Educational & Professional Programs

The ADF School approached 2021 as an opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and to continue to build a community of artists that embraced creativity, humanity, and connection. The Summer Dance Intensive, Pre-Professional Dance Intensive, and Dance Professional Workshops shared the same purpose of offering dancers and educators the opportunity to grow artistically and professionally, while fostering community. Format, faculty, and offerings were all designed to offer each participant, whether engaged online or in-person, a unique, supportive, and challenging training program.

SUMMER DANCE INTENSIVE

The Summer Dance Intensive (SDI) offered a four-week-long online intensive for students ages 18 and older. This program offered challenging and innovative courses, drop-in classes, performances, student showings, and an end-of-intensive online showcase to provide individual experiences within our community. Contemporary movement, repertory, and composition classes integrated dancing, making, collaborating, and performing in a virtual platform. Classes were led by ADF Faculty Quilan “Cue’’ Arnold, Robbie Cook, Leah Cox, Erica Gionfriddo & Eliot Gray Fisher, Monique Haley, Jordan Lloyd, Jess Pretty, Sara Procopio, Christian von Howard, Jessie Young, and Jesse Zaritt. End-of-intensive online performances included Erica Gionfriddo and Eliot Gray Fisher’s interactive web-based performance experience, In the Ether, excerpts of Re-(III) (2009) by Shen Wei, and student works. The 2021 Online Summer Dance Intensive had 95 total program enrollments. Summer Dance Intensive scholarships were offered in the names of 315 Fund, ARCOS Foundation for the Arts, and The Harkness Foundation for Dance.

ADF’s 2021 school programs were funded in part by a grant from South Arts with support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

PRE-PROFESSIONAL DANCE INTENSIVE

The Pre-Professional Dance Intensive (PDI) offered both a twoweek and one-week intensive option, online and in-person, for students ages 13-17. This program provided strong technical training in a curriculum that engaged community-building and individual growth and cultivated the dancers’ artistic voice. Classes integrated both participation modes into a collaborative, hybrid learning environment.

Technique, repertory, and composition classes used the advantages of technology to create and connect students with one another as developing artists. Classes were led by ADF Faculty Michelle Gibson, Momar Ndiaye, and Matt Pardo and featured live musical accompaniment. Weekly online performances showcased class work and repertory and featured solo dance films created by students during the program. The 2021 Online Pre-Professional Dance Intensive had 33 total weekly program enrollments.

Pre-Professional Dance Intensive scholarships were offered in the names of 315 Fund, Susan Begnoche and Pavan Reddy, and Dancing Angels Foundation.

DANCE PROFESSIONAL WORKSHOPS

The Dance Professional Workshops (DPW) offered a one-week online workshop for dance educators. Participants replenished creative and pedagogical capacities through community-building with fellow educators, focused sessions that developed skills, and movement classes. This week enabled educators to connect, share, and rejuvenate. Daily movement classes included reflection time to delve into teaching methods, while professional development discussion sessions were tailored to consider different educational environments. The workshop was led by Gerri Houlihan and featured live musical accompaniment by John Hanks. Pedagogical and movement sessions were led by ADF Faculty Leah Cox, Liz Lerman, Matt Pardo, and Ray Schwartz. The 2021 Online Dance Professional Workshop for Educators served a total of 23 students.

Dance Professional Workshops scholarships were funded by The Jones Dance Education Scholarship.

WINTER INTENSIVES

The ADF Winter Intensive program expanded in 2021 and offered both an online 5-day intensive and an online 2-day workshop. Offering this program virtually for the first time presented the opportunity to reach more participants that were uninhibited by travel, growing our range and interests within our student body. The 5-day intensive, designed for educators and dance artists, reflected on the notion of experiments in practice in order to embrace the classroom and its collective body as sites of radical potential. Faculty were paired together to co-develop content that threaded through the intensive. The physical practice class was co-led by Marguerite Hemmings and Jesse Zaritt, and the creative process class was co-led by Leah Cox and Jessie Young. This intensive served a total of 29 students. The 2-day Winter Workshop for Dance Educators was led by Gerri Houlihan and featured live musical accompaniment by John Hanks. This workshop offered educators the opportunity to connect in a supportive community in a time of uncertainty to share ideas and best practices. Each day featured movement classes and participant-driven discussions focused on timely topics. This workshop served a total of 14 students. ADF offered a limited number of teaching assistant scholarships in all programs to dancers who recently graduated from university dance programs or were currently in graduate programs for dance.