Allegheny Summer Dance Intensive: Week One

We have just finished the first week of the annual Allegheny Summer Dance Intensive at Allegheny College in Meadville, PA. The students are lovely, the instructors are great (of course), and the schedule is full. We run two different technique classes daily, a combined improvisation and composition class, and a rehearsal for participants who will perform with the Company in our fall concert at the College. There were also masssage workshops two evenings this week. Several mornings have been spent practicing yoga and/or cycling the 7 hilly miles to the dance center. It was a great pleasure to welcome Heather to the faculty and to, once again, work with Sherri. This year we were joined by company member Marissa. I know that the students enjoyed dancing with the ladies.

I taught the final technique class of the week this morning; after which Doug and I walked the woods where Antaeus Dance will be filming for Prospect & Refuge in two weeks. One bit of bad news: The farmhouse we were planning on using was torn down. It was falling down, to be sure, and had been standing for decades; but we were hoping to get one more year out of it. Doug is scouting a new location.

Tomorrow, former company member Carla arrives, and we jump back into classes Monday morning. Nine students are learning Recent Deviations, a piece I choreographed for the KSU Dance Division in 2008. The Allegheny students are enthusiastic and we covered a little over half the choreography in our first four rehearsals. We will finish the piece on Thursday and share it with the group on Friday. I will come back to rehearse them in the fall before their performance with AD. They are doing well and I am excited to see them perform!

Right now, I am enjoying some quiet at the home of a friend, to both me and Antaeus Dance. It has been really nice to have a home to return to each night, and to be in such good company...a place to prepare and share meals together, a place to rest and rejunvenate at the end of each day. Our first night, Scott built a great fire and we sat around it talking and roasting s'mores. I can't tell you the last time I did that. What a way to start! It is wonderfully quiet here at night and truly dark save for the stars. There is a great view from the swing out back.

I am looking forward to the second week of the intensive!
Joan

Photos by Joan Meggitt