My rendezvous with French culture began at the tender age of three. I would quite ungracefully climb into the backseat of my mom’s SUV after ballet class and butcher the pronunciations of whatever I had learned in class that day. Almost two decades later, it seems as if this relationship has come full circle as I sit in my class on Louis XIV and learn about the man who helped to name those ballet terms I butchered all those years ago. In this way, I have always been drawn to where the artistic and scholastic collide. I think this typifies my desire to take part in this Paris Maymester program because through it, I would have the extraordinary opportunity to explore Paris and its salon culture both as an artist and as a scholar. Indeed, I truly …show more content…
The idea of going to a city where I don’t know a single person and where I can’t even speak the language is completely terrifying! The idea of going to a dance class where I can’t even understand what the teacher is saying is terrifying! However, I have made my most fantastic discoveries and found the most growth in these challenging moments of utter petrification. What can I discover about dance and about myself when language becomes a barrier rather than a …show more content…
As a performer, I spend a lot of time bringing others’ artistic visions to life. I love this, but lately I have been driven by an insatiable urge to explore my own space as artist. Of course, that is not to say that I would ever be creating in a vacuum. It seems to me that one of the greatest benefits of this program is that it emphasizes the collaborative nature of art. By joining musicians and dancers, this program gives all involved an incredible opportunity to not only develop their creative strengths but also to learn about and explore unfamiliar artistic avenues. I would be happy to teach a Thornton student how to do a pirouette, and I’m sure they would be happy to help me learn how to read music