Laura Bush inaugurates dance space in Santa Fe.

On May 9, First Lady Laura Bush was guest of honor at the gala opening of The Dance Barns, National Dance Institute of New Mexico's new Santa Fe facility. Five hundred enthusiastic student dancers from the Santa Fe public schools whirled across the new, state-of-the-art stage in a private performance of Jo Kid for President!, a musical dance/drama about a little girl who wants to run for president. The children created enough energy to light up the city for at least a week.

In 1992, Catherine Oppenheimer, a teacher with NDI in New York, as well as a former dancer with New York City Ballet and Twyla Tharp Dance, came to New Mexico to teach residencies in Santa Fe and selected rural communities with NDI founder Jacques d'Amboise. She became NDI--NM artistic director in 1994, and expanded the program to twenty-three communities and Indian pueblos, reaching 3,770 children in fifty schools by 2003. NDI--NM is the largest arts education organization in New Mexico. Oppenheimer initiated the Teaching Excellence Program in 2001, to train teachers from across the nation as well as in New Mexico.

The same year, the Santa Fe School Board voted to lease NDI--NM three and a half acres of school land at one dollar a year for fifty years with an option to buy at the end of that time. After a successful capital campaign, the organization was able to build The Dance Barns, a 33,000-square-foot facility with two small studios and two larger ones that open to a 500-seat theater.

Oppenheimer says that this program is about creating life skills and infusing a methodology and work ethic through the arts. It is not about preparing children to become professional dancers. However, after-school and Saturday programs offer jazz, modern, ballet, tap, theater, theater tech, and voice lessons to more serious students. A summer program brings students from around the state to stay in Santa Fe and work for three weeks.

Both Jo Kid for President! and the Street Fair on Sunday, May 11, demonstrated enormous creativity in concept and vitality in performance. The First Lady praised NDI--NM for motivating children to learn self-discipline and teamwork through the arts and helping them experience the joy of dance and music.