For Avon Elementary School students Colby Lange and Luisa Taal, the road to enhanced learning via the performing arts will soon lead them to the home of the First Family as the pair of “Celebrate the Beat” dancers join forces with a national group that will participate in a special event at the White House on September 7 in conjunction with a tribute to the work of Judith Jamison.
First Lady Michelle Obama will host the workshop and performance in recognition of Jamison’s outstanding career as a dancer, choreographer and artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre for the past 20 years.
Directed by Vail International Dance Festival director Damian Woetzel, the event is designed to celebrate the best in American dance, with the students participating in a workshop in the East Room. Lange and Taal, two of only four Colorado dancers to be invited, will team with other students from New York’s National Dance Institute and the National Dance Institute of New Mexico. The Avon Elementary pair will be accompanied to Washington by Celebrate the Beat artistic director Tracy Straus and program developer Heather Katz.
Other student organizations participating in the workshop include Alvin Ailey, Washington Ballet, Ballet Hispanico, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Interlochen and the Chicago Multi-Cultural Dance Center.
Following the workshop, the students will then attend a performance, also in the East Room, featuring artists and companies, including Alvin Ailey, Billy Elliott, Paul Taylor, Washington Ballet, Supercr3w and New York City Ballet.
Following the workshop, the students will then attend a performance, also in the East Room, featuring artists and companies, including Alvin Ailey, Billy Elliott, Paul Taylor, Washington Ballet, Supercr3w and New York City Ballet.
Celebrate the Beat was incorporated into the Vail International Dance Festival in 2007 via a one-week program that brought free movement and joy to the inaugural group of Vail Valley children. The program was added to the curriculum of Avon Elementary School in 2008 and currently serves nearly 1,000 students in Eagle County thanks to the support of the Vail Valley Foundation.
