About NODC

The New Orleans Dance Collective (NODC), a non-profit youth organization, actively links dance with social work and seeks to address the overwhelming need for life-affirming, esteem-building cultural activities for inner-city at-risk youth in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Its mission is to celebrate community and diversity by providing dance programs for inner-city at-risk youth that utilize group therapy techniques as a means of intervention and to positively affect behavior through dance within a group setting.

Janet Andrews, MSW, NODC founder, is a native New Orleanian who has been teaching dance for the past 58 years. Ms. Andrews holds a graduate degree in social work from Tulane University and teaches tap at NODC.

Through history and across cultures, dance has strengthened communities and helped individuals build self-esteem and self-discipline. As a social work intervention, dance can unite, uplift, teach, inspire, and heal, thus empowering individuals and communities.