Scholarship

Francodance Scholarship Program
for Teens

Melinda and Edgar Franco of FrancoDance studios are proud to offer an extensive dance scholarship program for teens in Grades 10, 11, and 12 in Toronto’s West End. Covering a number of dance forms, this scholarship will offer free training to teens for one school year. The scholarship students will have opportunities to perform, compete and potentially to learn to teach if they so desire. We will hold auditions and select 30 teens to participate based on raw talent, desire and also need.

FrancoDance Studios are owned and operated by dancers, and our philosophy is that dance has the power to bring us closer to who we truly are. Learning to express ourselves through physical expression is a fundamental human experience. Our scholarship students will study Latin, Ballroom, Hip-Hop, Flamenco, Breakdance and Capoeira, and have opportunities to take workshops and classes in other forms. The focus will be on harnessing their unique talents, discovering their strengths and weaknesses, developing technique, and fostering creativity.

At a time when teens are often struggling with the many challenges that face young people today, our hope is that this program can offer a sense of purpose, pride and belonging. Staying in school with passing grades will be a requirement for all participants, and FrancoDance will work with parents and teachers to help achieve this goal.

For our first year we will hold auditions in January and begin the program by the beginning of February. Students will be required to come Fridays after school, and will have a number of optional classes available to them throughout the week. Since this first year the program is starting in January, this group will break in the summer and then resume the following September, and finish at the end of that school year. This means our first group of scholarship students will get a year and a half of free dancing! (Graduating students will not be allowed to return. We will fill the spots with new students.)

Thank you for your interest in the FrancoDance scholarship program. For more information, please contact Melinda or Edgar at 416-538-7777, or email us at edgar@francodance.com or melinda@francodance.com.

Scholarship Program Vital Information

MISSION STATEMENT:

To provide a disciplined, comprehensive dance training program for 30 teens in Toronto’s West End, free of charge, for one school year.

WHO IS FRANCO DANCE?

We are a small, family-operated business, new to the West End of Toronto. (We also operate a studio in North York). Our philosophy is that dance is an empowering, fundamental element of the human experience. Dance has the power to reveal to us our strengths and weaknesses, unite a community, and release us from the grips of stress. It is an excellent form of exercise, and it also serves to balance the spirit. It is the ideal way to express ourselves, have fun, and connect with others.

Edgar and Melinda Franco both began their dance careers at a very young age, and continue to work not only as teachers, but as performers and competitors. They are actively involved in the creation of theatre-dance pieces, a dance company, and also operate a film production company, working on several dance documentaries.

We teach adults in both studios, and offer classes for children and teens in our downtown space, with Ballroom and Latin dancing as our core forms. We also teach salsa, Hip-Hop, Breakdance, B-Boys, Flamenco, and other forms. Our studios are built around the concept of family and the passion for dance, something we share with every student who walks onto our dance floor.

WHY A SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM?

Dufferin and Bloor is a diverse neighborhood full of young people. Franco Dance wants to offer a program that will contribute to the neighborhood in a positive way, and there is nothing more fundamental to a community than the well-being of its youth. If teens have opportunities to discover positive things about themselves and develop a close group of friends based on common interests, they are more likely to have high self-esteem and take better care of themselves. Team sports have the same kind of effect, but not everyone is an athlete. Dance is unique in that it not only requires physical discipline, but it nurtures expressiveness and vulnerability. We want to be able to start our business in the neighborhood by giving, hoping that it will enrich our studio, our lives, and our community.

WHO CAN PARTICIPATE?

We are inviting teens in Grades 10 to 12 to audition for the program. Teens will be required to be in full-time attendance in high school with passing grades to qualify. We will choose teens based on three criteria:

  1. Talent. We are looking of course for talented dancers, but experience is not required. Teens will be able to audition in whatever style they choose. Creativity, musicality and raw talent will be what we are looking for.

  2. Dedication. Equally important is each individuals desire to commit to a disciplined, rigorous program.

  3. Need. Students who are disadvantaged economically will be given priority, but kids who may have a “personal” need to be involved in something like this will also be part of our focus. We hope to be able to determine this element by talking to a personal reference, which is part of the application. (All information obtained through references will be strictly confidential).

Once we have chosen our group, they will participate in the program for one school year. (Our first year will run longer because it is starting half-way through the year. We will go to the end of the following school year).

We will require teens to provide us with copies of their report cards throughout the program. If a teen is struggling with a subject, we will give them one term to get the grade up to a passing mark. If it is possible, we are willing to attempt to help them with this by helping to find tutors who are willing to volunteer their time. If the teens are not able to get the mark to passing after one term, they will be suspended until they are able to show us (either in a new report card or with a letter from the teacher) that the problem has been resolved.

If a teen who is participating in the program fails to attend on a regular basis, we will speak with them to try and determine if perhaps the program is not right for them. If it is decided that a teen should leave the program part-way through, we will either offer the spot to another student if time permits, or leave the spot vacant if we are near the end of the year.

WHAT WILL THE STUDENTS LEARN?

First and foremost, they will learn to dance. Dancing requires determination, and we are treating this group like a mini-company with expectations modeled after professional companies. There will be two hours of required attendance on a regular basis, and that may increase if there is a performance or special event happening. On top of that, teens in the scholarship program will be able to attend any of the regular group classes in the studio for free. We will encourage them to participate in as many of these classes as is feasible for them while maintaining their marks at school.

In the classes we will study Ballroom, Latin, Flamenco, Hip-Hop and Breakdance as part of the regular curriculum. Whenever we have the chance, we will bring in outside instructors to offer special workshops so we can expose the group to as many forms as we can.

We will also teach the students choreography and have them do shows as often as is reasonable. Any money made through these performances will go directly into the scholarship.

Another element we hope to introduce as soon as the Scholarship has the financial means is taking the students to shows and competitions. We will try to secure as many tickets for these kinds of events for free as we possibly can, but in the future we hope to have a fund for taking students to compete at least once during their stay with us.

We hope to be able to offer a well-rounded and disciplined program so that by the end of their year, students feel confident calling themselves “dancers”, and have the knowledge and experience to back that up.

Melinda Franco Deines
President

Edgar Franco
Dance Director

Can You Help?

FrancoDance Studios is offering a scholarship program for teens in your area. This program will offer free dance classes to students in Grades ten through twelve for one school year. (Please see attached sheet for more information on our program). We will be holding auditions for this program in January 7 to 11 of 2008, and the course we’ll start in January 18, 2008. We need your help in letting teens know that this program is available to them.

Schools can help by:

- Letting us come in and talk to Grades 10 – 12 to tell them about the program.

- Helping us distribute application forms either by leaving them in the school office or with home-room teachers.

- Helping collect the forms by having an envelope in the office for kids to drop them off. FrancoDance will come to pick up the envelope after the deadline.

FrancoDance will make this as easy as possible for schools, and is open to suggestions if schools have ideas on how to have this run smoothly.

In order to participate, teens will have to fill out an application form, include a reference and a copy of a recent report card, have a parent sign a permission form, and audition. We will select 30 students based on a number of elements, including talent, desire to participate and creativity, and will give preference to students who might otherwise not be able to participate due to financial constraints.

Your help in getting this off the ground is greatly appreciated. Please contact us at your earliest convenience to get this information distributed in your school.

Parental Consent Form

Download the required Parental Consent Form by clicking here.