InvertED is the educational branch of Invertigo.  InvertED consists of teaching artists who are also Invertigo company members. Laura Karlin, Sofia Klass, Nick Factoran and Hugo Diaz are all dance teachers, and Toby Karlin works with us as a music teacher and class accompanist.  We work together as a team, and each teacher brings his/her own style and experiences to the classes.

InvertED’s aim is to give students a feeling of ownership over the creative process and outcome.  Making dance and music is a rich, complex, challenging process that must also be accessible and fun. Our main job as educators is to facilitate it step-by-step so that their creative process flows and seems natural. We want to empower students through creative ownership and collaboration.

The InvertED team were the Artists-in-Residence at Inner-City Arts in the Autumn 2010 semester, teaching twice a week. Inner-City Arts, widely regarded as one of the nation's most effective arts education providers, is an oasis of learning, achievement and creativity in the heart of Skid Row, and a vital partner in the work of creating a safer, healthier Los Angeles. For more about this wonderful organization, click here to visit their website.

Invertigo has been cultivating our relationship with Inner-City Arts since 2009.

• InvertED taught 35 4th-graders during a 6-week residency in Autumn 2010.  The classes cumulated in a performance that involved students reading stories they'd written, performing dances they had both learned and created together and accompanying each other on percussion.  (Yes, we gave them all drums.  How brave are we?)
• Invertigo created performance/workshops for 6th and 7th grade classes in December 2009 and July 2010, bringing 8 dancers and 3 musicians to Inner-City Arts.
• In spring 2010, InvertED teachers participated in an Inner-City Arts professional development program, the Creativity in the Classroom series – which is a whole lot of fun and a whole lot of useful, inspiring development opportunities.
• We hope to continue teaching and performing there.
• Our goal is to employ an InvertEd program director and several more teaching artists by the middle of 2013, continuing our relationship with Inner-City Arts and expanding our programs into schools.

We have already created performance/workshops at ICA in December 2009 and July 2010 and we are in the process of developing a more extensive long-term program in partnership with this wonderful organization.

Laura (artistic director), Sofia (assistant director) and Toby (musical director) all took part in ICA's Creativity in the Classroom series, which is a whole lot of fun and a whole lot of useful information.

To see photos of our InvertED adventures so far, click here.

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In April 2009, Invertigo Dance Theatre was invited to perform at Explore-a-Story, a benefit for children's literacy by Wonder of Reading.  For more info, click here.  For photos, click here.