Our international Dance Journey study abroad program provides dancers and dance students from all over the world with a comprehensive dance curriculum and an intensive semester-long or full academic year of intensive dance study at the highest level. Participants have the opportunity to receive academic course credit from their respective university, collage, or dance academy.
Practice in the development of ballet technical skill, body alignment, and concepts of ballet aesthetics. Methodology of different vantage points of the traditional ballet class, used as a foundation to be able to execute the movement and body language of Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company’s repertoire.
Development of techniques and principles of modern dance on an advanced level guided by guest teachers and KCDC teachers and company dancers.
Course provides students with an exclusive encounter of KCDC’s expressive, dynamic and physical language which exemplifies the totally of the physical and spiritual human expression. Attention will be given to musicality, imagination and all the senses with high regard for technique, physical control, and physical awareness.
Course provides students with instruction involving a sequence of exercises done in sitting and supine positions on the floor in order to stretch and warm up the body while discovering an additional form of movement expression. This dance technique takes place on the floor where gravity, weight transfer, bone structure and momentum all have an important role.
Course provides students with tools that will serve for practical methods to use for development of physical awareness, strengthening, conditioning, as well as avoidance and coping with injuries.
Exploration of the creation of movement through improvisation. Students will explore and create, while spontaneously performing inner-directed movement. This course provides the opportunity to explore dance improvisation forms, including contact improvisation. The sensibility we will develop involves the student to be in the present, which means setting aside the notion of planning ahead, inventing, and guiding while also setting aside our evaluative nature that leads us to critically reflect on the recent past. Learning any kind of improvisation requires that we take charge of our own learning. It requires the desire and the ability to live each moment fully, without regard for the next or the last. Recognizing this sensibility within us and applying it to our dancing are the two primary learning goals for this class.
Exposure to the eclectic styles, choreographies and original work by Israeli and international choreographers. Opportunity for students to access, experience, research, and discover Israel’s dance scene, considered one fo the leading in the world.
Participants receive professional guidance as well as access to facilities, light and costume design in creating original choreography on fellow participants and main company and second company dancers for a short work to be featured at an end of the semester showcase. Participants choose independently the cast size while creating costumes and lighting design with the guidance of our professional staff while working closely with the Dance Journey program’s director. This course/project covers development of fundamental skills in choreography.
A number of our main company dancers who are made up of both up and coming and established choreographers, also create original works for the program’s participants that are featured in the showcase. All original works are presented at the end of the semester in a showcase performance in Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company’s theater at the International Dance Village.
Basic grammar and development of reading, speaking, writing, and listening skills. No prior study of Hebrew needed.
Firsthand exposure to the people and landscape of Israel. Students engage in interpersonal encounters with the varying spectrum of ethnicities of Israel. Trips includes visits to the southern Negev desert, Jerusalem, the Galilee, and neighboring diverse villages in the Western Galilee.
An exploration of the kibbutz movement from its foundation, recent modernization, and ideology. First hand encounter of Bedouin culture and regional ethnicities. Analysis of Judaism, Christianity and Israel – the three major religions of the region – along with other ethnicities and religions found in Israel.
Proving voluntary support to the regional hospital. Assistance at physical and developmental disability centers. Volunteering in a local boarding school for at risk youth. Participation in artistic and educational activity in local Jewish and Arab communities.
