The last time the Sun­day Arts Sec­tion spoke with Juan-Pablo Al­ba Den­nis, dancer and chore­o­g­ra­ph­er with the Caribbean School of Danc­ing and Meta­mor­pho­sis Dance Co, he had big dreams of start­ing a pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer in dance. Three months lat­er, he be­came the on­ly male dancer from T&T to take the Roy­al Acad­e­my of Bal­let Ad­vanced II Bal­let ex­ams. The dance ex­ams took place here in Trinidad through the Caribbean School of Danc­ing and, as is the tra­di­tion, ex­am­in­ers from Lon­don vis­it­ed the school on Dere Street, Port-of-Spain, to as­sess the stu­dents.

Den­nis achieved a dis­tinc­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to Roy­al Acad­e­my of Dance ex­am­i­na­tion spec­i­fi­ca­tions, this lev­el of bal­let is con­sid­ered a vo­ca­tion­al grad­ed ex­am­i­na­tion for those dancers se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­er­ing ca­reers in dance.

Den­nis has al­so been ac­cept­ed in­to the Alvin Ai­ley/Ford­ham BFA Pro­gramme, which is an in­no­v­a­tive part­ner­ship be­tween the Ai­ley School of Dance and Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty in New York.

Ac­cord­ing to the of­fi­cial school Web site, the BFA "com­bines the finest in dance and lib­er­al arts ed­u­ca­tion in a four-year pro­gramme where stu­dents will com­plete a di­verse cur­ricu­lum while at­tend­ing both in­sti­tu­tions full time."

The Ai­ley School has of­fered him an artis­tic mer­it schol­ar­ship, which cov­ers about one-sixth of all his school ex­pens­es. He is seek­ing fur­ther fund­ing to at­tend the pro­gramme.

–Ja­nine Charles-Far­ray

To con­tribute to his fund­ing, con­tact

jpaden­nis@gmail.com or call 624-9793.

?