Dear SOBT Students and Families,
Even though it is only January, I know many of us are
looking forward to summer and already making plans for holidays and summer
intensives. I feel very strongly summer
is an ideal time for students to broaden and enrich their dance education by
attending a summer intensive. I did this
as a student as do many students at some point in their training. Summer programs can benefit students
immensely; however, quality differs greatly from program to program. With so many programs to choose from, it can
be hard to know which are worth auditioning for and which are not. In addition, the faculty and I believe
strongly the earliest a student should consider going away to a summer
intensive is age 12 or 13.
Before you schedule several auditions and/or make plans to
travel to San Francisco or Seattle for various auditions, I am asking to be
informed of your plans. This way I can
offer advice as to which programs are most beneficial for each particular
student. I will also confer with the
teachers and we can help guide students to the best options. I think a lot of everyone’s time, energy and
money can be saved this way.
The SOBT Summer Intensive will, as always, be taking place
this summer, albeit in a slightly different format. It is scheduled this year for 6 weeks and
slightly later than last year, July 14 – August 23, 2014. The main reason for making the Intensive
later was to allow students to attend other summer intensives, but it was also to
allow students to return and attend all or at least a portion of SOBT’s
program. As it was in the past, SOBT
students are still expected to attend our Summer Intensive. In addition, for scholarship students it is
mandatory that you attend our program.
We will be flexible in allowing students to go away and to start our
program late, but this must have my approval.
We are working to make this year’s Summer Intensive the best
and the most comprehensive ever.
Certainly we want to do this so we appeal to students from outside our school
and from different parts of the country, but mostly we do this for the benefit
of our loyal student body who are part of the OBT/SOBT family. This year we will have rotating guest
teachers every two weeks, Kevin Irving, Lisa Kipp and Jeff Stanton from the OBT
artistic staff will also be teaching, as will OBT Principal Dancers Alison
Roper, Xuan Cheng and Chauncey Parsons. Of
course the entire SOBT faculty will also be lending their considerable
talents. This year’s program will also
feature three workshops for students in the advanced levels: the first two
weeks OBT Artistic Director Kevin Irving will be teaching repertory from the
choreographer Nacho Duato, the second two weeks international guest teacher and
choreographer Africa Lopez Guzman will be teaching ballet, contemporary and
also repertory of her own and the third two weeks will feature a workshop based
on the teachings and technique of choreographer William Forsythe.
I am very excited for this summer and hope to see as many of
you as possible here at SOBT.
Please do not hesitate to contact me and/or any member of
the SOBT faculty for help, guidance and more information.
Best wishes,
Anthony Jones
