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Auckland Adventures in Dance

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My Experience Studying Dance Abroad for the Second Time
by Keri Lushefski

Last spring, I expanded my horizons and studied dance abroad for a second time. During my first time abroad, I journeyed 5,000 miles away to Rome, Italy with the Temple University Dance Department for two months. This time, I chose to depart 10,000 miles away to Auckland, New Zealand to train and study with The University of Auckland’s dance program for four months. Having already studied abroad once, I felt comfortable in the process of pursuing yet another unforgettable and enriching experience.


The classes I enrolled in while in New Zealand were Dance Vocabulary III (a contemporary technique course), Professional Dance Practices (similar to Senior Seminar), Ballet, Hip Hop, and Improvisation, and Pacific and Māori Contemporary Choreography. I also joined an Acrobatics Club where I honed in on my strength and balance in performing unique acrobatic poses with a diverse group of college students. Involving myself in a cultural dance form I have never experienced before, Pacific and Māori, was very eye opening to how expansive dance really is, and the many traditions in which it is practiced around the world. It reminded me of when I witnessed dance through other cultural lenses, such as when I took part in Hungarian folk dance in Budapest.


In consideration of having a two-week spring break, I decided to travel to both Sydney, Australia and Queenstown, New Zealand. In Sydney, I surfed at the infamous Bondi Beach, petted kangaroos and koalas, explored the Sydney Opera House, climbed the mast of a ship, saw the breathtaking botanical gardens, and witnessed a 360-degree view of Sydney in the Tower Eye. Furthermore, Queenstown is known as the adventure capital of the world; therefore,  took part in activities I never believed I would do, such as going indoor skydiving, paragliding,  and upside-down zip riding. Throughout the semester, I also spent my weekends exploring Auckland; I hung off of the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere, hiked to the peak of a volcano, went on whale and dolphin safaris, enhanced my knowledge at museums, watched dance performances, etc.


Since my future aspirations are to move to Europe and take part in a graduate dance program to further build my professional dance career to become a performer, choreographer, university dance professor, and dance researcher/educator, these study-abroad opportunities have prepared me to become motivated in doing so. I now feel highly confident in being independent, moving to new places, meeting new people, experiencing new languages and cultures, taking various forms of transportation, and traveling by myself. I no longer feel the need to worry about getting lost, since there are multiple GPS systems and local advice that help me ease my way around. Having been on a 24-hour round trip flight, any travel time less than that seems like a breeze to me. Leaving for long periods of time also always makes me appreciate everything I left back at home even more. I now know what it is like to study dance in a different country as well as experiencing life in a total of fourteen countries. I am excited to see what my future dance career brings as I transition into yet another experience abroad. My adventures will surely last a lifetime.

Keri Lushfeski BFA in Dance Student

My Experience Studying Abroad In Rome

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This summer, I had the incredible opportunity to study abroad in Italy with the dance department at Temple University Rome. I packed up and traveled over 5,000 miles to the ancient city of Rome. I was anxious about the new language and culture I was about to encounter, but excited to submerge myself into something new. Leaving home is never easy, but knowing all of the benefits I would receive in the end, kept me motivated.

I enrolled in Modern Dance Technique IIIB, Creative Process in Dance, and Independent Study in Dance with Professor  Jillian Harris. Classes were twice a week, therefore, I had plenty of time to explore Rome, take day trips to other cities in Italy, and travel to other countries every weekend. Modern Dance Technique IIIB was a 2-hour movement generated class. We began each class with a 30-minute yoga-based warm-up, then went on into full-body movement exercises, phrases, and finished with across-the-floors, or a variation of the three. Throughout the 6-week semester, the dance material that we received got more more challenging as time went on. This class helped my body continue with the practice of Modern and helped me to gradually advance towards specific dance-related goals.

    The next class, Creative Process in Dance, was a choreography-based class that dealt with each student’s own process while creating a short dance piece/study. The short study was influenced by a piece of art at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, a museum of modern and contemporary art that our class visited. We each picked one piece of artwork that stood out to us. That served as the basis of our creative choreography. We had frequent showings where we would show the class our piece and receive feedback from each person, which helped to aid and guide us into the right direction. Throughout the semester, we kept a journal of pictures, sketches, and words throughout our process that would help us to keep a tab of everything that is influencing us, feedback, visuals, and other necessary notes regarding the choreography or piece. To close out, we had a final showing, where each of us performed our dance piece to an audience at Temple University Rome.

The last class I took, Independent Study in Dance, was a class where we got experience in dance writing. We went to see two professional performances and documented them through writing. I had the chance to see ballet Manon at the Teatro Dell’Opera di Roma and The Leonardo da Vinci Experience musical and artistic visual performance in Via della Conciliazione di Roma. Experiencing music and dance performances in another country was an unforgettable experience, and it made me want to write my papers about them even more.

    With all the time I had, I was able to explore many hotspots and ancient buildings in Rome. Within just 6 weeks, I was able to visit the Italian cities of Pisa, Todi, Titignano, Florence, and Pompeii. As well as the cities of Croatia, Austria, Greece, and Spain. As you can see, I had plenty of time to take my classes and complete the work while having the ability to travel to many destinations throughout Europe.

    Overall, studying abroad taught me a lot. It gave me the opportunity to see the world while learning many new languages and cultures. I got to experience life as a dancer and student in a new place, which was incredibly enlightening. I met people from different countries which ended up strengthening my social network. I also gained a deeper sense of independence. Not only have I gained a tremendous amount of knowledge about the cities, countries, cultures, and languages, but also on the many landmarks, museums, and historical buildings. One of the most eye-opening parts of this experience was being able to view my home country from the lens of a different culture. I was shown that not all classrooms have four walls. Studying abroad was truly life-changing. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, so don’t wait for the right opportunity to do something that you really want to do. Take the first step and create it yourself if you have to. Your future depends on it. After all, you only get to live once.

