Faculty of Languages and Arts (FLA) YSU on Friday to Sunday (1-3 April) held a big event in collaboration with the US Embassy, Dance Motion USA, and Bumi Purnati Indonesia. The event which was labeled as Dance Heginbotham showing John Eirich, Kristen Foote, Lindsey Jones, Courtney Lopes, Weaver Rhodes, Sarah Stanley, and Macy Sullivia as the dancers. Not to mention, this event also collaborated with a super creative musician as accompaniment; Nathan Koci. Dance Heginbothan 2016 was also conceived by John Heginbotham, Adrienne Bryant, Nicole Pearce, Maile Okamura, Valerie Oliveiro, Tracy Mendez .Each of them, respectively, were as Artistic Director and Choreographer, Managing Director, Lighting Designer, Designer Costume, Manager Stage Production, and Recruitment.

Dance Heginbothan, this year, is centered in two places, namely Padepokan Bagong Kussudiardjo and FLA YSU. Various events were held in the agenda of Dance Heginbothan. The first day activity was the opening on Friday (1/4) at 09.00. The event continued with two events of Dance Workshops, which were held simultaneously at the Laboratory of Music and Dance (LMD) FLA, YSU. Group 1 was occupied with dance practice at the beginner level, while the second group was occupied with advanced dance training. Not less interesting, a dance management workshop was held together with Adrienne Bryant and Valerie Oliveiro at 13:00. At the same time, the Workshop Dance and Music together with pianist Nathan Kochi was also taking place. Nathan shared his knowledge in dance music arrangement and combined it with the Javanese gamelan.

Dance Movement Program concluded the workshop on the first day. This program was a special program for children with special needs, joined by various special schools in Yogyakarta. The workshop participants followed the entire series of events seriously but still filled with joy and laughter. The participants of Dance Pradnya Widya, the Indonesian Arts Institute (ISI), and the Academy of Arts Mangkunegaran (ASGA) also performed together in a dance workshop held for one full day.

The second day program was also filled with dance workshop, for the improvement of motion and compactness. The participants continued to practice seriously because the results of the two days’ workshop will be shown on the stage on Sunday (3/4) at Padepokan Bagong Kussudiardjo. While the dancers got new movements from the Dance Heginbotham team, the dancers from the US were also getting a workshop on traditional Javanese dance, the dance instructor Nawung Sekar with Madame Titik Agustin. It turned out that the American dancers were at match with native Javanese dancer. In fact, they did not face difficulty to follow any traditional dance movements exemplified. (VIE)