For several years, the John Carroll College Preparatory Dance Program has taken an annual trip to the Independent Dance Network Festival. On Sunday, January 7, the festival was hosted by The Bryn Mawr School.
This festival is an event for all independent and private schools with a dance program in the Baltimore area. Every year a different school in the area hosts the event.
This event has been around since 2018 and was originally hosted by the Friends School of Baltimore. The last time John Carroll hosted the Independent Dance Network festival was in 2020, right before COVID.
During the lockdown, the festival went on hiatus and resumed for the first time last year.
College Preparatory Dance Program Director Laura Ward-Moran said that John Carroll dancers have attended this event every year. She said that this trip allows the dancers to “enjoy opportunities to share their talents outside of John Carroll.”
She believes that this festival allows the girls to interact with people who have the same interests as them. She said the dancers “get an opportunity to see and experience teachers and students from other schools who also have dance programs as part of their curriculum.”
Mrs. Ward-Moran feels this trip helped them improve as dancers because “the dance world is small. By going to more events like this, you can put yourself out there more.”
She continued, “The more you start to network, the more opportunities you will have.”
According to Mrs. Ward-Moran, it is never too early to start putting yourself out there.
While the dancers were at the festival, they had three different classes including a modern class, an African dance class, and a jazz class.
They also listened to a lecture about how to prevent injuries. This trip taught them how to network and gave them an experience where they could learn with similar-minded people.
One dancer who attended from JC was junior Cetta Redmer. Cetta said this trip was informative and allowed her to learn to be a better dancer.
Cetta learned many new things, but one thing Cetta learned stood out to her.
Cetta said, “This [trip] helped me because there have been several times that I have been injured, but I have had to dance through the pain. Learning about different stretches will help me prevent that.”
After many classes, and meeting new people, Cetta said her favorite part of the trip was the performance.
She said it was her favorite because “every high school got to perform a dance that they have been working on, and it was cool to see the different styles of dance that everyone was performing.”