My experience at Dance and the Child International (daCi)—a dance conference that was held this summer in Slovenia, the only country with ‘love’ in its name!
This summer I flew to Slovenia for a dance conference (daCi) with Northern Lights School of Dance.
As it happens, I’d never been to Europe before. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I’d also never been on a team trip outside of Canada before and so I was even more unsure of what to expect than if it had been only a family vacation—not to mention I’d never been to a dance conference before. It was altogether a completely new experience for me. But I was all for it.
We arrived in Italy approximately one day after leaving Whitehorse (I never want to take a 10-hour flight again) and after three days in Venice, we took a four-and-a-half-hour bus ride to our final destination… Ljubljana, Slovenia! And what a beautiful final destination it was. It had so much character, and such an amazing landscape surrounding it. I couldn’t wait for the conference to begin; the thought of dancing in a different country with so many other people from around the world was… well, exciting to say the least. But before I get into that, let me talk about our hostel.
Now, the hostel really wasn’t that bad. It was a brief bus ride away from the conference centre, and air conditioned (for the most part). Let’s just say I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed showering barefoot before this trip. The rooms were nice; three beds, a mirror, and an insane amount of storage space. Plus, there was a small kitchen available for use, with only a few spiders. But they stayed in their respective corners, so no hard feelings. What I most enjoyed, though, was the fact that the hostel had a house cat. I will not be staying in a hostel that doesn’t have a house cat from now on.
After a day settling into our homes for the next week, it was finally time for the conference to start.
Throughout the week, we participated in daily dance workshops, learning different styles and elements of dance with different teachers and classmates from around the world. We also had a daily workshop in which we were kept with the same group the whole conference—this was our main group, and the one we would ultimately perform a dance with at the end of the conference. When we came to daCi, we’d also brought a choreographed piece to perform, which we performed the first night of the conference.
Now, if you’d have asked all of us dancers how our classes were, you would probably have gotten very similar answers from each person; they were fun, they were interesting. But mostly, they were hot. Most of us Yukon kids had never experienced this level of heat before. High humidity levels every day coupled with at least 30°C heat…oh, and most of the dance studios weren’t air conditioned. I would say the heat was one of our greatest enemies on this trip. A lot of the time we would do anything to get out of the heat—be it spending our lunch break in the basement of a university building or booking a tour of the second-longest cave system in the country.
The main highlight of the trip for me was exploring Postojna Cave—a cave system in Slovenia where the average temperature was only 10°C, which was a bit disheartening, considering the temperature back in Whitehorse wasn’t all that warmer. Anyways, aside from being cool inside temperature-wise, it was also insanely cool to see and experience. The different formations were beautiful, and the ‘Baby Dragons’ the caves are famous for were interesting to learn about and see.
But this whole trip wouldn’t have been possible without the help of many people: thank you to the parents, who came to meetings and helped organize the trip and support their children. Thank you to the chaperones, who set up most of our time in Slovenia, helping with meals, activities, transportation and more. Thank you to our sponsors, who provided us with resources and support, without whom this trip wouldn’t have been possible. Thank you to our choreographer, for helping us with such an amazing piece which we were able to present at the international conference. And thank you to our dance teacher, who was behind the entire trip, although they ultimately weren’t able to go with us. All of us dancers are incredibly grateful for an experience that has helped us love dancing even more!
