Summertime is fastly approaching and many students plan to incorporate the arts into their school break. Dancers, for example, are making arrangements to attend summer dance intensives. During these summer, dancers travel to where the intensive dance programs are being held. For a certain amount of weeks they wake up early in the morning and dance all day until late that night. Sundays are usually the days when the dancers rest and they walk around the city and explore the area. Eventually the intensives draw to an end and the dancers perform what they have been working on for their families.

This is not a first time experience for some such as Anita Chisum, 11th grade. Chisum, in the summer of 2014, took a trip to New York City to dance in the Alvin Ailey Summer Intensive. “When I first arrived in New York I was so overwhelmed by everything there and incredibly psyched to start dancing at the Alvin Ailey facility.”

Alvin Ailey is an African-American man who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. During the summer in New York, this dance company hosts a dance intensive for dancers who have at least three years of experience. “The Alvin Ailey program is not easy to get into,” said Chisum. This upcoming summer of 2015, Chisum, will be returning to New York for another intensive. “I’m taking dance classes from Dance Theatre of Harlem.” The Dance Theatre of Harlem, (DTH), is a professional American ballet dance company.  Chisum is very excited, yet scared at the same time. “I mean I’ll be in New York for three weeks dancing with one of the best African-American dance companies in the world.” Experiences like this, being out of your comfort zone, is very intimidating.

This summer another student, KloeAmber Harris, 11th grade, will be attending the Nashville Ballet summer intensive in Tennessee. Harris states, “I really, really love dance and I also want to be professional at it, and in order to get the experience that I would have when I become a professional; I should go there because it would teach me what it’s like and the discipline.”

Some intensives are held on college campuses offering a great learning experience for students that will being moving on to college soon. “I think it’s (summer intensives) a really good experience because we will be staying on a college campus, so we can kind of see what college life is like,” said Harris.