Our story
Thirty years of raising the curtain for the Northeast Bronx.
Before the empty chairs, there were thirty years of full ones. This is how a keyboard in a South Bronx church became a borough institution — and why we're building it back.
30+
years of teaching
2,000+
Bronx students taught
4–88
ages we’ve welcomed
Milestones
From a keyboard in a South Bronx church to a movement.
1994
A church in the South Bronx
Lola Louis started with a keyboard and twelve neighborhood kids in a South Bronx church. She kept tuition low on purpose and waived it whenever a family couldn’t manage. Word traveled block to block, and within a season the room was full.
1999
The first recital
Fifty students took a real stage for the first time — piano, ballet, and spoken word. Parents who had never been to a theatre watched their children take a bow.
2006
The Children’s Legacy
Lola’s signature intergenerational production brought seniors and students onto one stage, blending griot storytelling, movement, and music into a piece the borough still talks about.
2011
Hurricane Irene takes the space
Flooding during Hurricane Irene left the program without a home. Undeterred, Lola moved classes into her own apartment living room so the work would not stop.
2018
Two thousand alumni
From four-year-olds at the barre to eighty-eight-year-olds at the mic, more than 2,000 Bronx residents had passed through the program — kept affordable, with no child ever turned away for inability to pay.
2023
Losing Lola
Lola Louis passed away in October 2023. Her apartment — the last classroom — had to be given up. The chairs went into storage. The mission did not.
Now
Raising the curtain again
We are a pre-launch nonprofit fundraising for a permanent Bronx studio. No active classes yet — every dollar funds the reopening, this time free for all, carrying Lola’s work forward.
The next milestone is a signed lease.
Help us write the next line of this story. Every gift funds the reopening of free classes for the Bronx.