Another busy day in Mongolia

Wednesday morning Connie and Miyako both taught classes to college students at separate institutions. The students were very enthusiastic and eager to learn this modern dance form that they had never been exposed to before.

Connie demonstrates

The students picked up the movement quickly

Group photo

Dancers' dirty feet, comes with the territory

In the afternoon Connie, Miyako and Laura joined up with the American cultural attache in Mongolia, Marissa Maurer and translator Uyanga (who is sight impaired) and had a wonderful visit the School of the Hearing Impaired, a kindergarten through 12th grade government-funded school. They met with the school's principal who told them all about the curriculum and vocational training and gave them a tour of the classrooms and training centers. She told them that dance is a very important part of curriculum. They then received a warm welcome from the students in the auditorium and were treated to a marvelous performance by students of all ages. The dances ranged from traditional Mongolian dance to cha cha cha to Bollywood. It was well done and great fun.

Marrisa, Miyako, the school principal, Connie and Uyanga (with Gladys)

Speech therapy class

Our warm welcome

Students waiting to perform

A dance that told a story about a family

Mongolian folk dance

A young, graceful contortionist

The talented students

After the performance Miyako and Connie and Marissa held a question and answer session with the students. The students asked for advice and criticism. Connie and Miyako gave some notes, emphasizing how amazing they were as dancers and how successful their teachers were and stressing that a sense of community formed by learning and sharing is so important to dancers. There was some discussion on what opportunities there might be for dance performance and education in America.

Question and answer session

On the other side of town Dana, Sarah, Kelly taught a modern technique class for the Moon Stone Dance Company of Ulaanbaatar. Moon Stone is a folkloric dance company with dancers who cross-train in ballet and have had some modern dance. They were very excited to participate in class and eager to talk about their lives as dancers and to find out how American dancers make a living.Sarah and Kelly then taught six of their dancers a duet from DTSB&Co repertoire.

Later in the afternoon Kelly and Sarah spoke to 80 teenagers interested in American dance culture as part of the Access program (the English Access Microscholarship Program of the U.S. State Department), which is a special after-school English teaching program for economically challenged students, most of whom live in the ger district which houses in-country migrant workers.

Ger district

In the evening the company and Marrisa met up with Otgon US ambassador to Mongolia Jonathon Addleton and his wife to talk about the trip so far and eat Mongolian food. On the way over to the restaurant Kelly, Sarah and Dana stopped to snap pictures in the expansive Sukhbaatar Square.

Dana in Sukhbaatar Square, which features a large statue of Chinggis Khan

Kelly, Sarah, Dana and Jonathon Addleton, US ambassador to Mongolia

Tumen Ekh performance

Monday night we attended a performance of Tumen Ekh, which includes singers and musicians as well as the dancers that Dana is working with. It was amazing! Every artist was so talented and seeing and hearing the traditional instruments, dancing and singing (including throat singing and a contortionist) was so enjoyable. We will never forget this amazing performance. This was the first time all the DTSBCo and Tumen Ekh dancers were all together so we introduced ourselves, had a great discussion and took a group photo. Friday night the Tumen Ekh dancers will perform a work Dana is creating for them in a joint performance at the National Drama Theater.

DTSBCo in Mongolia - Hitting the Ground Running

The 30 hour plus trip to UlaanBaatar, Mongolia was tiring but everything went smoothly. We had a 4 hour layover in Seoul, Korea so we took advantage of Korean Air's traveler's services. We enjoyed refreshments in their comfortable lounge and were able to take showers. And we could not pass up a nice foot massage.






We arrived in UlaanBaatar 10:30pm local time and were welcomed by Otgon Yondon, the Cultural Specialist and embassy intern Namuun from the American Embassy in Mongolia. She took us to the hotel where we checked in and had a short planning meeting in the lounge.



Tuesday morning Miyako and Connie headed to a local college to teach and Dana, Kelly and Sarah taught a master class for the Mongolian folklore dance group Tumen Ekh. In the afternoon Dana began rehearsal on a dance work that the members of Tumen Ekh will perform in a joint concert with DTSB&Co on Friday. The local dancers are quite talented and very interested in Western forms of contemporary dance. There have only been a handful of contemporary European and American dance companies to make it here in the last decade which makes their eagerness and sheer talent quite impressive. We ended the rehearsal with an impressive 6-1/2 minutes of choreography.

Photos from class:







After class we had a short break so we ventured out into the bitter cold to walk around and have a cup of coffee. We loved the sign on this nearby building.


When we returned to the studio we met the talented choreographer of Tumen Ekh.



Photos from rehearsal:



After rehearsal we met up with the Connie, Miyako, Otgon, Namuun and Marissa Maurer, Public Affairs Officer from the embassy, for a quick bite before attending a performance of the Tumen Ekh dancers and musicians.

DTSB&Co Tour delayed

Due to the earthquake in Japan the first leg of our journey was canceled Friday morning. We now will be leaving Sunday morning and arriving in Ulaanbaatar Monday evening.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to friends and their families in Japan.

DTSB&Co is heading to Mongolia!

rehearsal for Dariush a photo by dtsbcodance on Flickr.

The company will be in the capital city UlaanBaatar March 13-19 teaching master classes, choreographing on local dancers, lecturing and performing. And, of course, we hope to get some sightseeing in.

The tour is supported by the U.S. Embassy in Mongolia and the US State Department.

We now have a new Flickr account that allows easy sharing with this blog. We hope to post lots of photos during our trip so stay tuned!

Here a shot of Miyako rehearsing a solo she will perform in UlaanBaatar.

A DTSB&Co Birthday!

Last Saturday the dancers, board members and friends gathered at the Venetian Room at Hotel Lombardi to celebrate Dana's Birthday. As you can see it was a fun time!

Photos from the Corcoran Gallery of Art Performance

Check out the December 2010 performance photos of DTSB&Co at the Corcoran Gallery of Art by Denny Henry

Photo Gallery

Review of America's Cloud in danceviewtimes

DTSB&CO will perform America's Cloud again next Sunday December 12 at 11:30am , 1:00pm and 2:30pm. Free with Gallery Admission

Dance critic George Jackson wrote a thoughtful review of last Sunday's performance.
Read the review

We hope to see you there!

Be sure to check out the rave review of Charlie Chan and the Mystery of Love by the Washington Post's Pulitzer-prize winning dance critic Sarah Kaufman

photo credit: Astrid Riecken for the Washington Post

DTSB&Co at WAISDEA conference

Connie, Kelly and Dana had a wonderful experience at the Washington Area Independent School Dance Education Association (WAISDEA).

There were several hundred high school dance students and their teachers who attended this year's conference at Sandy Spring's High School. Connie and Kelly taught dance and yoga classes and Dana spoke about choreography at a large assembly at the end of the day. Kelly and Connie did a wonderful job performing excerpts from dances and Dana spoke about the inspiration for the dances and how they were created. The students had excellent questions which ranged from asking about the rehearsal process to, what a dancer's day is like, to how is research of an historical event turned into choreography. Quite sophisticated questions!