It was full house, most of the adults were sitting on the chairs, but children were primary sitting on the floor right in front of imaginary stage. Very interactive, "Dances are Built from Movement Ideas," a 45-minute performance in which the dancers create an original dance with the audience's help right in front of them. Children come up on stage and contribute movements that become part of the final product. Different human censes were involved during the creation of dance. The theme was "transportation". Children we shouting different modes of transportation, performers were drawing pictures of it and then some children from audience and performers tried to come up with movements and noises that could represent those types of transportation and everything that evolves around it. The whole process was both entertaining and educational for both children and parents. Children were learning the connection between real world and dancing and how to translate movements of ordinary objects into art of dance. Of course there were some funny moments involving smaller kids when they were trying to come up with movements and noises. The final product of this creative process was fun and beautiful dance that was professionally performed by dancers. From my personal perspective the performance is suited best for audiences from 3 to 7 years old.

Following the performance, the audience and performers broke into three workshop groups for which we signed up before performance. My son and I went to Art class. Both parents and children we given a play dough and were asked to build something related to what they saw during performance. My son did a very nice plane that he was allowed to take home, so he was very happy about it. His friends who attended Drama workshop seemed pretty satisfied with their choice too. In the conclusion we all had cookies and juice at the reception and then spent some time on the playground in nearby Washington Square Park. So, all in all it was a perfect "family day" for us.

This Saturday, March 10th at 2:30 pm, "Notes in Motion" is doing their "Family Day" again. It's at the same place The Philip Coltoff Center (219 Sullivan Street, between Bleecker and West 3rd). The price is $15 for adults and $10 for children and includes refreshments. You can reserve tickets online (www.notesinmotion.org) or buy them at the box office right before performance. I'm going with my son again, but this time my son is going to volunteer at the reception set up and clean up, that way I can teach him about non-profit organizations and how we can help our community and support the arts.

According to company’s press release “It offers an array of performance, classroom, and professional development programs to diverse populations. These programs are united by their singular approach to arts education, The Movement Exchange Method, in which students, both adults and children, learn in a similar fashion as Company Artists do in the Workshop”.