{"id":21627,"date":"2024-08-05T12:45:05","date_gmt":"2024-08-05T17:45:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pvfa.tamu.edu\/?p=21627"},"modified":"2024-08-07T12:46:34","modified_gmt":"2024-08-07T17:46:34","slug":"annual-summer-intensive-gives-high-school-students-a-collegiate-level-dance-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pvfa.tamu.edu\/news\/2024\/08\/05\/annual-summer-intensive-gives-high-school-students-a-collegiate-level-dance-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Annual Summer Intensive Gives High School Students A Collegiate-Level Dance Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
High school students across the state and beyond came to the Texas A&M campus for the Dance Science<\/a> program\u2019s 16th annual Collegiate Summer Dance Intensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A total of 45 students \u2014 coming from as far as Colorado, Nevada, Ohio, New Hampshire and Illinois \u2014 attended the June 16-22 event, which provided dance classes and opportunities to choreograph and perform their own work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Carisa Armstrong<\/a>, program director and associate professor, said the students were brave to travel to a new environment and experience dance at the collegiate level. She said she admired their eagerness to learn and advance through the intensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have students that come for multiple years in a row, so it is really beautiful to watch them grow as an artist,\u201d Armstrong said. \u201cIt is really nice to see how their bodies develop into more mature dancers in the way they are able to handle material \u2014 compared to when they were younger, and it was a little different. Finding that maturity in their artistic self is nice to see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Faculty members led classes in ballet, modern, jazz, hip-hop, improv, screendance, Pilates and recovery techniques in the dance studios of the Physical Education Activity Program Building and the Liberal Arts and Arts and Humanities Building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rylee Burns, a senior at Texas Online Preparatory School, received a scholarship for the summer intensive. The Dayton native said she favors ballet but was eager to learn about different dance genres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI haven\u2019t been to an in-person school before, so this is an entirely new experience for me,\u201d Burns said. \u201cI loved all of the people and the new classes. I had never taken Pilates before and I hadn\u2019t taken modern in this aspect, but I really liked it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Burns was also one of 19 students who auditioned for admittance to the Dance Science program. She was intrigued by classes involving anatomy and the nontraditional aspects of dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI am really grateful for this opportunity, and I am so glad I was open to trying something new,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is always good to try out things you have never done before \u2014 and you can figure out if you don\u2019t like it, but you don\u2019t want to have the regret of never trying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Armstrong said the intensive involved interdisciplinary efforts with one class taking place in the Visualization<\/a> program\u2019s Igloo Studio<\/a>, where students utilized the 360-degree screen to learn about screendancing in TV, movies and advertisements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis year we were looking at how do we balance these things, like the physicality of training in the studio,\u201d she said. \u201cThey were taken to the Igloo so they could experience and be introduced to all the different aspects that are available to them at A&M. Technology is definitely one of the newer components, <\/strong>so we hope to continue to grow that for our program.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Current students and recent graduates served as counselors during the intensive. Aspen Hawkins, a sophomore Dance Science student and counselor, noted how students challenged their limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs they were taking classes alongside us as current college students, they seemed to say, \u2018OK, I have to keep up with them,\u2019\u201d Hawkins said. \u201cBut then you could see they saw it as a good challenge, too. Because if they can do it with us, then they can say, \u2018I can be here. I can be in a college dance class.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n