Hey everyone! Welcome to my summer adventures at the American Dance Festival. I will be updating this blog as much as possible, but I am hoping to try to post everyday if possible.
To start, I would like to welcome you by telling you what exactly I am doing down here in Durham, NC. I auditioned/applied to the American Dance Festival Summer Program at the American College Dance Festival at James Madison University. After sending in my application materials and with many thanks to those who wrote me a recommendation ( Nicole Martinell, Catherine Horta-Hayden, Vincent Thomas, Laura Smith, and Kelly Dries- Thank you.) I was admitted as a dorm counselor at the festival with a full tuition & room/board scholarship. The only thing I am paying for is for gas and food- what a deal! In return I will be working as a full time RA as well as taking a full course load of dance classes. I will be supervising a building with 18 other RAs for students who will be here for 6 weeks and will be under 18 and then also younger students ( age range 12-16yrs) who will be arriving at the last 3 weeks of the program.
I have not figured out my schedule yet, but I will be posting that as soon as I can. We basically can take a range of different classes on a routinely schedule every week such as Modern, Ballet, West African, Contemporary, etc. and then we have opportunities to take elective course work on either a consistent or drop-in basis, which includes classes such as Pilates, Yoga, Rituals, Workshops, Body Conditioning, etc. There are also different long-term projects you can audition for and may have rehearsal for as well as auditions for major dance companies to be in one of their future projects or to get into their company. Some of the companies coming this year are including but not limited to: Paul Taylor Dance Company, Pilobolus, Vertigo Dance Company, Shen Wei Dance Arts, Monica Bill Barnes, Doug Elkins & Friends, Scottish Dance Theatre, Hubbard Street, Mark Morris Dance Group, and more.
So after a long night of traveling to Richmond, and then a 2.5 hour trip to Durham, I made it at 11:30AM. I met my Dorm Counselor Intern, also named Olivia and got my room key and card. Then after unpacking into Randolph Hall I met my roommate, Emma, who goes to VCU! How cool! My old dream school. We got to Epworth Hall for our orientation. There are 18 Dorm Counselors here and we were the lucky few out of the 600+ applicants to get the positions! We are really lucky and I am truly blessed to be one of those lucy individuals!
After orientation, we walked back and Emma and I decided to do some errands, so we went to Whole Foods, The Gas Station, Dollar General, and the bank. When we got back we unpacked some things and chilled for a bit. Then around 7:00PM we took a tour of the campus with Olivia. She showed us the basic outlines of buildings that would be of importance to us. Duke is a beautiful campus. The buildings all seem to match one another and the general design and style of the buildings and open space are so nice. At the end of our tour we ended up walking to this little cute mexican place called Cosmic Cantina. They had really cheap, REALLY good mexican food. I got a chicken burrito and a Dos Equis and I was in heaven! It did take forever to get our food, however to be fair 20 people walked in with 2 guys working simultaneously. It was great bonding with all of the other counselors today, especially my newfound roommate Emma! I also met another counselor who also goes to VCU named Christina- who happens to remember me from ACDFA at JMU! I am already really excited about my experiences that I am about to embark on at this festival and I have literally not even stepped into the dance world yet.
I will be posting more information and updates as the time comes, but sorry if some of my blogs become super detailed and boring-I am using this as a recorder for my events here at ADF so I will be adding as much detail as I see fit. Anyways, I have had a long few days of preparing and traveling so until tomorrow- goodnight! Tootles :)
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