SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

The stu­dents of the Meta­mor­pho­sis Dance Com­pa­ny (MDC) of the Caribbean School of Danc­ing (CSD) are said to be pro­gress­ing in a man­ner that gives the world a rea­son to smile.

The lat­est bea­con is Emi­ly-Jayn Knox, MDC’s 15th schol­ar­ship win­ner for 2026, who will be ad­vanc­ing to York Uni­ver­si­ty in Toron­to, Cana­da. The an­nu­al schol­ar­ship ho­n­ours the late Kath­leen Arm­strong Kil­go­ur (KAK), moth­er of pro­fes­sor, dancer, au­thor and ac­tress, Trinida­di­an Joanne Kil­go­ur Dowdy.

The one-time, non-re­new­able award was es­tab­lished in 2011, prompt­ly ad­vanc­ing Juan Pablo Al­ba-Den­nis in­to the pres­ti­gious Alvin Ai­ley Dance Acad­e­my, where four years lat­er he grad­u­at­ed with a BFA de­gree joint­ly from Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty, New York. Thus far, 17 stu­dents have gained the KAK schol­ar­ship and two the Garth Fa­gan award.

KAK fi­nan­cial­ly sup­ports young, tal­ent­ed Trinida­di­an dancers to­wards per­for­mance readi­ness and at­tain­ing the nec­es­sary qual­i­fi­ca­tions for en­try in­to full-time pro­fes­sion­al dance train­ing. Re­cip­i­ents are se­lect­ed from mem­bers of MDC by artis­tic di­rec­tor Nan­cy Her­rera, on the ad­vice of se­nior teach­ing staff at the dance school.

“The year’s been an­oth­er suc­cess­ful one for its dancers and their teach­ers,” said MDC. “We’re proud to cel­e­brate an­oth­er tal­ent­ed dancer from T&T to join the world of pro­fes­sion­als await­ing them.”

Her­rera said Knox is car­ing, sen­si­tive, qui­et­ly de­ter­mined, pas­sion­ate and dis­ci­plined, and lights up the stage. She shone bright­est in the Roy­al Acad­e­my of Dance (RAD) Ad­vanced Foun­da­tion ex­am, which is part of an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly grad­ed sys­tem of bal­let ex­ams of­fered by RAD (UK).

The RAD is con­sid­ered vo­ca­tion­al lev­el and fo­cus­es on re­fin­ing tech­ni­cal skills and artistry, em­pha­sis­ing mu­si­cal­i­ty, per­for­mance qual­i­ty and ex­pres­sion. Stu­dents must be se­ri­ous about bal­let, be con­sid­er­ing a ca­reer path in dance, be ca­pa­ble of demon­strat­ing a strong un­der­stand­ing of bal­let ter­mi­nol­o­gy, and be able to ex­e­cute ad­vanced move­ments.

Rec­i­p­ro­cal­ly, Knox said the schol­ar­ship is def­i­nite­ly an ho­n­our. “I’m ex­treme­ly grate­ful, and look­ing for­ward to at­tend­ing the uni­ver­si­ty and learn­ing new things about not on­ly dance, but life ….”

Last year’s schol­ars were Christi­na Good­ing (KAK) and Is­abel­la Ra­goo­nanan (Garth Fa­gan – Dance Sum­mer Move­ment In­sti­tute).

Ra­goo­nanan said that be­yond tech­ni­cal growth in dance, her ex­pe­ri­ences and ben­e­fits al­so in­clud­ed gain­ing mo­ti­va­tion to ex­cel in every class, de­vel­op­ing friend­ships, ac­quir­ing deep­er knowl­edge of the Garth Fa­gan tech­nique, and — like oth­er schol­ar­ship win­ners — learn­ing re­spect, where emp­ty­ing rub­bish bins and clean­ing stu­dio floors, sur­faces and door han­dles be­came sec­ond na­ture.

“I didn’t want it to end,” Ra­goo­nanan ex­pressed.

She is cur­rent­ly look­ing for­ward to shar­ing as much as she can with MDC and CSD; train­ing, trav­el­ling and learn­ing; ex­pand­ing her knowl­edge of oth­er dance styles and com­pa­nies, even if it is not her main ca­reer path; re­main­ing open to where dance takes her; and, in the long term, con­tin­u­ing to con­tribute to the dance land­scape both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Lo­cat­ed at 2A Dere Street, Wood­brook, MDC con­tin­ues its man­date, in part, to help stu­dents “meta­mor­phose in­to able, ex­pert dancers as prepa­ra­tion for pro­fes­sion­al dance ca­reers lo­cal­ly, re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.”

Re­gard­ing sup­port­ers: “Our sup­port­ers make the truest re­la­tion­ships which time can­not erase, and which for­ev­er in the heart holds a trea­sured place, and a gift to the KAK Dance Schol­ar­ship Fund is an in­vest­ment in the fu­ture of dance in T&T and the world.”