{"id":145,"date":"2023-03-01T10:22:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-01T16:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pvfa.tamu.edu\/hopelife\/?p=145"},"modified":"2023-07-19T11:20:00","modified_gmt":"2023-07-19T16:20:00","slug":"hope-life-goes-to-carrollton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pvfa.tamu.edu\/hopelife\/news\/2023\/03\/hope-life-goes-to-carrollton\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope Life goes to Carrollton"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

But Where There\u2019s Hope, There\u2019s Life<\/em> was presented in February 2023 at two high schools in Carrollton, Texas. Directors Ronelle Eddings and Stephanie Laranjeira brought Hopelife to their campus in order to help educate students on the Holocaust and show their dancers how the arts can impact your community. This event began in January when choreographers Carisa Armstrong and Christine Bergeron went to Creekview High School to set one of the sections, Todesm\u00e4rche, <\/em>on dancers from Creekview High School (Moving Ground Dance Company)  and Newman Smith High School (Gallery in Motion Dance Company). Over two days, dancers from both schools came together to learn the 7-minute work about the Death Marches during the Holocaust. As students learned the movement of the work they were also educated on what the death marches were and why these people were forced to evacuate as Allied Troops got closer to the camps. Texas A&M student who has been part of the work for 4 years, Anna Jones, also assisted in setting the work on the high school dancers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In February, both high schools along with Texas A&M dancers came together and performed the evening-length work 18 times over two days. First at Creekview High School on February 23rd and then at Newman Smith High School on February 24th. High school dancers danced the work three times during the day for fellow students and then again six times that evening for community members. While one school performed the work the other high schoolers acted as the tour guides bringing the audience to 8 different locations throughout the school including hallways, dance studios, the library, and the school\u2019s main entrance. This gave the students the opportunity to not only dance a section of the work but to be part of the whole evening by guiding audiences through the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the experience, dancers felt the deep impact of the experience and expressed it by adding their butterfly to our butterfly project and through their statements on our writing wall. Here are some of the words they left:<\/p>\n\n\n\n