On June 2, Canada’s National Ballet School’s (NBS) Sharing Dance Day was held at Yonge-Dundas Square in Toronto. The annual event is NBS’s flagship community outreach initiative, which offers free dance programs to the community as a way to get active, healthy and artistic. Toronto was just one out of the five cities to host official Sharing Dance events, with other cities including Halifax, Montreal, Winnipeg and Calgary.
The day saw engagement, participation and spectators of over 15,000 children, youth and seniors. As part of the event’s passport activity, in which organizations asked participants questions, The Dance Current asked attendees to tell us about a dance-related topic or artist they’re interested in learning more about. The answers received ranged from naming particular styles of dance to meta questions on how genres of dance are established and when the first dance was created. In total we collected 167 responses, primarily from students participating in the youth focused portion of the day.
Here’s what we learned:
Out of the participants who wanted to learn more about a specific genre of dance, the top six responses were: hip hop and break dance 33.9%; ballet 16.9%; jazz 13.8%; acro 10.8%; salsa/bachata 6.2%.
Some of the burning questions raised were: “What is the training process of a dancer or a ballerina?” and “What is the creative process behind choreography”?
Many participants had other specific topics that they were keen on learning more about (classical tutus and pointe shoes, injury prevention, dance history). Some participants were interested in learning more about famous dancers like Karen Kain and Michael Jackson.
NBS’s Sharing Dance Day 2017 continued in Ottawa on July 1st, which combined the celebration of Canada’s 150 and love of dance into one event. In Ottawa, Sharing Dance was involved in two events, one of which was a workshop held on Parliament Hill with over 30,000 attending.
NBS’s Sharing Dance Day 2017 will be taking part in Fall For Dance North, where the 2017 choreography will be remounted as part of the event’s activities at Union Station (dates and times are to be confirmed).
For more information about next year’s Sharing Dance Day >> nbs-enb.ca/sharing-dance/what-is-sharing-dance/
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Bachata video: thedancecurrent.com/video/phases-dance-animated-short
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