Ballet Lafayette students dance their way to Poland
Forget about an American in Paris, these Americans went to Poland. Kelly Jenkins, director of Ballet Lafayette, and her troupe of ballerinas visited Poland for 10 days to take part in the International Dance Festival of Ladek Zdroj.
Jenkins was asked to attend the festival by Jerzy Golek, a renowned ballet instructor and native of Poland.
“We were one of three companies to go,” Jenkins said. “I had hosted a dance workshop with Jerzy Golek and when he came, he not only saw the talented girls in the workshop but asked us to take part in the festival.”
Before reaching Poland, the girls spent a day in Prague to sightsee.
“We flew into Prague first,” Jenkins said. “We stayed there a day and took a dinner cruise. We took a five-hour bus trip that went into Poland. We got to see a lot of country. I took 24 people and everyone had something different to say about what they saw.”
Once arriving in Poland, the girls enrolled in different classes while Jenkins taught her own class.
“There were teachers from different countries and I was the one from America,” Jenkins said.
As a part of teaching a class in a foreign country, Jenkins was assisted by a translator and found it very interesting.
“It was difficult because they weren’t always there when you needed them,” Jenkins laughed. “If we said something, it was our 10 words for their 50 it seemed. Makes you conscious of what you’re saying. It was great though. (My classes) were full of students from around the world and one little girl spoke very little English.
“I noticed she responded with hand movements. They had a great time though,” she continued.
“You don’t realize the difficulty there can be, but it was a wonderful opportunity,” she added.
Jenkins said by far, the highlight of her time spent in Poland was the performance by the Ballet Lafayette at an outside amphitheatre.
“The most joyous moment was the performance,” Jenkins said. “There were thousands of people just roaring because they enjoyed every minute of our performance. The girls danced for thirty minutes non-stop.”
Jenkins said she designed the show to start with 1920’s era music and took the audience through each decade with music reminiscent of that era up to present times. She said she used songs like, YMCA, Thriller, and Saturday Night Fever, which she said everyone recognized and thoroughly enjoyed.
“At the end, the girls were just gleaming and everyone was so appreciative. I couldn’t have been more proud of them at that moment,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins’ daughter, Ninna, 14, also went on the trip and took part in the performance. Ninna said she felt like a celebrity afterwards.
“It was fun after the performance, people were asking for our autographs and pictures,” Ninna said. “A couple days later we went to a store to buy water and a lady asked for our autograph.”
While there, Ninna took a wide array of dance classes, including belly dancing, ballet and hip hop and said she enjoyed all of them.
Jenkins said it was wonderful to have such an international gathering. There were classes from Poland, Spain and Israel, Jenkins said.
“We had a Fayette County flag and had it signed from everyone all over the world. They just love Americans. Everyone who we would meet had such a great response.”
Principal dancer of Ballet Lafayette, Amanda O’Brien, also went to Poland and had an intense schedule while there.
“It was amazing to take part in. I dance from 9 to 6. I had five classes and I helped Kelly with hers,” O’Brien said.
I took an Indian dance class. I had spent six weeks in India and I really liked that one,” she added.
Jenkins had mentioned that “ballet is an international language” and O’Brien seemed to agree.
Even despite the language gap, ballet seemed to transcend their differences.
“There weren’t too many people who spoke English,” O’Brien said.
“But it was very interesting because during class, we didn’t need them, to listen to them. We could understand with our eyes,” she added.