Dance at Exeter has engaged world-wide student performers for a footloose frenzy of modern, jazz, and hip-hop styled choreography. Newbies, and those who have been dancing their whole lives, collaborate to form eye-catching ensembles every summer.
The workshop is lead by Sarah Duclos and Allison Duke with assistant Nicky Fields. The instructors incorporate Giordano dance techniques to fully engage their students and build routine.
Before joining dance at Exeter, Clara Schneider, a Gottingen, Germany, native, had never used this technique.
“They have a different way of teaching, but you can really feel that they are passionate about dancing and they bring this into their work as a teacher which makes the dancing contagious,” said Schneider.
For some like Schneider, dance is nostalgic. Even at the age of seventeen she is able to connect her childhood self through the dances she learns in class.
“I use to do ballet and I kind of missed it, and I have always felt as if performing is what I like to do,” said Schneider.
The class itself is three hours of warm-ups, stretching, technique and new styles of choreography for every day of the week excluding Saturday and Sunday.
With vigorous amounts of practice, each student has his or her own different way that makes dancing enjoyable. “I like doing the choreography because it has an end result of our work,” said Schneider.
Samarah Uribe is a seventeen-year-old resident of Mexico; before coming to Exeter she had never been introduced to any styles of jazz or modern dance.
“At the beginning I was a little bit nervous, but class by class things got easier and I have fun learning all of the new techniques,” said Uribe.
She was elated to find out that her class was not only for “professionals,” yet also for those who thought they would stand at the back the whole time.
“Everyone is so cool and they make you feel like you’re doing something right; we learn together,” said Uribe.
For Clara, Samarah, and their classmates, dance at Exeter has become more than a class they take. It has become a new way for them to express themselves in an environment where they all have the same goal, to create dance. “We see each other a lot, so we are very open and try to teach each other dances,” said Schneider.