Dance and school go well together
Sophie, Meritxell and Vega are 15 years old. They are in the fourth year at Beekdal Lyceum. All three have been dancing since they were young.
"I think I inherited it from my mother. She danced with Introdans before she got pregnant with me", says Meritxell.
"So maybe it was natural that I wanted to dance too. I think I started at the age of 4. After that, I never stopped. I ended up in the Pulchinella dance production through dancing at On Y Danse in Arnhem. My dance teacher kept encouraging me to audition for the Dance Preparatory Programme at ArtEZ. I did and I got selected."
The Dance Preparatory Programme is a dance course that Meritxell, Vega and Sophie are doing alongside their general secondary (HAVO) or pre-university (VWO) education. The programme is preparing them for real dancing. They can only go on to the full programme if they have a HAVO or VWO diploma. That is why they are currently at Beekdal Lyceum, because they have a collaboration with ArtEZ.
Sophie is in year 3 of VWO and Meritxell and Vega are in year 3 of HAVO.
Because they are effectively doing two courses, they have quite a tough weekly schedule. "We get more and more homework, and at the same time we are now dancing between 10 and 16 hours a week. Sometimes that’s during school hours, for example when the rest of our class have PE or visual arts or drama, but often the dance lessons are after school. Fortunately, the two dance halls where we dance are on the school site", says Sophie.
For dance students who live outside Arnhem and have to travel in by bus and train, it can be pretty intensive. “It's like playing an elite sport really, but fortunately our school makes allowances for our busy schedule", says Vega. "And we can see exactly what we need to do for all our subjects just by logging into Itslearning on a computer or iPad." So school remains very important to these dancers. Because all three of them know one thing for sure: from Beekdal Lyceum, they want to go to the ArtEZ Academy of Theatre and Dance. "After that, I would ideally like to dance with a dance company abroad," says Vega. "Because I love to travel." After a career in dance, Sophie sees her future mainly in dance choreography.
