Joy Prentice is a S.T.E.M. Teaching Artist specializing in Social Dance, Physical SEL and Movement Multiculturalism. By integrating her professional dance training with her cultural anthropology, theatre, music, and visual arts background, she infuses participants with the love of learning and the expression of their potential. As an artist-in-residence, she guides with a gentle but firm classroom style toward elevating empowerment as a group through the discovery of non-verbal cues and the active connection of linked art forms. Using teamwork activities and academic challenges, her visiting artist residencies present exuberant opportunities for friendships, self-confidence, and UDL (Universal Design for Learning) accessibility. Students come away with a knowledge and respect for the wonderful language of dance as well as a positive understanding of pyscho-social connections. Her creative facilitation inspires student to choose equity awareness and neuro flexibility. “Baila Joy” believes artists are among the savviest problem-solvers in our society with an innate sense of magnifying the unseen. They advocate for the unheard, embrace the pain of a stranger, and minister to their community through cohesive artistry. Thriving in a collaborative setting, her purpose is to connect the multiple dialects of human behavior so we can flourish together.
Joy Prentice is a choreographer and national teaching artist. She is known for stretching the boundaries of interactive dance curriculum in order to aid a student’s ability to recognize inequities and embrace a new order. Her culture-forward dance curriculum is infused with decolonial SEL and STEM in order to Encourage Kindness and Discourage Bias (EKDB). “Baila Joy” has provided integrated, social justice artistry to communities in Washington, D.C., Illinois, California, New York, Rhode Island and Hawaii. Classically trained in ballet en pointe, the modern technique of Martha Graham, the 10-dance Ballroom proficiencies (International & American), Salsa/Mambo and the Lindy-Hop, she also has extensive experience in visual art fusion, music arts and theatre. Her most recent studies explored dancing with wheel-chair users. Miss Joy is an active member of several anti-racist, citizen artist organizations including the International Teaching Artist Collaborative and the Equity & Inclusion Task Force of the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable. Her ability to tailor programming for unique groups has granted her access to various rural and urban settings throughout the country. The range of her work spans from bi-lingual four-year-olds in Chinatown, to third graders in Spanish Harlem, to rural high schoolers in the corn fields of Northern Illinois, to thirty-something lawyers at the NYU School of Professional Studies, to assembly line workers at a General Motors automobile factory in New Jersey; to senior “life learners” at Salve Regina University in RI. Within the medical field, she designed a dance theatre residency with adolescents at the Bronx Children’s Psychiatric Center; she was recruited by the nursing staff at Montefiore Hospital to mentor a fitness and wellness program; and was enlisted by academic researchers at Weill Cornell Hospital to design an after-school movement clinic for a children’s wellness study. She can make the most “un-dancer” feel like a professional, and is honored to extend her Arts in Health artivism to the ohana of Oahu.
The Artistic Teaching Partners (ATP) Roster is an adjudicated directory of Hawai‘i professional teaching artists qualified to conduct in-depth residencies in educational settings. Each artist or arts organization has a page in the directory with contact information, a short bio, and an artist statement. The State Foundation on Culture and the Arts draws from this roster for arts education programs including Art Bento at the Hawaiʻi State Art Museum and Artists in the Schools.
