Crelata

What Crelata is

Crelata is a library of on-demand dance classes for children, made for teachers to play in a classroom, gym or after-school room. The homepage describes "On-demand dance classes for kids, designed by dance education experts", "100% ad-free and school appropriate", and aligned to the National Core Arts Standards and the SHAPE America Physical Education Standards. Its reader is an educator: a dance teacher, a PE teacher, a classroom teacher, an after-school coordinator, a substitute or a homeschooling parent.

The company was founded by Ella Rosewood, a middle school dance teacher who, the site says, "found existing online dance tools too fast, too difficult, poor quality, and full of ads." She built Crelata, in the site's words, "to make access to high-quality dance education more equitable for ALL students." The homepage frames the need with two figures it presents as the status of dance in schools: 82.9% "of all students do not have access to dance classes in school", and 2.4% "of all students in the US participate in dance classes in school." It adds that all 50 states have adopted arts standards, but that dance lags behind them through lack of access and opportunity.

How the lessons are built

Content is organized into series. The teaching-tips page says "Each series focuses on a specific dance style and includes 5-6 sequential lessons, each 30-40 minutes long," and asks teachers to run the lessons in order. Its example of a subscription's contents, for the 2022-23 school year, was a Salsa series, a Popping (Hip-Hop) series and Creative Career Chats.

The same page lists what Crelata builds into every lesson. Lessons are professionally filmed so students can follow them, with video and audio quality meant to make it feel like "a guest artist is in the classroom." Each lesson is treated like a classroom lesson, with learning goals, checks for understanding along the way and an assessment of outcomes at the end. Each one also contains a section where students take turns dancing and giving each other feedback. The homepage adds that the content is "Interactive so students are moving the majority of the time" and "Designed for all skill levels and interests."

Accessibility is part of the design. Videos are "Accessible with American Sign Language and English and Spanish captions," and the teaching-tips page describes closed captions in English and Spanish with ASL interpretation.

What teachers get

Around the videos sit the materials a teacher needs to run a unit: downloadable lesson plans, discussion questions, extension activities and choreography tasks. The suggested routine is short. A teacher signs in at learn.crelata.com, watches a Teacher Intro video, then projects the screen onto a smartboard or TV and plays a Student Intro video on the first day so the class knows what to expect. After that it is "Choose the lesson you want and click play!" During the lesson the teacher can join in, walk the room to help, or, "if your class is on point, sit back and relax." After the lesson, the lesson plan guides the discussion and extension work.

The central promise, as the homepage puts it, is "No dance experience needed!" A teacher with no dance background only has to press play.

Where schools use it

The homepage names five groups it serves: dance educators who want high-quality and diverse material, PE teachers who want ready-made dance units, classroom teachers or service providers looking for dance breaks and classes, in-school or after-school programs that need a dance residency or help starting a dance program, and homeschool families.

The teaching-tips page explains each use. Dance teachers use the series to teach a style they do not know well enough themselves, since "no single educator is an expert in all dance styles." PE teachers, for whom dance "is often outside the comfort zone", can meet a required dance unit; the page says Crelata will "take the pressure off." Classroom teachers can tie a style to a history or social studies unit, for example learning Popping alongside a lesson on America in the 1960s and 1970s, or use dance to break up a day of sitting. After-school programs can run a dance club as a lower-pressure alternative to a dance team; the page cites research that after-school programs help close achievement gaps for students from low-income families. Substitute teachers get a lesson that keeps students moving "without having to know anything about dance." Homeschoolers, including a single child learning alone, can use the lessons at home, with the parent joining the feedback section.

Beyond the video library, the site links to professional development and consulting services and to children's museum exhibits.

Free access and trial

The homepage invites schools to "Start your 7-day free trial" and links to a pricing page. It also offers a freebie bundle of free dance lessons: "Start using Crelata for free. No credit card required." The teaching-tips page suggests trying the first lesson from that bundle with a class before subscribing. A paid subscription, the same page says, gives access to all of Crelata's on-demand arts education content.

What teachers say

The homepage quotes six educators by name. Kaylin Carlucci, a middle school dance educator, writes that "Crelata created a fun and exciting opportunity for our students to explore a new style! The video was very engaging and our students were up and moving for the majority of the video. Our ELL students were able to follow along and participate with ease." Gina Spears, an elementary school dance educator, says "You have thought of everything – built in formative assessments, opportunities to perform for each other and provide feedback, and real world connections with dancing creatively using the steps learned."

Anna Haney, a dance education professor, calls the lessons "engaging, easily leveled, rich in content, appropriate, interactive" and says she loves "the diversity in the content and presenters." Dina Gray, a K-12 dance educator, says the videos "were easy to pause to elaborate or go over a particular step with ease." Julie Haggerty, a high school dance educator, describes leaving a substitute who is not a dance teacher: "they just have to behavior manage the room, hit the play button, and the kids have a blast for the next 40 minutes."

Who it suits

Crelata suits a PE teacher who has to deliver a dance unit and does not dance, a dance teacher who wants to add salsa or hip-hop taught by a specialist, and a school that wants to start a dance club or residency without hiring a dancer first. It also works for substitute plans, since a lesson runs from a single click. Schools with ELL students or students who use ASL get captions in two languages and interpretation built in.

It is a narrow product by design: dance only, delivered as video series of 5-6 lessons per style. A school looking for a broad arts or PE platform, or for a live instructor, will need something alongside it. For homeschool families, the site pitches Crelata as a way to learn dance styles from all over the world, for children who are not drawn to the ballet, tap and jazz taught at a local studio.