By AARON FLAGG

Last year, Juilliard conducted two retreats (in November 2002 and April 2003) and a series of small group discussions (in February) to examine the School's current activities in community outreach, with an eye toward formulating possible new directions for the future as Juilliard approaches its centennial. The participants—who included students, faculty, administrators, and outside experts—gave thorough consideration to how Juilliard might enrich its efforts to shape students into communicative artists who contribute significantly to issues of advocacy, education, and audience development in the performing arts.

Those attending the sessions agreed that the importance of outreach should be made evident to Juilliard students from application to graduation; that a significant curriculum requirement for each division should be seriously considered, and that pre-service training, ongoing student support, and assessment must be a part of all the structured fellowships currently offered.

This year, the School invites input from the larger Juilliard community on these principles as we move forward toward implementation. As we begin to schedule informal meetings with students and faculty, the following example illustrates the nature of what is being rethought and the impact of changes that have already been introduced.

The PEPS Dance Tour sends a troupe of eight first-year dancers to six high-school auditoriums in May and June each year, to present a 45-minute performance of work by Juilliard student choreographers that is followed by a question-and-answer period. Previously, the high schools and their students wouldn't know anything in advance about what they would see. The Juilliard dancers carefully rehearsed the works and simply focused on performing them. The question-and-answer sessions were largely an afterthought.

This year, for the first time, a program was sent to teachers beforehand (including the dancers' ages and brief descriptions of the pieces), and a training workshop on how to conduct effective Q & A sessions was added to the Juilliard dancers' rehearsal schedule. The workshop included practical tips on using the microphone, creating circular rather than linear responses to questions, maximizing non-verbal communication, and tackling tough questions (such as "did you get paid to do this?" or "do you date each other?").

The day before the first performance, the dancers rehearsed not only their pieces, but also the culminating question-and-answer session (with the help of some role-playing).

There was a debriefing after every show on the clarity and effectiveness of the question-and-answer session. Also, after the last show, we held what turned into a two-hour discussion reflecting on how the dancers and the show itself changed throughout the tour, thanks to this heightened concern for the audience. It was truly rewarding to hear from the dancers what a profound impact the workshop sessions and this enriched performance experience had on them. The Juilliard dancers went from having a fear of the imagined audience and a discomfort with speaking about dance, to becoming amazingly comfortable interacting with students during the performances.

By the second show, the dancers began offering ways to improve the interactivity of the performances, such as interspersing question-and-answer opportunities throughout the performances rather than at the end, and cutting certain pieces to make more room for discussion. Both of these ideas were immediately implemented. For future tours, they offered ideas on how to involve the high-school students on stage, and described pre-performance visits where students could dance aspects of the show before seeing it.

This is exactly the type of practical training and experience that every Juilliard student should be offered. This fall is a time to gather students and faculty into discussion about how best to realize these outreach principles. Faculty meetings and informal student lunches and panels will provide the community an opportunity to voice its perspectives on these issues. By strengthening its commitment to providing outreach skills to all students, The Juilliard School is taking a proactive step toward maintaining its place as a world leader in the practical training of pre-professional performing artists.

Aaron Flagg, director of educational outreach and the Music Advancement Program (MAP), is an alumnus of the School.