Program areas at Edlavitch DCJCC
Q street preschool - provides a full-day preschool program in an environment of open-ended exploration, curiosity, and growth for children, teachers, and families. While maintaining strict covid protocols this year, which included outside drop-off/pick up, ongoing testing, stringent cleaning, and the wearing of masks, we were able to open all 10 of our classrooms and serve 131 children in the preschool. By the late spring we were able to change our covid schedule and re-open, on a limited basis, our aftercare option for families. The children were enrolled in ten state-of-the-art renovated preschool classrooms, which includes a gross motor indoor play area and a dedicated art room. The preschool strives to deepen connections to judaism, the Community, ethics & morals, and the world around us. The school employs methods that promote a constructivist pedagogical model whereby the children's interests dictate the subjects through which basic skills like numeracy and literacy are taught. This project-based approach allows the children to dynamically interact with all the organization has to offer, and to create learning opportunities from the environment around them.
Athletics - the edcjcc fitness Center provides a low-key and easy exercise environment for individuals and families through a wide range of fitness programs. Both fitness Center members and visitors can take advantage of our state of the fitness Center which features our leading industry branded precor cardio and sectorized strength equipment and free weights machines. There are two exercise studios that host over 30 group exercise classes with the likes of les mills body pump, yoga, pilates and senior fitness classes. In addition, our 60 meter 3-lane pool provides programming such as "kids group swim" from ages 4 months-12 years old, lap swim for adults and aqua fitness programs for seniors.the fitness Center strives to create an environment where both individuals and families can form long lasting friendships and subsequently get involved in other jcc activities including the arts, Community service projects, and educational classes and lectures about Jewish culture, religion, and history.
Theater j - a nationally-renowned, professional theater that celebrates, explores, and struggles with the complexities and nuances of both the Jewish experience and the universal human condition. Hailed by the Washington post as "the most influential Jewish theater company in the nation," theater j has over 70 helen hayes nominations and nine helen hayes awards and produces five to seven plays per season that run between 24 and 36 performances. Entering its 33rd year, theater j is one of the most distinctive and respected Jewish theaters in the national and international scene and presents a wide variety of recognizable, under-explored, and brand-new works from the Jewish theatrical canon, as well as non-jewish works that investigate diverse stories about immigrants, language, assimilation, genocide, religion, and otherness. Theater j draws audiences from all eight wards of the district, as well as Maryland and Virginia, and reflects the diverse residents of the metropolitan DC region. Prior to covid-19, theater j had nearly 1,000 subscribers and over 15,000 single ticket buyers annually. After closing in march 2020, theater j reopened in september 2021 and presented six live plays through the summer of 2022, which reached a total of 11,783 attendees. In addition to our full productions, we presented the trish vradenburg new Jewish play prize and the patty abramson new Jewish play prize. Our yiddish theater lab program commissioned three new plays inspired by the classic yiddish theater, and we presented readings of those three plays both online and in-person in the fall of 2021 and spring of 2022. In january 2022, theater j launched expanding the canon, a program that has commissioned seven ethnically and racially diverse Jewish playwrights to write seven new full-length plays that Center the untold stories of jews of color. Both yiddish theater lab and expanding the canon are multi-year programs that we hope will launch new plays that change the landscape of Jewish theater in the united states and around the world.
Film & music - presented by the Edlavitch dcjcc, jxj is a multidisciplinary arts project that encompasses the Washington Jewish film and music festivals. The public programming of jxj is split between weekly programs that take place in cafritz hall - a state-of-the-art performance and cinema venue in the dupont area of Washington, DC - and an annual may festival (may 11-21, 2023) presented on stages and screens throughout DC, Maryland, and Virginia. One of the largest and most respected Jewish film festivals in north america, the Washington Jewish film festival (wjff) is an international exhibition of cinema that celebrates the diversity of Jewish history, culture and experience through the moving image. The wjff is going into its 34th year. The Washington Jewish music festival (wjmf), going into its 25th season, enjoys a prestigious position as one of the leading presenters of Jewish music in the usa.between the festival and year-round programming, jxj traditionally attracts upwards of 20,000 patrons annually, though this slowed during the pandemic period. Jxj restarted in-person programming in september of 2021 and has been ramping up the scale and scope of our cultural programming. As of fall 2022, jxj has seen 80% of pre-pandemic audiences return to our year-round program and festival planners look forward to a successful 2023 festival.
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