Dance

The Fine Arts Center dancers will have two days of master classes this year with distinguished guest artist Joan Wadopian, a graduate from the dance conservatory of SUNY-Purchase who has performed with the internationally acclaimed Shen Wei Dance Arts.  She will teach modern/contemporary dance Oct. 4 and 5 at the FAC, and she will also teach all day at the Greenville Dance Festival on Oct. 6, which is open to grades four through adult.  She has been a guest artist at the FAC for the past two years, and the students love her classes.

Jacqueline Calle received a partial scholarship to attend the internationally renowned six-week-long American Dance Festival at Duke University.  She took ballet class with Jeffrey Bullock, who is the director of Hollins University's HU/ADF MFA Program and the chair of Hollins' dance department. She took modern dance with Mark Haim, who has choreographed for the Nederlands Dans Theater, Ballet Frankfurt, the Joffrey Ballet and the Limon Dance Company.  She also was selected to perform in Canadian-born Choreographer Helen Simoneau's new work "Paper Wings," commissioned by ADF for its Footprints program.

Mireille Fehler participated in the three-week-long Nashville Ballet Advanced Summer Intensive, where she studied ballet, pointe, jazz, contemporary and pas de deux.  She also traveled to New York City and was fortunate to see American Ballet Theater's production of "Swan Lake" performed by Gillian Murphy and Marcelo Gomes at the Metropolitan Opera House. While she was in New York City she took an advanced ballet class with Elena Kunikova at STEPS on Broadway.  Mireille is the dancer second from the left in the photo.

Rhiannon Laymon had the opportunity to train at the University of the Arts Pre-College Summer Institute in Philadelphia for two weeks, studying ballet, modern dance, composition, Pilates, jazz and hip-hop. The summer program "focuses on broadening each dancer's artistic horizons -- in technique, choreography and critical thinking."  As part of the intensive, she attended a performance by BalletX, a cutting edge professional contemporary ballet company based in Philadelphia.

Hannah Winton traveled to Miami, Fla., for two weeks to take advantage of the Joffrey Ballet School's Jazz and Contemporary Summer Intensive.  She danced from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day, studying ballet, jazz, contemporary, modern dance, musical theatre and Pilates.  She also rehearsed in the evenings for the choreographer's dance pieces.



Nikki Morath attended the weeklong Joffrey Ballet School Jazz and Contemporary Summer Intensive in New York City and was fortunate to study with the talented faculty there.  She also took several classes at Broadway Dance Center.
Elizabeth (Beth) Byouk spent a week in NYC this summer taking classes and seeing performances.  She took several classes at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre School in NYC as well as Broadway Dance Center.  She had the pleasure of seeing a New York City Ballet performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and meeting with one of their principal dancers in person.