05/29/2026
We are always so happy to share our story! Thank you, Keene Elm City Rotary 💜🧡💜
This week our speaker was club member and Director of New Hampshire Dance Institute, Kristen Leach. Our club’s Allocation Grant helps to pay for the guest teaching artist from National Dance Institute in New York City that works with students at NHDI’s summer camp. Kristen shared why dance is important as curriculum in schools.
In early 1980s Jacques d”Amboise started National Dance Institute in schools develop discipline in students. He realized dance needed to be in the school day so that it is accessible to EVERY student. New Hampshire Dance Institute is the first of 13 affiliates and are now celebrating 40 years of teaching.
The students are “chasing excellence”. They learn to show the world their best efforts in other disciplines in the life, the benefits of delayed gratification, how to get comfortable with failure and learn from it, mindfulness, accepting correction, earned confidence, how to work hard, you have to do your part and not sit on the bench, that hard work can be fun, and success can look different for each person.
The narration and script for the NHDI annual presentations are written by Kristen. This year show feature a young person attempt to climb Mount Monadnock. The moral was about not reaching a goal and learning to try again.
