Members of Canopy Studio’s Repertory Company perform on the circus bar during the “Divas” show. Clarke Central High School junior Tyus Dekle has taken classes at Canopy for 14 years and taught for two, and believes that artistic spaces like Canopy are important for the community as a whole. “Canopy and other communities like ours are a way of connecting people. And especially after the pandemic we need that more than ever. Just having this space that is so welcoming and (allows for) making connections, new friends, just new people is very important, especially for a small town like ours,” Dekle said. Photo courtesy of Canopy Studio
The National Endowment for the Arts approved a grant of $10,000 for Canopy Studio, which will allow the company to make itself more accessible to the Athens community.
Canopy Studio, a local non-profit, was approved to receive $10,000 through the Challenge America grant from the National Endowment for the Arts on Jan. 11.
Canopy offers classes for all ages in various forms of aerial dance such as trapeze, silks, lyra and pole. It’s focus on the arts made it eligible for the NEA’s Challenge America grant, which supports art in communities across the country.
A Canopy Studio student attends a trapeze class. The student enrolled in the class on a scholarship, and the National Endowment for the Arts’s scholarship will allow Canopy to expand their outreach program and support more community members. “Anyone at all, we want them to be a part of the (Canopy) community, we want their influence, we want their thoughts, their ideas. We want to spread the joy. So we do a lot of stuff where we go out to schools, and (we do) pop-up events that happen around Athens, tons of stuff,” Clarke Central High School junior Tyus Dekle, who has taken classes at Canopy for 14 years and taught for two, said. “And having the funding for that (outreach), and not only that but the funding to be able to provide more financial aid and more general support is really important. And I’m excited that we’re gonna have some financial aid to do that.” Photo courtesy of Canopy Studio
“Projects such as this one with Canopy strengthen arts and cultural ecosystems, provide equitable opportunities for arts participation and practice and contribute to the health of our communities and our economy,” NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson said in a Jan. 11 press release from Canopy.
The studio hopes to use the funds to take their outreach program to new heights, making Canopy classes more accessible to the community at large through scholarships, support for students, demonstrations at schools and pop-up events.
“Through the Outreach Program our goal is to continually identify barriers to entry and make it easier for students to apply for help and afford taking classes at Canopy,” the press release stated. “This grant will support Canopy’s Outreach Program to continue to reach a wider audience and reflect the diversity of the Athens community-at-large, bringing the opportunity for personal enrichment through aerial arts to everyone regardless of age, ability or socioeconomic status.”
Clarke Central High School junior Tyus Dekle, who has taken classes at Canopy for 14 years and taught there for two, is grateful for the grant’s recognition and excited to see its results.
“(The grant) is really exciting to me, especially since (Canopy is) such a small, local community. It’s really cool to be like ‘Oh, whoa. Us? We were recognized?’ Because we’re just this small little studio in Athens, Georgia,” Dekle said. “(The Canopy community) is all so loving and welcoming. It is truly an amazing place to be and I’m so glad we get to share that with the rest of the (Athens) community.”
