BAM’s Department of Education and Humanities is dedicated to bringing the excitement and stimulation of the arts into the lives of young people. BAM’s goal is to provide to students the same caliber of groundbreaking, challenging work from around the world that it provides for adults. BAM believes that its arts education programs should inspire young audiences with curricula that address important artistic, social, and political issues. Most of the programs in this Education section are for school audiences only and are not open to the public.

BAM's Department of Education and Humanities brings an exceptional and innovative series of performances, films and artist-in-residence programs to New York City students: Generation BAM performances for high school students, kaBAM performances (kids at BAM) for second to eighth graders, Screening film programs, BAMfamily performances and the BAMkids Film Festival. Performances include programs designed especially for student audiences, as well as student matinees of BAM Next Wave Festival and Spring Season programs, provided at special prices. Also, BAM offers cinema/discussion programs, featuring classic films that address important historical, social or cultural issues. Every film or performance is accompanied by an in-school pre-show preparation workshop and a teachers’ study guide. In addition, a new program for 2003-2004 is a series of teen poetry readings in the BAMcafé.

To give further context for these programs, BAM also offers workshop-based artist-in-residence programs for students and/or their teachers. These include: Dancing into the Future, the Music Program, the Young Critics Institute, Shakespeare Teaches Teachers, Shakespeare Teaches Students, the Literacy Through Film Residency and Brooklyn Reads, a literacy and the arts project. These programs are master classes or multi-session residencies that include workshops with artists and BAM staff members in art forms that young people may never have had access to before. In addition, the Department collaborates with the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation to provide an arts and humanities curriculum to students who create an African Sculpture Garden at BAM and perform on stage as a professional company in BAM’s annual Memorial Day weekend DanceAfrica program.

Check this website for updates and spring programs.

Generation BAM (9th–12th grade)

kaBAM (3rd – 8th grade)

Screening Reel Heroes in History and Literature

Shakespeare Teaches

Music Program: AfricanMusicBeat

Dancing into the Future: Master Classes, The Flight Project Residency and AfricanDanceBeat

Young Critics Institute

DanceAfrica Education