TAP Program In Rapid City

In the spirit of using art as a vehicle for change and growth, Masayuki Nagase and his wife, Michele Ku, are working with the Rapid City Arts Council, Rapid City Area Schools, Destination Rapid City and area artists to launch a Teaching Arts Program (TAP).  TAP will start its pilot program at Wilson and South Canyon elementary schools in Rapid City and at the Lakota Waldorf School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.  TAP is modeled after an artists-in-schools program through the Museum of Children's Art in Oakland, California.  TAP is being overseen by the Rapid City Arts Council's Arts Education Co-Director, Naomi Even-Aberle.  She was joined on Dakota Midday by Destination Rapid City Community Arts Coordinator Anna Huntington.  The mission of the TAP program is to bring art and people together by providing quality school-based arts education for children while tapping into individual and community creativity as a source of instruction.