INTO ANOTHER YEAR OF OUR RURAL OUTREACH

We walked into a very pleasant surprise (not that it was entirely unexpected) as we enter another year of our Rural Outreach.

The girls have grown to be strong, enduring, quicker and more capable dancers.

This past year - the four Outreach stints preceding this one - has been a massive foundational stone to their overall growth.

The schools they come from tell us they are performing so well academically as well, attributing it pretty plainly to their improved physical fitness and thorough involvement with the Arts - a happy diversion and an overall performance enhancer.

In the early part of the week through which this Outreach was conducted, we ran auditions and selected a bunch of girls newly admitted into their next academic years. These girls worked swiftly and simultaneously with our first and original batches of girls to level up and are nearly up to speed with them.

We are so happy to be working with more little ones, athletically and artistically. The same joy, the same sense of wonder, the same drive finding us and them as we work together to build a pretty solid future for Classical Dance.

We revised everything we knew. We found new ways and tricks to practice our technique and polish it even further. We made it through different athletic workouts - running, building stamina as we went along, bettering speed, seemingly more agile. We worked our core and muscles and have come to be more flexible. Most notably, we were less tired, more eager, laughing and smiling more and completely in it, together!

The girls have even seen glimpses of the many movement combinations that lie ahead. And are keenly looking forward to learning them!

They inspire us, enliven us and make us want to be better for them. We've come to see just how much of our Junoon is because of them.

All in all, a very productive time and a very proud feeling witnessing how far our girls have come. We are seeing, now more than ever, the fruits of their toil, our labour, their consistency and our belief.

So long as they keep with their practice, work with those hearts full of Junoon and grin and bear it all,
There's no telling how far they can go!

Until we meet again,,
May our little stars dance and shine and dance and shine,
Moving precisely along the path to becoming artistes so fine.