When Chair of Dance Bekki Price met with Grand Canyon University’s Global Studies office two years ago, she was eager to discuss study abroad opportunities for the dance program.
After partnering with Global Studies Program Coordinator Jessica Landes and EF Study Abroad, Price and 15 students recently traveled to Italy for a summer dance intensive.
“I wanted to do something that was either going somewhere to dance or just watch dance, or do both,” Price said.
“One thing I really wanted for students is finding out how many opportunities are out there. A lot of students in many disciplines come in and kind of have their life mapped out. But there are endless opportunities ... and I hope they take the jump, put themselves out there and continue to dream big.”
The group spent 11 days traveling around Italy. The students' first stop was in Rome, where they visited tourist attractions, such as the Trevi Fountain, Colosseum, Pantheon, Spanish Steps and various museums.
Eager to start dancing, they continued to Viterbo for a three-day dance workshop at Campagnia Petrilla Danza. Under the direction of Loris Petrillo, students learned new and unique dance techniques and movements.
“It is always amazing being able to train somewhere else,” senior Kadynce Ross said. “When Bekki mentioned the idea of going to Italy to see who is interested, immediately I said I am making this happen and how are we going to do it? When else am I going to get to go to Italy with the dance program?”
Unlike their usual hour-and-a-half classes, Lopes trained for five hours every day in a dance studio with no air conditioning.
The real challenge, and a crowd favorite, began when Petrillo brought out trampolines to introduce new movement methods.
Handstands, inversions and alike movements performed on the equipment taught students the power of resistance and the importance of balance.
An additional challenge came when students turned these individual movements to group efforts. With four dancers on one trampoline, students had to learn spatial awareness and weight sharing.
“It was being one with the group, it wasn’t solely an individual experience,” senior Paige Heilig said. “They train in very different ways from what we are used to. They worked out different muscles I didn’t really realize we needed to work out. We danced for five hours per day because they are just used to going so much and so hard.
“It was a lot of familiar things with a different take. I feel lucky to have this experience before I graduate because it is at a more malleable time of life and people don’t always fully grasp the expansiveness of dance without going outside of the box.”
With a big emphasis on physical strength and agility from Petrillo, students got a taste of martial arts movements incorporated in dance choreography. Half-dance, half-combat Brazilian dance method, capoeira pushed students to figure out how to express a fighting mindset and skills onto the dance floor using wooden dowels.
“It was nice to play with different movement, adapting to different dynamics,” Ross said. “A lot of the things they talked about was the physics of how we move because they are all about anatomy here. It was very cool I was able to connect the kinesiology side of my major and my dance minor together.”
But interestingly enough, the most inspiring moments came from language-barrier challenges. When Petrillo and his assistants could not find the right English instructions, the dance movements spoke for themselves, Heilig explained. Lopes didn’t need vocal directions as much as they needed to simply watch and follow Petrillo’s steps. They witnessed how their art can powerfully connect and unite different cultures on the dance floor.
Outside of their classes, Lopes got to explore the history and beauty of Viterbo. They got to sit in on a private performance from the Twain Dance Production Center at the Teatro dell’Unione, which was followed by a surprise tour of the theatre.
A final dance class at Istituto Addestramento Lavoratori dello Spettacolo in Rome completed their study abroad trip. This time, they delved into contemporary fusion techniques.
“As a dance major, opportunities are sometimes limited because it’s such a niche major,” senior MacKenzie Bell said. “It was cool to take what we love doing and what we’ve trained for, a lot of us our entire lives, and get to experience it in a different culture.
“It really opened my eyes to the possibilities of international dance. I have never considered that as a career, but after this trip, it showed me that is a possibility. We are prepared for that because of the department we have at GCU.”
GCU staff writer Izabela Fogarasi can be reached at [email protected]
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