Let’s face it being a good dancer just makes life easier. It allows you to walk confidently onto the dance floor at your cousins wedding and shake it off, electric slide, and nae-nae all night long. You don’t sweat it when your friends want to go out dancing and you feel no anxiety joining that salsa class going on at the studio down the street. I can confidently say that is not me…my life is not easy. Not that I want to blame my parents for this but one hundred percent… its all their fault. Growing up I played every sport offered but was never enrolled in a dance class. I never learned the grace of a ballerina, the rhythm of a jazz dancer or the creative movement that modern dancers possess. Lucky for the kids in our Kids in the Game programs they don’t need to live their adult lives resenting their parents for never letting them dance! In 2017, we are upping the ante and are offering more movement and dance classes then ever before!

Thanks to KING staff member Frances Niduaza-Murphy, KING has always implemented movement and dance into our curriculum. Frances is a professionally certified Zumba instructor and also teaches step and hip-hop classes to many of our after school programs. She also led the way to have Kids in the Game be accredited by Zumba Kids. Her desire to combined music and movement has paved the way for our newest KING dance coaches to expand upon our current offerings.

Hailey Kemp joined the KING staff just this month and is bringing immense talent and experience to our staff. Dancing from the age of 3 (good job parents!) she has experience in ballet, jazz and lyrical performance dance styles. She studied somatic and improvisation practices in college and has a passion for teaching fitness dance, Zumba and musical theater. So basically, she is pretty darn qualified. Hailey said it best when she told me why she loved to pass her experience on through teaching, “Teaching is important to me because it allows all children regardless of their history, ethnicity, and social status to move equally”. Hailey says her favorite type of dance to teach is improvisation and creative movement because it allows the children to shine and put their influences into movement.

Joining Hailey is an array of other talented dancers and coaches. With new programming starting this New Year such as ballet classes at the School of the Blessed Sacrament, and a constant desire to widen our range of offerings, our coaches will stay busy teaching their best moves. Maybe even it’s not too late for me to stop resenting my (wonderful!) parents and have them teach me to be a dancing KING too!

We are proud to announce that our Director of Performing Arts, Frances Niduaza-Murphy, has joined the New York Choral Society (NYCS) for the 2015-2016 year. NYCS is made up of 175 members and sought after guest artists throughout New York City.

Being in its 56th season, the NYCS will perform with tenor Andrea Bocelli on December 9th at the Madison Square Garden. Upcoming shows include “Christmas Around New York” to be performed on December 20th at the David Geffen Hall, formerly Alice Tully Hall, in Lincoln Center as well as famous concert halls in Staten Island and the Bronx throughout the month. On February 5, 2016, the NYCS will perform Arvo Pärt’s 1985 Te Deum and Beethoven’s Mass in C op. 86. Additionally, on May 10, 2016, Music Director David Hayes will lead the choir in Georg Friedrich Handel’s oratorio Israel in Egypt. Both programs will be held at Carnegie Hall.



Also as a part of the NY Choral Chamber Singers, Frances performs in a smaller ensemble of 35-50 singers made up of members from the larger NYCS group. The ensemble will perform music of Claude Debussy, Eric Esenvalds and Jonathan Dove on March 18, 2016.

As a classical musician, Frances is trained in music education as well as music performance in piano and voice. As Director of Performing Arts of Kids in the Game (KinG), Frances is able to share her passion for music with her students. She began an after-school piano class at P.S. 75 Emily Dickinson with 12 students. These students had the opportunity to perform 1-2 piano pieces in recitals held twice within the year – once in December, performing on a keyboard, and in June, on a grand piano. The success of the program has caused enrollment to double for this school year. Frances is also an integral part of the KinG dance program. She is certified in Zumba Basic I, Zumba Kids and Zumba Kids Jr. Since 2013, she has been teaching Zumba and Step for after-school programs in parochial and public schools around New York City. During summer months, Frances heads up the arts & crafts, music and dance curriculum at the Kids in the Game summer camp locations in Inwood and Upper West Side.



For the past year, Frances has been singing soprano with the Our Savior’s Atonement (OSA) Church Choir and the Cornerstone Chorale, both based in Washington Heights. Her involvement with opera singing includes being a cover artist for the Cantanti Project II, “Hits and Hidden Gems of Mozart and Massenet.” She is invited to be a part of the Georg Friedrich Haendel’s Alcina in February 2016 for Cantanti’s Project VII.

The Kids in the Game team is excited to have Frances on board contributing to the continuous growth of the dance and music programs.

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Frances Niduaza-Murphy is the Director of Performing Arts of Kids in the Game and a certified teacher in physical education, health and music. Frances earned her Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) in Collaborative Piano. To connect with Frances, you can reach her at Frances@kidsinthegame.com.