Belgium, 2022

Dance Into Happiness

During 2020 with all the changes happening in the world, we, as a dance school, were forced to look into innovative ways to stay engaged with our students. The creativity of our students stood out as they wanted to attend online dance classes. Thanks to technology we were able to accomplish online dance classes for our students during the pandemic.

Our enthusiastic school Director wanted more, she wanted opportunities and growth for her students, hence she instructed the team to look for the open opportunities Europe is offering.

Since the local government does not offer any financial support to local dance schools, we subscribed ourselves on numerous platforms offering a collaboration to whomever is out there on the same page as we are. We struggled to find the right platform, but with help of the amazing team of Creative Europe who sent us in the right direction, we got things to move forward. To our surprise, we quickly received a reaction from You Can Dance dansstudio from Belgium. The connection clicked, and from there this project was born: Dance into Happiness!

We have been preparing for months, setting up meetings, rehearsing, checking what documents are required to travel, the students even came up with a fundraiser idea which we executed last June as a Koffiemorgen. We received great help from our local community for ice, coffee, wax papers, pastechis, juices etc and we also gathered funds to complete some of the remaining open balance for some students.

Despite the busy season as we prepare for our Annual Dance Recital, RAD exams, Private Performances and much more, we still find joy in being actively involved in organizing projects for our students' cultural exchange.

The project has 2 parts, CDM Aruba will travel with 30 teachers and students to Belgium from July 26th to August 3rd, 2022 for the first part of the project. YCD Belgium will travel with 30 teachers and students to Aruba from August 6th to August 13th, 2022 for the second and final part of ‘Dance into Happiness!’. We will have a performance broadcasting the learning outcomes from the project in Cas di Cultura on Thursday, August 11, 2022 at 7:00 PM.

Students will present choreographies from Aruba & Belgium such as: Ballet, Jazz, Contemporary, and Folklore: Tumba, Tambu, Baile di Sinta, and much more.

We look forward to a successful project and we wish our students a safe trip to Belgium and back home.