Dance Instructors
Rocheli Apilan
Rocheli Apilan came from the southern part of the Philippines,
Mindanao, known as the “Land of Promise”. She graduated with Bachelor
of Science in Chemistry at the Mindanao State University (MSU) and
Master’s degree in Chemistry in Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute
of Technology (MSU-IIT). She was an Associate Professor in Chemistry in the
College of Science and Mathematics at MSU-IIT for sixteen years. She is
currently teaching chemistry at The High School of Sports Management in
Brooklyn, New York.
Aside from her devotion in science, she has also an immense passion
in dancing, singing and theatre arts. She received the “Class Thespian”
award when she was in high school. During her college life she began to
take interest in dancing, joined an audition and got selected to join the
dance college team to represent her college in the university’s competitions.
Even after her teen years, she continued her dance passion but this time
in different way, it was already her who was coaching her students’ dance
team to represent their college.
The combination of her passion in arts and her experience dealing with high school
students and young adults gave Ms. Apilan the cornerstone of providing unblemished
dance lesson to the teenagers of our organization.
Josette Baraquia
Josette Baraquia graduated with a Bachelor of Science in General Education and
Masters degree in General Science at Cebu Normal University in the Philippines.
She has been teaching Earth Science at Mark Twain`Middle School IS239 in
Brooklyn for four years now.
Ms. Baraquia has been a member of Kabkaban Dance Troupe in the Philippines
since she was in high school. She improvised, instructed, created, and
performed dances that portray different ethnicity from different region
of the Philippines.
Ms. Baraquia's background in general education assists in providing our
children the foundational skills and knowledge required to understand
and appreciate dance and its momentum. She dedicates her unsurpassed
time and skills to expose our children with high quality, hand-on arts
learning experience.
Maria Theresa Macalde
Maria Theresa Macalde graduated with Bachelor in Elementary Education at
Saint Mary’s College in the Philippines. She recently finished her masters
in Childhood Education for grades 1-6 and Student with Disabilities at Touro
College in New York. Ms. Macalde has been a teacher for 12 years now. She
has been teaching regular education for 8 years and on her 5th year teaching
student with multiple disabilities. She is currently teaching severely
challenged disabled students at Brooklyn Center for Students with Multiple
Disabilities (811@P286).
Ms. Macalde has been actively involved in Regional Speech Feast. She is
a Speechfeaster and training students in various competition. In 1995, she
won the Regional Speech-Choir Competition and also awarded as best in script
writing. Speech-Choir is a vocal group competition involved creating scenes,
acting and dialogues in unison. Lastly, as a teacher for students with
hearing impairment, Ms. Macalde is involved sign language interpretative
dances and teaching folk dances.
Ms. Macalde’s education and career disclosed the essential requirements
in dealing with youngsters of our organization, not only, through dancing,
but also the influence of psychological effect in discipline, and the
skill in building self-awareness both physically and emotionally.