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.…
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.…
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.…
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.…
Malik Carrington
Visual Arts: Painting & Mixed Media
I’m a mixed media artist with a passion to showcase feelings of togetherness and family. My parents, born and raised in the US Virgin Islands, instilled this foundational core value into my siblings and me early in our development and it’s stayed with me ever since. Growing up in Columbus, Ohio has encouraged my love for the arts in many ways through working with the community for the past 8 years. I like to hear the feedback, different perceptions, and interpretations of what my art pieces mean to those viewing them.…
Jerzy Drozd
Visual Arts, Comics & Graphic Novels
Jerzy Drozd leads cartooning workshops for children and teens in libraries and schools, as well as for teachers who want to bring comics to the classroom. He wrote and drew Science Comics: Rockets with his wife, Anne Drozd, and is one of the artists of The Warren Commission Report.
Jerzy has drawn special projects for Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, Marvel Comics, VIZ Media, and others. His latest middle grade graphic novel is The Inscrutable Doctor Baer and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue.
Jerzy began work as a teaching artist in 2007 when he served as the lead teaching artist for ArtServe Michigan’s Literacy Arts Comic Book Project, in which he visited 10 Detroit public schools (grades 3-6) to teach students how to make comic books.…
Lori Esposito
Visual Arts and Multimedia
Lori Esposito is an artist and educator who has taught in higher education, museums, community centers and social organizations for over a decade. She earned her MFA from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and her PhD from The Ohio State University in Art Education, with a focus on making sensory-led practices that can incorporate naturally occurring processes toward diverse results. Esposito has a background in drawing and painting and has presented her work at cultural centers, museums, and universities nationally and internationally. She has received numerous teaching awards and is committed to meeting students where they are to make deeper connections with their environments.…
Lynette Ford
Storytelling & Spoken Word
Fourth-generation storyteller Lynette (Lyn) Ford is a teaching artist with the Ohio Teaching Artists Roster and the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education, a Thurber House mentor to young writers, a storytelling and story-writing coach, a certified laughter yoga teacher, and a great-grandma. Lyn has also offered storytelling/story-writing residencies for the Ohio Arts Council’s Creative Aging Ohio Initiative.
For more than 30 years, Lyn has provided stories for libraries and schools, keynote and closing presentations, workshops at universities, education and literacy conferences, and featured programs at some of the most prestigious storytelling conferences and festivals in the United States, Australia, and Ireland.…
Jennifer Hambrick
Poetry
A poet hailed for her “brilliant” imagery, “masterful” craftsmanship, and “uniquely musical voice,” Jennifer Hambrick brings to her work as an Ohio Arts Council Teaching Artist a broad range of teaching experiences with learners of all ages and from all backgrounds and a genuine love of inspiring others to share their stories in the written word. Joining her work as a writer of free verse and prose poetry, haiku, haibun, and non-fiction prose, Jennifer joyfully shares the beauty of poetry with writers of all ages in learning experiences that honor every writer’s unique voice and empower individual expression.…
Vicki Murphy
Visual Arts: Mosaics
Vicki Murphy is a mosaic artist who works primarily in Ohio and New Orleans. She has trained extensively with master mosaic artist Laurel True of True Mosaics Studio for many years focusing on studio work and professional development in large scale public art. She worked with True on multiple projects in New Orleans including the Global Mosaic Project and Universal Garden’s Lotus Fantasy Bench, the Green Project, and the Edible Schoolyard murals. Vicki’s combined years as artist, educator and licensed social worker give her a unique perspective regarding the healing power of art and the beauty of creative expression.…
Pamela O’Loughlin
Multidisciplinary: Dance, Creative Writing, & Visual Arts
Pamela O’Loughlin is a gifted creative, avid learner, and passionate teacher.
She is an innovative, thoughtful, and skilled educator; from budgeting supplies for activities to last-minute changes that tend to come up when dealing with multiple groups, classes, and organizations, Pamela handles any adverse situation seamlessly.
Pamela is passionate about brainstorming with teachers, students, and administrators. Believing that if she understands what needs to be taught, a creative activity can be developed. Grounded in her early efforts centered around social emotional work that pairs well with Ohio’s Social Emotional Learning Standards, she believes she can teach to any standard of which she has a clear understanding.…
