
// What we do
Art on a mission
Performing Arts Workshop provides rigorous arts programming to San Francisco Bay Area youth. Our professional teaching artists teach at preschools, public schools, community centers, transitional housing facilities, and juvenile halls.
Through our pioneering artists-in-residency model, the Workshop provides long-term, sequential instruction in dance, theater, spoken word, creative writing, and music education for more than 4,200 young people a year.
Workshop artists meet weekly with students at our partner sites to teach semester-length or yearlong residencies in their art form. Together with site staff, teaching artists set learning goals for students that go beyond technical training in a particular art form. Our methodology—the cycle of artistic inquiry—prioritizes creative student expression, reflection, and revision, turning Workshop classrooms into laboratories of deep engagement with the creative process.


Artists in Schools
Brings long-term performing arts experiences to youth in schools and child development centers for 15-30 weeks
Artists in Communities
Arts instruction for youth in after-school programs, community centers, and juvenile halls.

Teaching Artists
Our teaching artists are professional artists and experienced educators in their field. As representatives of the Workshop in the classroom and communities they serve, teaching artists share a commitment to our mission and social justice values.
Our core artist program offers a select group of our dancers, musicians, writers, and theater artists a more stable and predictable employment schedule, reliable income with health benefits, and professional growth and leadership opportunities unequaled in the field.
Professional Development
With monthly, artist-led professional development meetings, an eight-session internship for new artists, and a team of artist mentors, the Workshop offers rigorous pedagogical training and a robust network of programmatic support.
We Work With, Not For
Our work with schools is deeply rooted in partnership. With a commitment to long-term, collaborative relationships with teachers and site staff, we work with our partners and tailor curricula and approach to better support student needs.
Our Methodology
Our artists come from diverse artistic backgrounds, and train to use Performing Arts Workshop’s Cycle of Artistic Inquiry to build students’ critical thinking skills. The Cycle of Artistic Inquiry is a teaching method developed in Workshop classrooms over the last 50 years. It consists of four processes: expression, reflection, revision, and technique. In other words, students don’t just learn the dance steps or write a poem or act out a scene; they learn to creatively problem solve, reflect, and revise their own artistic creations while consistently honing technique. Our classrooms go beyond “exposure” to the arts; they are places of deep engagement with the creative process.


Our Outcomes
Performing Arts Workshop expects all of our students to develop as artists and as members of their classroom community. That is why we have articulated our Youth Outcomes, which illustrate learning priorities in our classrooms. We aim to build the skills of all of our students in these areas:
Community & Social Issues
Expression, Reflection, Revision
Youth see connections between their residency and what is going on in their community. Youth initiate and participate in discussion of social and community issues during residency time.
Leadership
Expression, Reflection, Revision
At the end of a residency, youth will show an increase in initiating a teaching role among their peers (model excitement, motivate other students and offer suggestions for change).
Relationships
Expression
At the end of a residency, youth will demonstrate improved relationship skills with individuals at the program site.
Focus & Concentration
Perception
Youth will demonstrate improvement in focus and concentration skills by the end of the residency.
Non-Stereotypical Choices
Expression, Revision
By the end of the residency, students will show an increase of non-stereotypical choices in movement, written imagery, theater improvisational scenes, or class discussion.
Self Efficacy
Expression, Reflection
Youth will show improvement in self-efficacy (ability to make healthy choices, awareness and ability to articulate and advocate for self – emotions, need, and desires) by the end of the residency.
Cultural Understanding
Conception, Expression, Reflection
Youth will deepen and broaden their understanding of culture (patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance.
Pro-Social Behavior
Expression, Reflection, Revision
By the end of a residency, youth who perform “below expectations” behaviorally will exceed expectations as perceived by the classroom teacher.
Peer Critique
Reflection, Revision
By the end of a residency, youth will show an increase in offering suggestions for change based on specific, critical observations of each other’s work.
Artistic Vocabulary
Conception, Expression, Reflection
By the end of a residency, youth will integrate artistic vocabulary into discussion on a regular basis.
Participation
Expression
By the end of a residency, youth will volunteer themselves physically or verbally (rather than being called on by the teacher) in the residency class.