American Ballroom Theater

In 1994 Pierre volunteered to teach a dance class at the Professional Performing Arts School on West 48th Street in Manhattan. From this beginning, Pierre developed Dancing Classrooms, a 10 week – 20 session social development program for 5th grade children that utilizes ballroom dancing as a vehicle to change the lives of not only the children who participate in the program but also the lives of the teachers and parents who support these children.

In 2005 Mad Hot Ballroom, an award-winning documentary capturing the Dancing Classrooms journey from classroom experience to the culminating Colors of the Rainbow Team Match was released. Take the Lead (with Antonio Banderas) was released in 2006 and depicted Pierre Dulaine’s efforts to utilize ballroom dancing to help NYC youth regain a sense of self-respect, pride, and elegance. Both of these movies greatly accelerated national, and international, interest in Dancing Classrooms.

In 2006, ABrT began developing Dancing Classrooms sites throughout the US and Canada. During the 2008-2009 school year Dancing Classrooms served 40,500 children in 400 schools in New York City, Newark, Omaha, Fort Worth/Dallas, Toronto, Philadelphia, Suffolk County (NY), Fort Myers and Florida Keys, Cleveland, Lake Charles (LA), Monterey and Geneva (Switz).

In 2009-2010 the program will begin in Pittsburgh, St. Louis, US Virgin Islands, Santa Cruz (CA), Western Maryland, Birmingham (UK), Phoenix and Winston-Salem (NC).