The Allegro Dance Project has been serving the Lexington community for ten years now, with one mission to make dance more inclusive.

The nonprofit believes dance has benefits for anyone who's willing to try it, no matter their ability and has outreach programs to prove it.

So join us Center stage as we learn more.

And this week's Arts and culture segments we call Tapestry.

So I've always been a dancer from the age of three, and it always bothered me that as much as I love the art of dance, it was very exclusive in a lot of ways.

So I started a dance project in 2014 and it was intended to be a way for dance, to be fully inclusive, for all body types, for all abilities, and specifically to be accessible for students with disabilities.

I think the best part about dances that you can look at it from a bunch of different aspects.

It can be like a physical sport and a way to stay in shape, or it can be a form of self-expression or art.

But it's universal.

So anyone, anyone, anywhere can dance at any time.

And you don't need words or language for any of it.

And I think that's really cool.

You don't have to just be a dancer.

You can be anything.

That's what I feel like.

I have to be.

Anything you want to be.

Being different is something I'm actually is better, especially in dance and in Allegro, because it actually pulls the beauty out of you very nicely.

So the whole whole mission of Allegro dance project is our inclusive dance outreach program.

And what that is, is an instructor and a musician go into a school typically for a group of students that have specific needs, whether it be an empty classroom or a special education classroom.

And it's a 45 minute movement session with live interactive music.

Imagine like a physical therapy session and then Occupy some therapy session and a group dance party all folded into one.

So the students are working on things that are really important for them to have a wonderful, vibrant life.

But also it's so much fun that they don't realize, like, how hard they're working physically.

The kids that take Allegro classes are there because they love it.

Whether they've been there for just this first year or some of them have been here for probably all ten years.

It's a community they can keep coming back to and making friends in.

And I think having a community in an art form that's so fun is is a really special connection that's different than anything else.

Yeah, I think dance is so special because it's taking it's taking your your inner most self and displaying it like visibly where someone can see it.

And in that way it makes the art form look very vulnerable and very personal, but it's also very unifying to be on stage and to like, like not be painting a painting, creating something that is outside of yourself.

But it's such a fleeting personal moment that the moment you create it, it's immediately gone and replaced by another moment.

So it's like living, breathing art.

Well, yes.

Indeed it is.

Allegro.

Classroom programing is free, thanks to Grant and donor funding to set up a session.

Teachers can get in touch with Allegro through its website.