Arts education for youth, older adults, artists, and communities
At tiger princess dance projects, education is an extension of artistic practice — a space where movement, curiosity, and relationship come together through shared experience.
Our creative movement and dance education programs engage older adults, youth, and artists across generations, creating accessible entry points into dance as a way of learning, listening, and connecting. Developed and delivered by professional artist-educators since 2007, these programs emphasize process over product and invite participants to encounter dance through embodied exploration rather than technical training.
Rooted in care, responsiveness, and lived experience, our education work values each participant as both learner and contributor. Whether working with children, older adults, or artists, we approach education as a relational practice — one that supports creativity, confidence, and ongoing exchange over time.
Explore our education programs below to learn more and find ways to take part.
Check out our at-home Swallowing Cloud activities for youth aged 6-8 or 9-12:
Education Philosophy
At tiger princess dance projects, education is not separate from artistic practice — it is one of the ways the work continues to live, travel, and deepen over time.
Our education programs are grounded in movement as a form of knowledge: something learned through attention, presence, and experience rather than instruction alone. We believe that creativity grows through relationships — between bodies, across generations, and within communities — and that learning happens when people are invited to listen, respond, and move together.
Across our programs, we work with children, youth, older adults, and professional artists. Each context is approached with care and responsiveness, recognizing participants not as recipients, but as active contributors whose experiences shape the work. Whether in libraries, schools, community spaces, or care settings, our programs create accessible environments where movement becomes a shared language.
Intergenerational exchange is central to this philosophy. We understand both older adults and youth as curious learners and knowledge-holders, each bringing distinct lived experiences, perspectives, and ways of knowing into the room. Through shared movement and creative inquiry, stories, gestures, and ways of being are witnessed, carried forward, and transformed.
Our commitment is not to fixed results, but to sustained practice — supporting artists and participants over time, fostering knowledge transfer through lived experience, and building relationships that extend beyond a single workshop or performance.
Education, for us, is an act of care: a way of staying present, staying connected, and ensuring that the work remains porous, responsive, and alive.
Yvonne Ng’s Connection to Education
In addition to more than twenty years of creating and performing work across Canada and internationally, Artistic Director Yvonne Ng brings a practice-led approach to education rooted in research, lived experience, and long-term community engagement. Her research in England and graduate studies at York University focused on developing arts-based intergenerational practices that connect older adults and youth through movement, creativity, and shared presence.
Yvonne’s educational work is informed by a range of embodied practices and facilitation training, including Open Source Forms©, Dance for Dementia (through **Baycrest Health Sciences / NBS Sharing Dance Seniors), Ashtanga Yoga, Partners for Youth Empowerment Creative Facilitator (Levels 1 & 2), C-I Training™, Senior Fitness (CCAA), Dance for PD™ (Parkinson’s), and functional anatomy studies with Irene Dowd. Her ongoing Vipassana meditation practice further shapes her attention to listening, care, and presence.
Rather than treating education as separate from artistic practice, Yvonne understands it as an extension of her choreographic and performance work — a space where knowledge is shared through the body, relationships are formed through attention, and learning unfolds through experience over time.
Dance connects me to my body (which of course includes my mind) and is the language that I use to convey my experience and vision to the world. Dance is my first language.
– Yvonne Ng
photo credits: (L to R) unknown, Irvin Chow, Jeff Low, unknown