Chicago nonprofit Black Girls Dance getting new performing arts center in Calumet Heights
Empowering young Black and Brown girls on the South Side of Chicago is the mission of Black Girls Dance, a nonprofit that is getting a new home in the Calumet Heights neighborhood.
Black Girls Dance has performed all over the city; at Governors State University, Arie Crown Theater, and on Sunday they'll take the stage once again at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts in Hyde Park, for "Mary, A Holiday Dansical!"
Erin Barnett is the visionary behind Black Girls Dance.
"There's something that really just touches me when I see the face of a little Brown girl when her eyes light up and she realizes that there's a trajectory here," she said.
Barnett founded the nonprofit organization in 2021 inside the Mayfair Arts Center in Calumet Heights.
To date, more than 200 girls between the ages of 3 and 18 have gone through her fee-based and scholarship programs, focusing on a variety of dance.
Barnett, who studied at Ruth Page Center for the Arts, and was a dance major at Howard University, has an even bigger vision in Calumet Heights from her beginning, when she was teaching 45 students in a church basement.
The new home for Black Girls Dance, which will be called "The Full Circle Performing Arts Center," is located in Calumet Heights near 93rd Street and South Chicago Avenue; the 18,000-square-foot site of a former church, with lots of office space.
"All of the rooms that are currently classrooms or conference rooms are going to be remodeled into dance studios," Barnett said. "We're going to have singing lessons and drama classes so it really will be that performing arts center."
Renderings of the facility show the promise of what's to come, where everything from healthy cooking and nutrition classes to mental health support and financial literacy and investment workshops will be offered.
"It's important to me to feed into the parents as well," Barnett said.
The new center will have a 450-seat auditorium for their performances on stage.
Barnett has an angel investor who purchased the site for the organization. Now, she needs to raise $5 million to transform the property, with the goal of opening in September of 2026.
"Now, we're just reaching the city at large. So, hoping that someone will want to come and help us invest and partner with us in bringing the space back to its full glory," Barnett said.