At Risk Children Dance for Social Change

Dance is the language our children have chosen to connect with the world, a beautiful international language. These past few months have been full of new lessons and experiences on and off stage from an ample diversity of cultures, nationalities, dance styles and techniques.

Recently our children had the opportunity to receive two master classes from dancer and choreographer Diego Álvarez Sánou from Costa Rica’s Colectivo Clá. With him, they worked on new sequences and movements inspired from hip-hop and urban culture. Additionally, two of our students began classic training once a week with the Ukrainian dancer established in Panama Ilya Kun, who’s also a dancer of Panama’s National Ballet.

In order to end the first of the three terms of 2016, the children made a small recital in our Dance Classroom, where they presented a series of theatre sketches and work-in-progress from their ballet and contemporary dance classes. Parents, teachers, volunteers and friends filled the room and the children dazzled us with their concentration and exciting simplicity.

Following this, we received the biggest surprise we have received all year: our oldest student, Juan, was selected to participate in OPUS I, an international youth dance competition in nothing less but Slovenia! He traveled with his dance teacher José Leonardo Amaya to this European country. It was a long journey and on their way there, they stopped in Paris for a day and a half, where they visited as much as they could of the iconic sites of this beautiful city. Juan was ecstatic and mentioned it had always been his dream to go there, he could not believe his eyes when he saw the Eiffel Tower and said he would go back in a heartbeat. Once in Slovenia, they were greeted by the competition organizers; they had never received participants from Central America, let alone from Panama. José participated in the dance workshops previous to the competition, and one of his teachers there, the director of the Afro-Contemporary Dance Group Momentum, Mâsa Kagao, invited Juan and his teacher José to dance in her presentation in the Španski Borci theatre of Ljubljana, a day before the competition where Juan presented his solo “Open Waters” in front of more than 500 people. Needless to say, it was a wonderful experience for Juan and for his hosts, who were impressed by his talent and humbleness. Once back in Panama, he was received by his peers and teachers with a lot of excitement and admiration. He said he loved Slovenia, and the fact that he made many new friends that dance too!

To continue the journey through performing arts’ diversity, the kids were invited to see the Russian National Ballet from Moscow, in its international tour of the classic “Swan Lake”. They were delighted and startled to see the classic technique in its purest form. They learned about Tchaikovsky’s music and the technical difficulty and high standards this ballet requires. And if that was not enough for this month, the children had the opportunity to see another classic, but from musical theatre: “The Wizard of Oz”, performed by a local theatre group.

To end this period on an inspiring note, we also invited the 157 students we work with from the Instituto de Nuestra Señora de la Merced (Institute of Our Lady of Mercy), to see the contemporary dance piece “Deesevuelo”, by the Brazilian dancer Carolina Figuereido.

Enlaces’ children dance vocabulary is in continuous expansion. Every time they see a new show, learn about classics and dance with other dancers from different backgrounds, not only they accumulate knowledge, but their vision of a brighter future broadens.

We finished this year’s Panamanian summer very energized and began Enlaces’ 2016 course in mid March with many surprises and intense activities.

In March, as part of Panama City’s arts and creative industries festival MacroFest 2016, Enlaces received the INNOVA award in the Category of Social Impact through the Arts. As part of the festival’s program our top student Juan presented a solo in front of more than 500 people.

Following this great pep, three of our children were casted in “Las Mariposas Ya no Viven Aquí” (Butterflies no longer live here), a local production that has traveled to Guatemala, Costa Rica and Miami since 2014, promoting through dance the message of Tolerance and Fraternity by staging the Jewish Holocaust and its impact in our modern society. The cast consisted of 96 professional and non-professional dancers, who were directed by the renowned Spanish choreographer Fernando Hurtado. Our selected children assisted to intense daily rehearsals for a month, and were able to participate in educational workshops by the international organization Yad Vashem about the Holocaust and the consequences of indifference. There were four presentations between April 5 and 6, to whom more than 10,000 people assisted. The rest of our children also received workshops and talks about this subject by Yad Vashem, assisted to the theatre to see their peers and received a special dance workshop by Fernando Hurtado.

After the rush of a very successful production, one of our students received an invitation to represent Panama in the XXth Summit of Dance Schools and Academies of Central America held in Managua, Nicaragua, on April 29^th, as part of the celebrations of the International Day of Dance, where dance students from Central America and Mexico presented their work. Our 15 year-old student Juan, traveled to this Central American country for the first time, and aside from taking ballet, jazz, modern and folklore classes with renowned teachers, he presented a solo in the magnificent Theatre Ruben Darío of Managua.

It has been a very exciting “First Act” for 2016, and we are very happy we have started the year with events that promote and recognize the talent of our students in national and international stages, help them build their artistic curriculum and nurture their dance experience. 

*The names in this report have been changed to respect the privacy of our benecifiaries.

Links:

• Spanish Report