrea Belser”, Andrea has remained extremely active in the northeast Ohio theater community, receiving 2008 Best Actress in Cleveland for her role as Juliette in “I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me by a Young Lady from Rwanda” at Dobama Theatre, and nomination as 2012 Best Actress in Cleveland for her role as Pecola in “The Bluest Eye” at Karamu House Theatre.…
Michelle Boerio
Visual Arts: Drawing, Painting, Collage, Printmaking, & Bookbinding
Michelle Boerio is a visual artist and educator with over a decade of experience working with arts learners in museums, schools, community centers, libraries, and other arts organizations. She loves to make art that combines multiple mediums to highlight the weird, wonderful parts of the natural world. In 2012, she earned a BFA at The Ohio State University with a focus in painting and drawing, and in 2018 earned a MA in museum education at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
Now, she teaches classes and workshops through various central Ohio organizations and is a teaching artist in residence at Westerville High School North through Art Possible Ohio.…
Alan Bomar Jones
Drama/Theatre, Film/Video/Media
Alan Bomar Jones is a professional international actor, teacher, director, and Artist-in-Residence for Ohio Arts Council-supported programs. He has 30 years combined teaching experience at Dayton Public Schools, Greene County School District, Sinclair Community College, and Wright State University. Alan is also a Resident Artist with the Human Race Theatre Company. He is currently the Producing Artistic Director for Town Hall Theatre in Centerville, Ohio.
As an actor, Alan has appeared in more than 80 professional theatrical productions that have allowed him to work in several cities in the United States and Canada.…
Terry Boyarsky
Music, Dance/Movement
With over 45 years of experience as a teacher of Dalcroze Eurhythmics and a lifelong performer of chamber music, pianist Terry Boyarsky believes that every person is musical. Her thirst for musical collaboration led to chamber music, choral singing, improvisation, folk dance, accompaniment, and creating ceremony. She specializes in integrating music and movement into the curriculum. Her unique, multifaceted approach evokes deep listening and playful experimentation.
A favorite interdisciplinary project was a collaboration with a Taipei puppeteer and Cleveland dancer to create “Young Dreams – Life in 3 Parts,” an intimate work of puppetry, dance, and improvised music, sponsored by Cleveland Foundation Creative Fusion Program.…
Mimi Brodsky Chenfeld
Integrated Arts Experiences
Born and raised in New York City, Mimi Brodsky Chenfeld has been teaching people of all ages and backgrounds for her whole teaching life—through programs such as Headstart and Upward Bound—from early childhood programs to senior communities, from prisons to hospitals, elementary schools, high schools, and higher education institutions. She has presented programs in creative education in 45 states, Puerto Rico, Canada, and Great Britain. She has written numerous poems, stories, articles, and books. Her children’s novel, The House At 12 Rose Street, was adapted for a TV special and nominated for an Emmy.…
Richard Duarte Brown
Visual Arts: Design, & Creative Writing
Richard Duarte Brown, known as Duarte, is a master artist with the TRANSIT ARTS Youth Arts Program and the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education’s Art in the House program. For more than 30 years, Duarte has dedicated his talents to helping young people in Columbus, Ohio, through countless programs including CAPACITY (CAPA’s youth arts program), the Short Stop Youth Center, the King Arts Complex, Ohio Alliance for Arts Education’s (and formerly GCAC’s) Artists-in-Schools program, GCAC’s Children of the Future, Ebony Boys, Art Safe, and VSA Ohio. Duarte has also worked as a high school art instructor at the Arts and College Preparatory Academy in Columbus.…
Joanie Calem
Interactive Music & Storytelling
Joanie Calem has been a performing musician, music teacher, and storyteller since 1983. She graduated from the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem, Israel, with a major in piano and went on to study music education at the Levinsky Teaching Seminar in Ramat Aviv, Israel. She studied composition with Israeli composer Hagar Kadima in Tel Aviv, Israel, and completed her degree, Music in Community Building, at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. Having lived overseas for 23 years, Joanie is well versed in multi-cultural experiences and cross-cultural interchanges. Joanie moved to the Columbus, Ohio, area in 1998 and has been teaching music and performing all over the Midwest ever since.…
Sara Caplinger
Visual Arts: Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, & Printmaking
Sara Caplinger lives in Northeast Ohio and is a multidisciplinary artist that is continually seeking out new forms of expression through the visual arts. Sara’s background as a teaching artist is in the area of trauma. Sara has several years under her belt teaching grades K-12 through the trauma informed lens and working with at-risk youth. The trauma informed approach not only addresses the five areas of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) but transforms our understanding on what art can do in the classroom. This learning method is more process based than product base and creates a culture of agency, creativity, empowerment, decision making, and mindfulness.…
