Help us teach dance to kids with disabilities!

Join us in providing free dance classes for children with disabilities where they are accepted, supported, and celebrated! Your donations ensure that any disabled child has the opportunity to dance and express themselves in any way they want. 

We are Expressive Movement Initiative (EMI), a UCLA-undergraduate run organization with the following goals: 

There are a limited number of programs that are accessible and cater to children with disabilities, and even fewer that allow these kids to express themselves artistically. Our organization strives to hold a space for these children who are too often excluded from traditional sports teams, dance classes, and art classes. We offer free weekly dance classes on Zoom that are accessible and specifically designed for children with disabilities. 

In our dance classes, we foster an environment where our dancers are encouraged to participate in whatever way that they are comfortable with and want to. We pair each dancer one-on-one with an undergraduate volunteer “buddy”. Each week we alternate between group class and buddy class. In group class, all of our dancers and volunteers are together in one zoom room. For group class, we always have an instructor demonstrating a low impact option for our dancers who prefer that option. The weeks in between group classes are buddy classes and our students spend the majority of class in a breakout room with their volunteer “buddy”. Buddy class is an opportunity for our dancers and their buddies to form a close, trusting friendship. At the end of each session, we have a recital which is a celebration of the dancers’ hard work and dedication. 

Since our founding in 2019, we have served over 100 different dancers all across the United States! Every session we have dancers and families return because of the positive impact of our program. Please join us in supporting our current dancers and spreading this incredible, unique opportunity to other children with disabilities! Your donation will allow us to continue to offer our dance classes free of charge and will also go to providing our students with dance supplies, including: dance scarves, rubber floor dots, and shaker eggs. 

We use these dance supplies through class for different activities and our dancers love them! We will also use donations to bring in experts in dance therapy and anti-ableism to improve our teaching for our students and create a more inclusive and accepting community for all individuals with disabilities at UCLA. 

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Should this fund reach the campus minimum required for the establishment of an endowment or quasi-endowment, The UCLA Foundation reserves the right to convert this fund to an endowment or quasi-endowment. Please click here to learn more about how the UCLA Foundation invests and manages its endowments.