About Crelata®
Our Mission
At Crelata, our mission is to make access to arts education more equitable through the use of technology.
We do this for:
> Students by providing high-quality, engaging, on-demand arts content for all grade levels,
> Educators by offering easy-to-use resources, and
> Artists by empowering them to pass on their craft.
Our Vision
Our dream is for the arts to be accessible to children in every school and home around the world. We are building Crelata with the community in mind, especially the global majority who are often underrepresented and under acknowledged for their brilliant contributions to the world. We aim to become a leader in online arts education for the next generation of world citizens.
Our Values
The following core values guide everything we do:
> The arts are for everyone.
> Creativity is life – express yourself!
> Learn by doing and try new things, even if you’re scared.
> Actively listen and share your knowledge.
> Be kind to yourself and others.
Our Name
Crelata means to create a lot.
We made it up!
“Cre” for create + “lata” for a lot of = CRELATA
Sounds like CRE – LOTTA
Our Story
Crelata was founded in 2021 by Ella Rosewood. As a middle school dance teacher in Brooklyn, New York, she struggled to find resources to help her teach culturally relevant lessons that would engage and empower her students.
My middle school students were eager to learn Latin dance styles like Salsa, Merengue, and Bachata because they had seen them danced at family gatherings and they wanted to be able to join in. I had no experience with these dance styles so I asked my students to teach me what they knew. Most of them were used to being wallflowers at family events so they were too shy to share what they had observed. I attempted to learn the basics online. It did not go well. When I presented what I “learned” to the class they laughed and told me I was doing it all wrong. (They were right.) After many years, I was able to raise thousands of dollars to bring in a teaching artist who could teach us authentic Latin dances. For the first time, I saw my students truly come alive in their bodies. Everyone was up and moving in the center of the room with a sense of pride. I was upset that it took so long to give my students an experience where their cultures were validated and represented accurately.
The COVID-19 pandemic completely changed how I was able to teach. I had to go from classroom to classroom teaching dance instead of teaching in my dance studio, and I kept losing my voice from teaching six classes a day in double masks. Since there were smart boards in every room, I thought it would be a good idea to project online dance lessons for the students to follow along with. It seemed like an opportunity to teach dance styles that I’m not an expert in and couldn’t afford to bring into the school, such as Hip-Hop. I carefully curated the few videos I could find online and presented them to my class. Much to my dismay, the videos were too fast, too hard, poor quality, had ads that popped up at inconvenient times, and didn’t engage the students in creative thinking. My students shut down. They stood staring at the smart board, desperate to learn, but they couldn’t follow the teacher. The only effective strategy was when I paused the video and broke the steps down into smaller parts using my pedagogical knowledge of how children learn.
Through these experiences I realized the need for educationally sound digital arts lessons that could supplement existing dance curriculum or be a dance curriculum for schools that don’t have one.
Ella started Crelata so that every student is seen, heard, and validated through the arts so they can gain the confidence to chart a future of their design.
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Land Acknowledgement
Crelata is committed to uplifting and giving power to diverse voices through the arts. We acknowledge that our headquarters is located on the unceded ancestral land of the Munsee Lenape People. Through the internet we are likely reaching you and your students on the stolen land of other Indigenous Peoples. We hope that you will help your students learn about the land you are occupying in order to overcome the negative effects of settler colonialism and to celebrate the rich history and traditions of Native People. https://native-land.ca #honornativeland