Dance Moms, Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition, Bunheads. Sound familiar? These popular television series showcase famous young dancers, who trained alongside four of AHS’ most experienced dancers this summer in New York City.
These students attended intensives at the Joffrey Ballet School, a renowned training center, where they worked diligently to improve under the tutelage of professional instructors.
The Joffrey summer intensive “is an amazing program that trains serious dancers who are aspiring to become professionals,” freshman Shelby Huff said. Huff attended the ballet program along with sophomore Amanda Connor and junior Sharon Basile, while freshman Isabella Kitzman attended the jazz/contemporary program.
She added that “it is one of the top schools in the country; the faculty is great and it has the best locations possible.”
Participation in the intensive resulted from years of hard work and instruction. Connor has been dancing for 13 years. “I started ballet when I was two and then I picked up jazz and tap and I have pretty much done it all,” Connor said.
Basile has been dancing for eight years in the genres of ballet, jazz, and contemporary, while Huff has been dancing since the age of three and currently studies jazz, contemporary, pointe, and ballet.
Connor auditioned for the intensive because “Shelby [Huff] did it last year, and she had a lot of fun, and I had been wanting to go to the summer program. Plus, I wanted to go to New York City.”
Basile and Connor auditioned for the program in Lynchburg in a group of six girls. “The guy from the Joffrey came in and led us in combinations and we found out through email about two weeks later,” Connor said.
Huff auditioned “in Richmond with about 50 other students. It [was] like a normal ballet class but there [were] people watching you and grading you on how you perform[ed] certain moves and combinations,” she said.
A major part of the experience for the attendants was staying in and exploring New York City. Both Connor and Basile stayed for two weeks, while Huff stayed for a month and a half. “We had about seven hours a day of classes and then we would have breaks where we could go off and do our own thing,” Connor said. “…So we went to Times Square and did the highlights of New York.”
She added that “it was a lot of fun being on my own and experiencing pretty much complete freedom. It was like getting a taste of college life.”
An exciting aspect of the intensive was the fact that “there were so many famous guest teachers there including Misty Copeland, an amazing professional dancer who dances with The American Ballet Theatre,” Huff added.
In addition to well-known guest teachers, several attendees of the summer program had danced on television before, including “Gino [Cosculluela] from Dance Moms, Emma Dumont from Bunheads, and also Brianna Haire, winner of Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition,” Huff said. “It was crazy dancing with people this talented and they were so sweet and fun to hang out with.”
According to Connor, the girls had “ballet and pointe every day, usually a contemporary/jazz, and sometimes…other classes such as stretching or nutrition.”
Dancing all day in such a rigorous atmosphere “was so hard and we were exhausted by the end of the day but it made us into stronger dancers,” Huff said. “It taught us what it’s like to train with people who know what it takes to become a professional.”
Professionals not only work long hours, but are “used to pain such as broken toenails, bloody blisters, and shin splints because we put our bodies through a lot,” Connor said. While she was at the intensive, “one girl sprained her ankle, one had a knee injury, [and] one had a broken nose from being kicked in the face by accident. I personally strained my ankle.”
The Joffrey teachers “were all famous and well-known performers, choreographers, or directors, so it was a great opportunity to take classes from them,” Connor said. “…[They] were very encouraging and each one has a unique and different way of instructing/leading a class.”
Additionally according to Huff, there was “live music play[ing] for every class, so that also made it interesting and the choreography was always super fun and unique.”
The live music included “a piano for ballet and pointe, and drums for modern,” Connor said. “It was really neat because my studio just plays music from a CD player.”
Huff felt that the teachers were exciting to work with because “they pushed us really hard so that we could really improve…the most surprising part of the intensive was probably just seeing how everyone had improved in such a short period of time.”
Basile’s favorite part of the intensive was going to events in the city with her roommates, while Connor similarly thought “being on my own friends was a lot of fun.”
Huff enjoyed “improving as a dancer, getting to be in New York and meeting some of the best people I could ever meet.”
Huff added that besides improving “a lot” she felt that she “got to make so many memories and made tons of new friends that are some of the coolest people that I still keep in contact with today.”
“I got a taste of what it would be like to have ballet as a career,” Connor said. “It’s long rehearsals and intense classes but it definitely pays off [and] inspires me to work even harder.”