Pas de Quinze
15 dancers try life on tour at BU's REACH! program
Click here to hear the REACH! dancers talk about their summer apprenticeship. Photos by Vernon Doucette
This summer, 15 aspiring dancers from greater Boston will test the waters as professional performers through the REACH! program, a dance apprenticeship founded by Micki Taylor-Pinney, the coordinator of dance at BU’s Fitness and Recreation Center. The intensive four-week program brings teen apprentices, hailing from Boston and the surrounding suburbs, to BU for two weeks of rehearsal and two weeks of touring performances through city neighborhoods. Taylor-Pinney says that the program gives them a taste of life as professional performers, as well as an opportunity to work with other students from local communities. Students say the training, which blends tap, jazz, modern, and African dance, helps them think about artistry in a new way.
“There’s so much individuality and creativity that’s going on,” says Natalie Uribe, an apprentice from Lowell, Mass. “It’s a great way to learn.”
On Wednesday, July 18, at 7 p.m., the REACH! students will perform a free 45-minute show in Cambridge, at the Bishop Allen Drive parking lot behind Harvest Cooperative Supermarket, 581 Massachusetts Ave. For more information, visit the REACH! Web site.
Paul Heerlein can be reached at heerlein@bu.edu. Jessica Ullian can be reached at jullian@bu.edu.