LEWISTON
With an early-bird registration discount available through mid-April, the Bates Dance Festival is offering its three-week Youth Arts Program from July 17 through Aug. 5 on the campus of Bates College.
YAP provides arts experiences by bringing kids together with master artists in residence at the festival. Students at all experience levels are invited to participate.
YAP takes place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and will enroll 60 students in grades 2- 10. Students are divided into three age groups: grades 2-3, 4-6 and 7-10. Each group takes daily classes in dance, music, theater, visual arts and storytelling. A healthy lunch and snacks are provided.
The early-bird fee, available through April 12, is $675. Thereafter, the program costs $750. A limited number of scholarships are available for qualified low-income students on a first-come, firstserved basis.
Participants in the program will learn a dynamic range of modern, ballet, hip hop and social dance styles. They experience music from around the world. They learn theater games. And they experiment with writing poetry and with visual art techniques.
The program includes special master classes taught by internationally renowned artists in residence at the Bates Dance Festival. In addition, scholarship students receive complimentary tickets to selected festival performances.
YAP students will create and stage a special production based on the theme of “Better Together” to be performed Saturday, Aug. 5, in Alumni Gymnasium, Bates College, as part of the BDF’s Festival Finale concert.
Returning as co-directors of the program are Priscilla Rivas and Terrence Karn, who will teach classes along with Rob Flax, Patrick Ferreri, Annalyn Lehnig, Yvonne Hernandez and Dana Reed.
Rivas is a dance and visual arts instructor. She grew up in Cali, Colombia, where she was inspired by the music and dance of that vibrant culture. She holds a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education from the University of Houston. She taught in the classroom for eight years and is now an assistant principal at an inner-city elementary school in Houston.
Karn is a musician, teacher and performer adept in a wide range of cultural traditions and instruments. He has taught music and dance to students of all ages for more than 28 years in locations across the globe. Currently he is the accompanist for the dance classes at Bates and Bowdoin colleges and is the co-director of Gypsy Dance Theatre. Summer 2017 will be his 18th at the Bates Dance Festival.
A multi-instrumentalist and educator based in Boston, Flax received a master’’ s degree in contemporary improvisation from the New England Conservatory. Classically trained on violin since age 8, he first achieved national recognition in 2009 at the American String Teachers Association conference. Flax has performed internationally.
Ferreri holds a bachelor’s degree in dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. A former dancer with David Dorfman Dance, he is currently performing in the joint Emursive and Punchdrunk Off- Broadway production of “Sleep No More.” He joined the YAP faculty in 2008.
Lehnig received a bachelor’s degree in theater from Cornish College. She lives in New Orleans where she is a theater artist and teacher working with at-risk youth. This will be her third summer with YAP.
Hernandez is a dance artist, health coach and physical therapist, and has been a company member and rehearsal director with Jennifer Archibald’’s Arch Dance Company since 2010. She began her performing career in San Diego as a dancer, choreographer, teacher and youth performing group director with Eveoke Dance Theatre’s Concert Company. A graduate of the Conservatory of Performing Arts at Point Park University, she has served on the faculty of the Youth Arts Program since 2007.
Reed has been involved with YAP since 2002 and took a couple summers off to start a family. She lives in New Orleans, where she is executive director of Upturn Arts, whose mission is to provide “Arts for All.” The Youth Arts Program inspired Dana’’s career path and opened many doors of opportunity.
The Youth Arts Program is supported in part by the Lewiston-Auburn Children’s Home, Center Street Dental, Leonard C. & Mildred F. Ferguson Foundation, Mechanics Savings Bank and the Sequoia Foundation.
For more information, call the Bates Dance Festival at (207) 786-6381 or visit the website at batesdancefestival.org.
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