October 5, 2018 – Hundreds of dancers from middle and high schools throughout Florida will gather on Santa Fe College’s Northwest Campus Oct. 19-20, 2018, for the annual Young Dancer Workshops sponsored and organized by the Florida Dance Association, the Santa Fe College Fine Arts Department and the University of Florida School of Theatre and Dance.
Highlights of the workshops are the two public showcase performances at 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, Oct. 19-20, in the SF Fine Arts Hall. Tickets are $10, available through the Fine Arts Hall Box Office, 352-395-4181 or online at sfcollege.edu/finearts.
The two-day festival atmosphere of the workshops offers an intense, immersive dance experience for the young dancers. Included are classes, rehearsals, performances and scholarship auditions led by dance professionals from throughout the United States. This year, the young dancers will benefit from an artist residency with members of Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami, a new contemporary ballet company that earned stellar reviews for their recent performances in New York City.
“We’re very fortunate that Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami will be our artists in residence for the workshops this year and that they will perform the night before the workshops begin,” said Santa Fe College (SF) Fine Arts Department chair Alora Haynes. “It really elevates the interest of the young dancers and gives them an entirely different feeling when they get to take classes with professionals they’ve just seen perform at the level that Dimensions Dance Theatre brings.”
During the workshops, the young dancers split their time between classes at Santa Fe College and the University of Florida. At SF, the schedule for middle school students includes workshops in intermediate/advanced ballet, hip-hop, modern dance, musical theatre, ballet variations, the “how” of performing, Afro-fusion, jazz, yoga and the pathway to a dance major. Workshops for high school students include advanced ballet, dance conditioning, contemporary dance, tap, pas de deux (dance for two), pointe variations, modern, jazz, a community dance jam, West African dance, improvisation and an artist talk by members of Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami. Similar workshops are offered for the two age levels at the University of Florida.
The Florida Dance Association is an organization that helps dance artists to network, collaborate and support each other to advance dance arts throughout the state. The Florida Dance Association is an NPN Partner of the National Performance Network (NPN). The Young Dancer Workshops are made possible in part by support from the NPN Performance Residency Program. Major contributors of NPN include the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information visit npnweb.org.
For more information about tickets to the Young Dancer Showcase performances Oct. 19-20 or the Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami performance Oct. 18, call the SF Fine Arts Hall Box Office at 352-395-4181.