Global significance – January 14 2022

How do you make a difference in your community? What are you doing to create change?

The difference we are making is bringing and encouraging young people to incorporate dance/ art into their lives and our community. This is important because our community and world have been lacking in the performing arts due to the global pandemic that took over about two years ago. People are unable to attend or participate in this art due to health concerns, restrictions, and any necessary material they may be lacking. We are providing opportunities for dancers at ELEVATE to dance and our community to watch. We are inspiring creativity in our community by providing different possibilities for expression. 

Can you show the process that you are going through to do that? What are the obstacles? How are you getting through them?

We started out by simply having an idea to reopen and engage the community in performing arts. We then met with our mentor and created a recital where our studio could perform and our community could attend. That performance took place in early December and was extremely successful and enjoyable. Now that we have completed our first goal, we are brainstorming new ways to engage our community with arts despite the rising covid cases and new restrictions. Covid is probably one of our biggest obstacles and there is not much we can do about it. In order for safe interaction, we need to abide with government regulations and studio guidelines. We have had to change our ideas several times in order to accommodate the pandemic. Additionally, we have to deal with a lack of motivation and time. This is an outcome of training a total of 10-12 hours a week and school work. At times we put our project aside in order to give ourselves a rest and complete other tasks. We need to learn to manage our time in order to successfully complete our goal of reincorporating dance in our community. 

How does your project demonstrate engagement in global significance?

Our project is very community-oriented and less focused on global engagement. By incorporating a video on the wonderment, we hope to inspire others around the world to do the same and encourage their community to engage in the performing arts.