The Community Program at Dancewave brings dance programming to New York City public schools, senior and community centers and community partner festivals across the 5 NYC boroughs.  The program offers a wide variety of dance disciplines such as African, Hip Hop, Ballet, Jazz, Latin Dance Styles and Creative Movement and impacts over 6,000 students and community members each year. 

Dancewave seeks an experienced and highly motivated candidate for the position of Director of Community Programs.  This position is directly responsible for overseeing and managing all school & community programs as well as developing strategies to ensure the program continues to expand year on year.  

Position Responsibilities

Program Management 

Serve as primary contact for client schools, senior and community centers, event liaisons.

Initiate, develop and retain relationships with schools and Community Arts Partners to provide dance programming for residencies, events, festivals  including workshops and performances.   

Solicit and document program feedback and evaluation from stakeholders, including Teaching Artists, students, community partners and administrators.

Work collaboratively with Director of Education to implement opportunities for students in NYC public schools programs to join Dancewave’s pre-professional Company Programs.

Create regular Program Reports for the Dancewave board.

Seek out and attend professional development workshops to enhance and develop community engagement programming.  

Staff Management

Hire and fully prepare Teaching Artists for specific program needs.

Manage a large roster of Teaching Artists providing onboarding documents, contracts, schedules, performance reviews (including site visits) and payroll

Oversee and work collaboratively with Schools and Community Programs Coordinator and an Intern

Plan and execute Teaching Artist training including annual workshop series and year round training sessions with current teachers, in collaboration with Director of Education and Executive/Artistic Director.

For Dancewave admin staff - in collaboration with the core management team- plan staff retreats and provide professional development opportunities through staff training and guided discussions such as Race Forward Arts Lab, Disability 101, Community Engagement Strategies Etc 

Administrative Management

Track income from NYC Dept of Education and other clients

Create and manage program budgets

Manage monthly teaching artist payroll 

Development/Fundraising

Collaborate with Development and Marketing departments to create programming for grants and provide program descriptions for web and print materials

Manage all fundraising documentation for City Council Discretionary Funding, CASA,  SU-CASA, CII and other government funding including writing applications, proposed programming and final reports.  

Seek out funding opportunities from Foundations and other City departments.

Attend advocacy meetings with elected city council officials

Qualifications and Skills 

Bachelor’s degree and at least three years of relevant experience with arts in education

3-5 years experience in arts non-profit, dance education management preferred

Passionate advocate for the importance of arts and dance education in schools and the community 

Superb written, verbal and interpersonal communication skills

Experience with projects budgeting and report writing

Managerial experience

Detail-oriented

Ability to work well under pressure and be highly organized with problem solving skills

High fluency in Microsoft Word and Excel

Possess a positive, flexible, can-do and team player attitude

Collaborative spirit and team player 

To apply, please submit a cover letter (with salary expectations) and resume to jobs@dancewave.org with subject line ‘Director of Community Programs position’.  

Position start date: End of August/Beginning of Sept