Argentina

An 8-member team of Battery Dance members conducted five Dancing to Connect workshops of 20 hours each in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from May 31 – June 7, 2015. The team worked with approximately 100 youth selected from an open call extended by the US Embassy on its Facebook page which surprised everyone by yielding responses from nearly 800 young people between the ages of 14 – 25.

The workshop participants represented a wide variety of backgrounds from an ethnic and socio-economic standpoint, and yet they worked well together under the guidance of the five Battery Dance teaching artists ably supported by five Argentinian dance teachers.

The Embassy assembled an exceptional group of local partners including Prodanza and Centro Cultural San Martin, which helped to source the local dance teachers, promote the program, provide the rehearsal spaces for four of the workshops and the theater, Teatro 25 de Mayo, that was used for the final performance as well as to house one of the workshops.

AFS Argentina also partnered in a significant way, covering the cost of bringing Battery Dance’s South American specialist, Natalia Mesa, on the tour; and assisting with guiding the Company upon its arrival in BA from New York where AFS also arranged for an overnight at a hotel located adjacent to the Buquebus Port (where the Company members transferred to Montevideo the next morning); and arranging airport transfers for the company’s departure to Asuncion at the end of the program. Approximately 10 international AFS students also took part in the Dancing to Connect workshops.

In addition to the Dancing to Connect workshops, Battery Dance’s artistic director Jonathan Hollander gave a lecture on arts management in the form of a public interview with the directors of Prodanza.