About this Service

Teaching Artist Project (TAP), New York City’s longest-running professional development program for Teaching Artists, is now accepting applications for its 2025–2026 Signature Program. This eight-month intensive training and internship program is designed to empower working artists to bring their creative process into classrooms through the lens of social justice, collaboration, and equity in education.

Since 1997, TAP has trained artists to design and lead innovative, multidisciplinary arts lessons that support both artistic development and community impact. TAP envisions a world where artists and learners together harness the power of creative expression to build a more equitable future.

The 2025–2026 cycle will run from October 2025 through May 2026. Participants will attend six full-day core workshops, participate in internships or externships, attend elective trainings and community salons, and receive mentorship from seasoned Teaching Artists and arts administrators. All core workshops will take place in person, with some community events remaining virtual to increase accessibility and connection across the TAP network.

Our core theme for this year is Radical Love, which is deeply embedded in our work as artists and educators. With Radical love, all are welcome. Everyone’s creative expression is valued.

About this Lister

Teaching Artist Project (TAP) is a comprehensive jobs training program designed to guide artists through bringing their creative process into the classroom by developing skills to model creative expression, collaboration, and teaching for social justice through innovative multidisciplinary arts lessons.

TAP envisions a world where all artists and learners work together to recognize and celebrate the power of their creative voices to manifest a more equitable future. Our program is committed to exploring the process needed to create equity through arts education.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymlj0W5d1Lk

Background and Expertise

Over the last 25 years, TAP has trained over 1000 artists through our 8-month program, Summer Institute, and other professional development opportunities. The program has grown to include all creative disciplines, and we accept roughly 35 artists a year into each program.

The classroom internships allow trainees to observe seasoned teaching artists in the classroom and we offer concurrent trainings for advanced teaching artists, who’ve never had formalized training.

TAP includes elective seminars with topics ranging from specific creative disciplines to working with many vulnerable populations, like special needs and incarcerated youth. Our seminar opportunities allow participants to articulate and present their creative process, transform that process into original lesson plans and explore the dynamics critical to strong classroom management. Trainees debrief with their assigned mentors about their internship and explore topics such as partnering with classroom teachers, arts integration, and reflection.