Andrea Downer, Gleaner Writer
Junior dancers of the School of Dance.
FOR ONE week in July, young dancers from more than 50 countries around the world will gather in The Hague in the Netherlands. The event takes place every three years and will be hosted by Dance and Child International (daCi), an organisation that promotes the development of dance for children around the world.
This year's conference, which will be held between July 2 and 8, will be the 10th staging of the event, and young talented dancers from around the world will spend seven glorious days learning about each other's culture. Many of the participants will speak different languages, but they will have one thing in common: their love for dance and their commitment to the activity as an art form.
Twenty-four students of the Junior Department of the School of Dance, which teaches young people between the age of 3-18 years, are preparing to participate in this year's conference. This will be nine-year-old Candace Lorne's first daCi conference, and she is very excited about the trip.
PEOPLE'S CULTURE
"I will celebrate my 10th
birthday on the trip," she said with a cheeky smile, her hazel eyes sparkling, "and I am looking forward to learning about other people's culture and show them what Jamaicans can do!" she stated brightly.
Fifteen-year-old Renee McDonald attended the last daCi conference, which was held in Brazil, and she is all fired up about the possibility of going to Hague this year. Naala Nesbeth, Samantha Daley and Taryn Bridgewater are also excited about the trip.
But neither Candace nor her 23 dance mates will be able to attend the conference unless they are able to raise approximately $1.5 million to offset the cost of the trip. Nicholeen DeGrasse-Johnson, manager of the Junior Dance School and Jamaica' daCi representative, and Honore Van Ommeren, coordinator of the Junior Department, have been trying to raise the funds through a number of fund-raising
activities.
"We had a raffle in December and we have planned a concert for April. On Saturday, March 18, we staged a walk-a-thon from which we hope to raise $500,000," Mrs. DeGrasse-Johnson disclosed.
Mrs. DeGrasse-Johnson is very passionate about dancing and she would like the young people who are involved in dancing to take the art form seriously and even consider it as a career. She sees the daCi conference as an excellent opportunity for her young charges to see how their international counterparts are able to make dancing a viable concern. However, even if they don't pursue dance as a career,
she thinks they will benefit enormously.
"The young people I teach will be able to better appreciate the dancing and other art forms, even as consumers. They are the future leaders and if they can develop an early appreciation for the arts, then that will influence how they think and how they live," she explained.
