'BAM School' Set to Open Its Doors

The has already booked its first tenant.

The latest addition to the Brooklyn Academy of Music campus will soon host the first session of the BAM Professional Development Program—a 14-week intensive program that includes training and access to affordable performance and practice space.

With this year's session focused on dance, the first six companies selected by a BAM panel to participate are Brighton Ballet Theater, Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre, Gallim Dance, LAVA, LEIMAY and Tiffany Mills Company.

The program begins June 11.

In a statement, BAM president Karen Brooks Hopkins lauded the program, as well as the at 321 Ashland Place that will be the PDP's permanent home.

“The BAM Fisher was conceived as a center for arts, education, and community,
and the BAM PDP supports all these goals," Brooks said. "A strong community of stable cultural institutions, both small and large, enhances the creative life and energy of Brooklyn and all of New York City."

Funded partly through a $2 million endowment award by the Brooklyn Community Foundation in 2009, the effort is part of a larger effort to unite one of the nation's foremost cultural institutions with working artists in the borough.

"With the Community Foundation’s largest gift to date via our Arts for All Fund,
we’re ensuring that the arts will be even more affordable and accessible here,
enhancing this essential part of the Brooklyn life," said Brooklyn Community Foundation president Marilyn Gelber.