On the Road Again

 

 

Any type of travel with your students is not a decision to be taken lightly. It can really try your patience and test your organizational skills. Such was the case when I decided to bring students to the 9th annual National High School Dance Festival at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia last month. School schedules, spring breaks and conflicting district activities kept us from ever attending before.

 

 

In my 17 years at Wheeling, I had only traveled twice with students to New York City and was not planning on another trip … but things change. To pull this off would require an extreme organizational feat: Our main concert weekend would end March 1, a benefit concert was scheduled for March 9, March 13 to 16 we’d be in Philadelphia, and March 18 we would host our district dance concert. This was on top of teaching and family life. Delegating and accelerating deadlines was critical to maintain sanity.

 

 

I contacted friend and choreographer Eddy Ocampo to see if he would be willing to choreograph for a fourth time on Wheeling dancers. Since we were planning to attend, I figured we might as well audition a piece. I knew our chances were limited since we are not a performing arts high school, let alone a school with students who study dance before they arrive.

 

 

Dancers selected for Eddy’s piece had to commit to attend the festival and in return, I promised to do what I could to help them raise funds in ways other than selling overpriced merchandise. So one steamy week in August with no air conditioning, Eddy set WIPE and told me he envisioned the dancers in wedding dresses—YIKES—so I started searching Ebay immediately. I continued to write grants, make direct appeals and promote our children’s workshop as funding sources for festival participants. In the meantime, we started the long process of getting board approval for out-of-state travel.

 

 

The year continued and donations trickled in. Then one magical day in December we received word that we’d been selected to perform our piece at one of the festival’s two gala showcases—this was beyond anything we expected. When I announced it to the dancers, they were in shock. We were one of the few “traditional” public high schools in the country selected for this honor. It felt like a true Cinderella story, wedding dresses and all.

 

 

Our principal made arrangements to attend; his presence in Philadelphia was so affirming and he saw the dancers at tech, as well as before and after the show. One dancer was given an opportunity to create a documentary on the trip, which will be released later this year on www.nbc5.com/prepwire.

 

 

To say the process ran smoothly from the start would be misrepresenting the obstacles we had to overcome, but that’s another story. We ended up bringing 16 dancers (eight of them performing) to the festival and while they had to pay a portion of the cost, we were able to secure some funding.

 

 

As we boarded the plane at O’Hare on Thursday, March 13, we realized it was all finally happening. Of course, six teen girls carrying full-length wedding dresses onto a plane took some explaining. My grad-school friend Karen McShane Hellenbrand from UW-Madison was on the plane with us and offered to observe our 15-minute onstage rehearsal. She gave the kids a much-needed pep talk Saturday afternoon; their nerves were starting to get the best of them.

 

 

Performing in the 1,800-seat Merriman theater with some of the most skilled young dancers any of us had ever seen was overwhelming. Yet when they took their first sweep across the stage that Saturday night they had a beautiful sense of confidence. They had achieved something few would have the opportunity to do and gave the performance of their young lives. I couldn’t have been prouder of them and that moment truly solidified why we were there.

 

 

The festival itself was inspiring. The teachers were amazing, the dancers incredible, and there were performances that made your jaw drop. Participating dancers received $1.4 million in scholarships awarded by colleges, festivals and intensives. Twenty percent of the 1,500 students in attendance were male. I now have a list of over 70 high school dance program directors from coast to coast and in Australia, Canada and the Bahamas.

 

 

We returned to school on Monday and the dancers tried sharing the weekend with their peers, but words couldn’t capture the essence of experience. It was frustrating for them, but it also highlighted the fact that this truly was an event that was special beyond words. Would I do it again? Ask me in six months to a year. That four-day trip took almost a full year to pull together. Yet, as I unpacked my suitcase, I found the card the kids had snuck into my bag expressing their gratitude for the opportunity. In the long run, it was worth it.

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