About L.A. Cultural Exchange

THE L.A. CULTURAL EXCHANGE STORY

I’m Lisa Banconi, the founder of L.A. Cultural Exchange. I created this arts-focused program to help young performing and visual artists not only train with the top in their field, but also to live in Los Angeles and be well taken care of. It was the only arts-focused high school exchange program in the U.S. and the only one to accept U.S. “exchange students.” So we started as an exchange program but then added summer dance programs to help dancers have the L.A. experience who otherwise could not do a semester or academic year exchange.

From Student Exchanges to Dance in L.A.

Then Covid happened. We have not restarted our high school semester/academic year programs because the high schools have priced their student tuition out of reach of the majority of students for the quality of education offered. This goes against the original idea of student exchanges – making the world accessible to all. So, we took what we love – DANCE – and created the Dance in L.A. program for 18+ dancers and build a dance dorm. This modified program has the same love, care, training and fun as our former programs.