 

– Keri Lushefski, BFA Junior

Last Spotted In London

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Temple dance professor, Dr. Sherril Dodds, went to London to give a performative lecture on break dancing. The lecture was entitled “Drilling, Grit and Flava: Epistemologies of Breaking” at a symposium on ‘Hip Hop Pedagogies’ at the University of East London’s Centre for Performing Arts and Development and the Dance.

The lecture reflected upon Dodds’ experience as a 50-year old novice b-girl.  She reflected on how breaking has prompted ontological and epistemological ruptures that move her literally and metaphorically.  In conversation with a practice-led methodology, she placed ‘doing’ at the centre of knowledge production.  From this she came to understand concepts of drilling, grit, and flava, and she engaged in alternative models of learning, collective pedagogy, and community belonging.  Through the performative lecture, she examined how sessions and cyphers enable her to encounter the aesthetic and history of the b-girl body, confront her present identity position, and begin to re-imagine the social and physical expectations of her body.

-Alissa Elegant, MFA Student

Capturing CADD

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From February 16-19, 2018, the third bi-annual Collegium for African Diaspora Dance (CADD) conference will convene at Duke University in Durham, NC. This year’s conference, themed Dance Black Joy: Global Affirmations and Defiance, will feature Drs. Brenda Dixon Gottschild, Melissa Blanco Borelli and Marianna Francisca Martins Monteiro as keynote speakers and a variety of breakout sessions, movement workshops and film screenings. There will also be a remembrance of the late Baba Chuck Davis and a performance of CANE, a responsive environment dancework by Thomas DeFrantz, SLIPPAGE: Performance/Culture/Technology and Wideman/Davis Dance (DeFrantz 2018).

 

Founded by a powerhouse of artist-scholars in the field of African diaspora dance studies, the conference is committed to “exploring, promoting and engaging African diaspora dance as a resource and method of aesthetic identity” (Duke University  2016). Since its inception in 2012 as the African Diaspora Dance Research Group at Duke University, the conference aims to facilitate interdisciplinary inquiry that challenges and expands the field of Black Dance Studies.  

 

I attended CADD in 2016, where I presented a lecture-demonstration on corporeal memory and Germaine Acogny’s Modern African Dance Technique. I enjoyed the networking and stimulating academic discourse one would typically expect at an academic conference. Even the dance workshops in which I participated blended an unusually high level of theoretical discourse with kinesthetic engagement. However, there was one aspect of the experience that I found unique to CADD. Dr. Takiyah Nur Amin, one of the founding members of CADD, summed it up during her opening speech:

 

Welcome back home.

 

As Dr. Amin explained to the room of rapt listeners, who nodded and clapped in agreement, CADD is more than place of ideological exchange. It is a meeting ground for a unique group of thinkers and movers—those of us whose research centers on the methods, aestheticism and theories of African and diaspora dance practices. As a first-year PhD Dance student, I found myself in a safe space where my ideas had room to stretch and breathe. Before offering my theories on Acogny Technique, I did not feel the need to first qualify WHY Acogny Technique should be taken seriously as a contemporary dance practice “despite” its African aesthetics. There was a shared acknowledgement in the room that movement forms of Africa run the gamut from traditional-based social dances to urban dances to neotraditional and contemporary dance forms (that’s what makes them so cool). The idea that a dance practice can be simultaneously of African origin and expressed within a Euro-American paradigm is a common understanding we have here at Temple (we have Umfundalai, after all). But, as many CADD attendees could surely tell you, our work is sometimes met with resistance by well-intentioned (and sometimes not) but misinformed academics who believe otherwise.

 

This is not the case at CADD.

 

I was at home, amongst pioneering scholars and scholars-to-be who supported my work. The questions my audience proposed and suggestions they offered me were critical but not antagonistic—they were seemingly interested not only in the success of my work but with our collective forward movement as African Diaspora (and Black) dance scholars.

 

This year I’ll attend the conference, not as a presenter, but as a lowly, overwhelmed (and possibly underwhelming?) third-year PhD student who desperately hopes she won’t mess up her elevator pitch while donning a thinly veiled facade of nonchalance to hide her newbie excitement at being in the room with some of the most groundbreaking scholars in the field but worried that she will talk too fast or say too much like she always does when discussing her research that unfortunately spins her around in circles that never produce enough AH-HA! moments.

 

So back to CADD I go. Because in the process of babbling nonstop with kindly indulgent artist-scholar-strangers and sharing war stories with other Dance PhD students, somehow clarity descends and I realize that I’m on the right track after all.

 

 

Omi Davis, M.F.A.

Third Year PhD Dance Student
Boyer College of Music and Dance
Temple University

 

“Collegium for African Diaspora Dance (CADD) Conference, February 19-21, 2016: Call for Proposals.” Duke University. Last modified 2016. Accessed February 2, 2018. https://danceprogram.duke.edu/news/collegium-african-diaspora-dance-cadd-conference-february-19-21-2016-call-proposals

 

“Dance Black Joy: Global Affirmations and Defiance.” Collegium for African Diaspora Dance. Accessed February 2, 2018. https://www.cadd-online.org/2018-conference.html

 

DeFrantz, Thomas F. “African Diaspora Dance conference focuses on themes of joy and defiance.” (press release) Facebook. Accessed February 2, 2018. https://www.facebook.com/thomas.defrantz/posts/2014733948767498