IAT Projects: SoTD
Croatia
The School of Theatre & Dance was invited to participate in the International Young Theatre Festival. Our invitation included bringing a production of Vanities The Musical for inclusion in the International Festival. SoTD faculty members served as Master Teachers in Musical Theatre (acting, voice, and movement), culminating in a cabaret performance that closed the festival. This cabaret featured students (and faculty) from Universities across Croatia and other European countries. This pilot program was to launch a proposed embedded study abroad for the fall of 2024. As a result of this endeavor, we have been invited to collaborate by the Academy of Arts & Culture of the Josep Juraj Strossmeyer University of Osijek for a collaborative project involving students from both institutions for inclusion in the 2024 International Festival. This will be a way for us to build our growing collaborations with Universities across Croatia. ECU faculty have been invited to teach Musical Theatre to the Arts Academies of the Universities of Osijek and Split.
While at the Festival in Croatia, our students had the opportunity to have 20 hours of class with teachers from European Institutions in Croatia, Romania, Ireland, and Germany. Since the students have so much exposure to performance at ECU, they opted to study Design for the Theatre with an emphasis on Costume Design with Professor Jasmina Pacek of the University of Osijek. The intensive study culminated in a presentation of their work for the Festival Participants. In addition, they were exposed to diverse theatre styles by the other presenting institutions while sharing their uniquely American craft with a welcoming audience.
In addition, they visited other nearby towns of Pula and Rovinj while studying in an 1100-year-old castle in the seaside hamlet of Bale. They had the opportunity to immerse themselves in developing relationships, both personal and artistic, with peer practitioners from all across Europe. Upon our return, the students remarked how much their perceptions about their processes and work would change from their experiences. The goal for our students was to cultivate a less myopic approach to their work and to gain exposure to diverse processes and performance styles.
Pictured above: Students Hannah Watters, Madison Krizmanich, Professor Trent Blanton, Jasmina Pacek of the University of Osijek, Director of SoTD Jayme Host, Professor Rebecca Simon and student, Emma Laughinghouse.
ECU SoTD partnership with Dance Centre Kenya Nairobi 2020 – present
Jessica Teague
Study abroad video (short)
Virtual Exchange + World Dance Course + Study Abroad overview (long)
Project video overview:
News article – https://news.ecu.edu/2022/07/28/window-to-the-world/
Part 1 – Initial virtual exchange with Dance Center Kenya
The project began as a month-long virtual exchange between ECU advanced ballet students and students from the Dance Center Kenya in Nairobi.
During this sustained, peer to peer exchange, students met once a week over Zoom digital platform for two hours. Students shared dance styles, music and choreography with each other. We divided up the month between us, for two of the sessions ECU Seniors led the class and taught ballet technique and original dance pieces they had created. Kenyan students taught classes the alternating weeks, sharing their own contemporary choreography as well as traditional African dances set to drum rhythms. In this ‘new environment’ we were invited to ‘zoom’ into each other’s dance spaces and share in each other’s daily dance cultures.
Part 2 – Development of World Dance Studio Course DNCE 3650
Course description
World Dance studio is special topics course that offered to ECU’s School of Theatre and Dance.
During the course specialized and unique movement styles found throughout our global community are taught and experienced through guest instructors and experts in their particular field of dance through virtual exchanges with partner Institutions, individual master classes and/or “mini” artist residencies.The course will be divided into sections and will include guest teachers/lecturers and specific themed presentations for each Unit. Units will vary in length with the Americas and Africa being the most substantial sections of the course timewise.
DNCE 3650 course is supported through a CFAC ABIDE grant
PART 3 – VESA (Virtual Exchange Study Abroad) IDEAS Federal Grant
VESA Grant facilitated through Office of Global Affairs, lead author Jami Leibowitz
Enabled guest instructors from Kenya to come in person to ECU for two weeks + support for study abroad trip to Kenya with 11 ECU students and 3 faculty.
Project video overview:
Student Description Kenya Study Abroad:
Spend your summer exploring music and dance in one of East Africa’s most vibrant cities – Nairobi. In the capitol of Kenya, surrounded by stunning nature reserves, students will study traditional and contemporary African dance and participate in workshops and Master classes in Hip Hop, Capoiera, Afropop, Contemporary, Ballet, Modern and Jazz dance.
Students will have the opportunity to work with local and international dance instructors from surrounding African countries during this trip to Kenya. In addition, we will spend time with local communities, teaching dance to youth and developing choreographic work with students and artists in the community. Through this community work, students will gain knowledge and new perspectives on their own artistic practice and develop skills in intercultural collaboration and leadership through first-hand experiences. The study abroad trip is an extension to the African dance section of the ECU World Dance Studio course offered in Spring of 2021 and 2022.
Future of project…
As of spring 2023 two students from Nairobi have been accepted to ECU in the dance department to begin in Fall of 2023.
We envision creating an MOU between ECU SoTD and DCK in Nairobi that will be conduit for cultural exchanges within our disciplines. We hope to develop a consistent relationship that would yield one full-time Kenyan student enrolled in ECU SoTD year-round for every 2 students going to DCK summer study abroad for 6 credits in the summer. DCK’s mission of community engagement and rural transformation parallels ours at ECU, making this a consequent and mutually beneficial partnership. Our shared vision of supporting and facilitating upward mobility for underrepresented populations through arts and education is the basis of our proposal.
