The students of the International Summer School of the Cecchetti Council of America will perform two concerts at Hope College on Saturday, July 19.
The concerts will take place at noon and 1:30 p.m. at the college's Knickerbocker Theatre, located in downtown Holland at 86 E. 8th St. The public is invited, and admission is free.
About 275 dance students, instructors and artists are on campus for the summer school, which is running July 6-19. The students, ranging in age from 11 to 22, have come from throughout the United States. The faculty consists of prominent ballet professionals.
The Cecchetti Council of America is dedicated to maintaining the standards and method of ballet training established by Enrico Cecchetti, who lived from 1850 to 1928. The organization uses his teaching and writings in a sequence of grades, measured by degree of difficulty and physical development, and provides a system of accredited examinations to test each student's proficiency within the grade levels. The council began in 1939 as a committee of the Dance Masters of Michigan, and was incorporated as a nonprofit educational association in 1951.
The summer school's curriculum includes classical ballet, pointe, variation, pas de deux, jazz, improvisation, modern, dance history and a performance workshop. The students' daily activities include two ballet classes, one dance-related class and one performance rehearsal.