HSHS dance troupe leave to tour Europe
Eleven dancers from Hot Springs World Class High School leave today for a 13-day European dance tour, a trip that has been a couple of years in the making.
The dance troupe, led by dance teacher Amy Bramlett-Turner, will tour with troupes from Texas, Utah, Michigan and Austria as part of Young! Tanzsommer. Troupes will perform across Austria, Venice and Germany.
“Two years ago, the director of Young! Tanzsommer, who is out of Houston, contacted me — it’s a tour that I did 10 years ago — because she saw the girls on my Facebook,” she said. “She said, ‘You’ve got to bring the girls on tour this summer’ … I was like ‘Oh my gosh, we would have to raise all that money. I don’t think we’re trained enough for that. I don’t know if we’re mature enough for that.’ So I said I couldn’t do it that year and she said ‘Well, your girls, you just fall in love with them when you see them so let’s try for in two years.’
“So it’s been two years. We’ve been fundraising, we raised $48,000 for the 11 out of 13 of the girls to go. Two of them, their parents said ‘this is not a trip for us,’ but I have two managers so we do have 13 total going. It was $2,850 a girl, plus airfare, for a 13-day tour.”
The troupe will perform five routines of its own, including two jazz routines, a modern dance, contemporary ballet and a clog routine. Bramlett-Turner said they have also learned a portion of a finale routine which, when pieced together with the other dance troupes, will form a large finale of about 100 dancers.
Several of the dancers were
in the original troupe that was invited two years ago, but Bramlett-Turner said all dancers have to try out each year, regardless.
“They have to audition every year so even though they may have been in the original troupe that was invited, they still have to audition every year so that they realize that they have to keep striving to work hard, that it’s a gift to be part of it,” she said.
Two 11th-graders, Jayelyn Hill and Peyton Hudson, were a part of the original troupe that was invited and both girls said their group is overwhelmingly excited about this opportunity.
“We’ve come a really long way from like seventh grade,” Hudson said. “From the beginning, we’ve been pushing and pushing to be as good as we are now.”
Hill said this trip “still doesn’t feel real” because it has been a long time coming.
“In 2015 we were like ‘We got invited to do this tour; let’s raise money for it,’ but we didn’t. Then, in 2016, we were like, ‘Let’s raise money for this tour; we’ve got to push harder,’ but we didn’t. So 2017 came and finally the year we really pushed hard toward our goal and we worked really hard this time,” she said. “We showed our community that we really wanted to do it and they saw it and they helped us. Thank God we did because without God we wouldn’t be where we are.”
The cultural experiences the girls will be a part of are what Bramlett-Turner is most excited to share with them.
“I went on this tour when I was 19,” she said. “I studied abroad in college and then I performed all over the world internationally and I think that instilled something in me. It had a really big effect on me because this was my high school.
“Coming back to my alma mater and showing this generation that there’s so many different cultures and people out there and things totally different than what we’re used to, and how beautiful that is, especially now when there’s a lot of controversy about people with different backgrounds, I’m trying to show them that we can use art and dance to bridge people together and find their passion. Even if it isn’t dance, they can find their passion and use that to bridge different people together. That was a huge effect on me and I want to instill that passion in them.”
Principal Taryn Echols said this experience is exactly the type of thing the high school tries to offer its students.
“For Hot Springs World Class High School, this means a lot for them to be able to go somewhere outside of just the state,” Echols said. “They’ve traveled all across the state and they’ve traveled to some places outside the state, but they’re going to Europe to represent our school and I think that really embodies what we’re trying to do here being Hot Springs World Class High School.
“We really want to offer our students a world-class experience and make sure that they’re ready for life beyond just living in Hot Springs, but be exposed to different cultures and be exposed to different people to really make them worldwide citizens.”
Echols said she had seen all but two of the routines before a send-off rehearsal on Thursday, adding that the troupe puts in a lot of hard work to be at the level they are which is something she is proud of on a personal level.
“I always share the story with them that I danced all through high school and I miss it so much,” she said. “So when I came here five years ago and saw that we had a dance program I thought it was amazing. Mrs. Bramlett has done an amazing job teaching them technique because that’s typically what you don’t get in a public setting. You have to go get it in a private setting to really learn that technique. But she’s taken what students pay for outside of school and we’re offering that to our students in our district. I think that is a large asset to be able to expose them to that culture.”