Summer is officially over, and it will be missed. Even though it started in New York City for me this year, it was a very European Summer. It consisted of attending a 3-weeks dance event in Italy, a brief England trip, and hanging out in Paris for the longest time I had been home all year (5 weeks!!!).
I know it sounds ridiculous, but if you consider all that I did, the places I went, and the people I crossed paths with (people I have gotten to meet, know and be inspired by), it feels so fulfilling that I can barely believe all that happened in only a few months.
But hey, let me tell you a little bit about Italy.
I was in beautiful Puglia for 3 weeks in July to attend the World Dance Movement, a dance workshop that I teach at. Put together by American Choreographer Michele Assaf, this event gathers hundreds of artists from over 25 different countries every year. I’ve been invited since the first edition and have performed and shared my passion with people from all over the world. We all come from very different cultures, and yet are brought together by a mutual artistic endeavor and approach.
Desmond Richardson teaching Ballet at WDM
When I arrived this year, I was greeted by Michele herself, and dance legend Desmond Richardson. They were both excited to see me and right away it made me feel like I was back home.
We sat at the hotel pool around Espressino Freddo (the closest thing you can find to a Starbucks' Frappuccino in Italy) catching up with what we all had been up to since we last had seen each others, and they informed me about my schedule for the first few days.
That week, I'd be teaching a 9am Yamuna Body Rolling class. I couldn’t think of a more perfect start to my stay there. Yamuna is perfectly designed for dancers to warm up and free their bodies from any tensions they might have from their intense training. Since I'm demonstrating, I get to roll my muscles as well, and knowing the amount of dancing I'd be doing, this felt almost mandatory if I wanted to make it til the end of the workshop. I also learned that I'd be hosting the weekly gala show again. So I had to start figuring out my outfit for the event as well as a small welcome speech in both English and Italian. This year's festivities also included a dance competition in which I acted as an auxiliary judge (in case a competitor was also a student of the one the judges). It was a first for me and I was very much looking forward to it.
I was particularly excited about all the different hats I would get to wear during my time there, and all timeI would be spending around the other dancers there. Some of them are life-long friends I've made at World Dance Movement that I'm happy to meet again each year. Others were new faces whose smiles and names would become known to me over the time we spent on the dance floor together. I couldn't think of a better way to spend the summer.
