Summer time is a chance to hone your coaching extra deliberately than through the busy faculty 12 months. However with a plethora of applications to select from, deciding what to concentrate on could be tough. On one hand, doubling down in your main dance model may supercharge your progress going into the next faculty 12 months. However relating to your general progress as a dancer, is it higher to strive one thing new? There are professionals and cons to each choices.
Count on to Adapt
Willow Dixson, a present junior at Union County Academy for Performing Arts and a pupil at Rahway Dance Theatre in Rahway, New Jersey, had studied ballet, faucet, trendy, and jazz earlier than her trainer prompt she strive a five-week musical theater intensive in New York Metropolis. “I’m a shy individual at coronary heart, so having to sing, act, and actually emote whereas dancing was far out of my consolation zone,” Dixson says. She discovered choreography from a spread of exhibits, together with Hamilton, Moulin Rouge!, and The Promenade. “It confirmed me how I may apply my earlier coaching to one thing new, like my jazz background serving to me with the sharp actions and isolations in Hamilton.”
Unexpectedly, Dixson walked away from the summer season with a ardour for musical theater and newfound confidence. “Adapting to a brand new atmosphere over the summer season made the transition into highschool smoother, and I later pursued dance captain and choreography roles in my highschool’s theater productions,” she says.
Solely Take What You Want
Whereas throwing your self into a brand new model or atmosphere over the summer season could be a good way to reinvigorate your coaching, for some college students, it will also be complicated. “It is determined by the age and maturity stage of the coed, however it may be irritating for somebody to inform them to do one thing—like a flip preparation or port de bras—in a different way than how they’ve practiced at dwelling,” says Racheal Nye, director of Oklahoma Metropolis Ballet’s faculty and studio firm. “That’s the place studio homeowners or mentors ought to are available in to assist college students maintain an open thoughts earlier than they go, and once they return, type by what they’ve discovered to suit it into the bigger image of their coaching.”

Reed Neuser dove into the lifetime of a Radio Metropolis Rockette throughout a week-long summer season intensive, her first expertise with precision dance. “There have been so many new layers on high of the choreography that I had by no means needed to contemplate earlier than, like spacing, particulars, and dancing in a uniform group,” she says. Though Neuser’s now primarily a up to date and trendy dancer in New York Metropolis, she nonetheless operates on ideas developed over that summer season. “It taught me how being robust may help you in any dance model, in addition to the significance of self-discipline and a spotlight to element in an expert atmosphere,” she says.
Keep Practical
Though branching out into a brand new model can enhance the way you strategy your core model, it’s essential to handle your expectations after a hiatus out of your common coaching regime. For superior college students on the point of an expert profession, “ballet is so refined and particular that even taking a pair weeks off can set you again,” says Erica Fischbach, director of Colorado Ballet Academy. “Lots of our college students pursue intensives in barely totally different types, like Alonzo King LINES Ballet or Complexions Modern Ballet. But when they wish to strive a very new model that’s going to broaden their artistry, we encourage them to tack that onto the start or finish of different summer season research.”
It doesn’t matter what purpose you select to attend a sure summer season intensive, holding your “why” in thoughts may help you get precisely what you need out of the expertise. “Our year-round college students work actually laborious for lengthy hours, so summer season could be the solely time to strive one thing new just because it’s enjoyable, or it’s essential to them culturally, and never essentially to attain one thing,” says Nye. “And who is aware of—college students could draw upon a summer season expertise they’d method down the road of their skilled careers.”