Guest Faculty Member Denise Cecere helps a School of Dance Mini-Intensive student reach the proper height on a sauté Monday in Carnahan-Jackson Dance Studios.
NORA SMITH
Staff Writer
At last season’s Chautauqua School of Dance Mini- Intensive demonstration, Denise Cecere, guest faculty member and artistic director of Northeast Youth Ballet, noticed one student with teary eyes; hugging the student goodbye, Cecere asked what was wrong. The student said, “I just don’t want to go.”
Those six words only begin to describe the Workshop Division Mini-Intensive Program’s tremendous influence on young dancers, dating back 31 years.
“It was just a way to attract younger students who weren’t eligible to be in residence, but to let them see Chautauqua,” Janice Wells, managing director of Chautauqua’s School of Dance, said.
The program’s first year attracted 15 students, and as the years went on, the numbers just kept growing. This season, 44 students ages 10–14 took part in the non-residential condensed intensive between Aug. 1 and 4, during which they took classes with School of Dance faculty, explored Chautauqua’s grounds and even had a chance to experience residential dancers performing with the Music School Festival Orchestra Monday evening.
Having previously trained as a ballet dancer, Erika Wolf always heard of the “highly regarded” School of Dance program at Chautauqua. Now three of her kids have or are currently attending a program.
“It’s unique in how small it is,” Wolf said. “I feel like the faculty really get to know the students and there’s a lot of growth there every year for my kids … they just come back in a happier place…”
Wolf’s son is currently in the Pre-Professional Division; her eldest daughter is in the Festival Division after participating in both the Mini-Intensive and the Workshop Division in the past and her youngest daughter did her first Workshop Division this season after doing the Mini-Intensive last year.
“The kids in the [Mini-Intensive] get to see kids that they’ve seen walking around the studios on stage and that’s exciting for them, and they get really into it, so it’s a good introduction for sure,” Wolf said. “For Lulu, she looked at those kids walking in and out of the dorms, and she was like ‘Oh yeah, I want to do that next year.’”
Cecere has been a guest faculty member with the School of Dance for six years, teaching students in all programs, including the Mini-Intensive. She said working with the students in the program is special because it’s often their first time being here and usually their first summer dance program.
“There’s an energy in the room, and they’re super enthusiastic; they’re like little sponges that are just absorbing everything, and I love it,” Cecere said. “I love teaching them. They inspire me.”
Cecere said when young dancers come to Chautauqua for programs like the Mini-Intensive, they are often able to evolve in other areas of their personal development by putting a great amount of work toward dance.
“They’re growing in more ways than one,” Cecere said. “They got the vitamin D here when they sit by the lake, they’re growing in the classroom, they’re meeting new people from all over the United States. It really is just a beautiful cultural opportunity for them.”
Cecere said for young dancers to come and see the older students around the studio is an experience unlike any other, but also that when her own daughter came to the School of Dance at 13, she would often walk past artists creating sculptures, musicians practicing their instruments, different lectures throughout the day and ongoing theater productions, all of which cultivated a creative environment.
“It’s all encompassing,” Cecere said. “To give children that well-rounded arts education is amazing.”
Cecere said the Mini-Intensive is such an impactful introduction to Chautauqua’s School of Dance that many of the students return repeatedly, with some eventually returning to perform in the Alumni Gala.
When the students conclude their Mini-Intensive experience, there’s always an informal demonstration on the last day of the program during which students can show their parents what they have learned.
“It’s nothing short of miraculous what these kids do in four days,” Cecere said. “I think it’s because they’re happy, they’re engaged. They’re having the time of their life.”
