Luther College Dance Camp begins this week

Later this week, the Luther College Dance Camp will begin its second season. 

The camp was created by 2016 Luther College graduate Christie Owens, with the support of Luther dance professor Jane Hawley.  Owens and six of her colleagues, all of whom were or are dance majors and minors, are the  counselors for the camp.  14 students attended last year.  This year there are 16 people registered--12 of whom are returning from last year's camp.

Says Hawley, "Last year we had participants who had a lot of traditional dance training. The Luther dance program focuses on movement fundamentals, which focuses on the body as the primary source, which is body based learning, instead of looking at the mirror and trying to put yourself into a position, it's not step based learning. It's a different pathway in."

"A lot of the girls really enjoyed it, they had never heard of anything like that, so they could bring the new information back to their hometown studios," said Hawley.

Hawley says she was inspired last year when she heard a dance camper say, "I really didn't think you could make dance about such important issues."  Hawley added, "We were talking about racial injustice and water issues and using dance as a way to understand more about those injustices or issues or dance as a way to communicate new information through empathy or a feeling state, rather than a cognitive or factual state."

Sophomore Abbie Grinager from South Dakota will be helping at the dance camp.  She is also working on a research grant this summer with Hawley. Grinager said, "My focus is looking at how dance can be used as therapy, specifically for people who have Parkinson's disease."

Grinager is also looking into developing some programs she can do at Luther, such as developing empathy through movement, sharing life stories through movement, and trying to develop a class mixing dance and exercise, like Zumba, guts and butts and yoga, all combined in one and based on Hawley's movement fundamentals program she developed.

Another idea is doing a holistic health class or club to focus on body movement and becoming more self aware of what you eat, how long you sleep, how much you exercise and how much social time and self time you have. 

This year's camp theme, "Thinking through the body," takes body movement as a means of understanding and connecting across disciplines. Grinager is interested in psychology and healing in dance.  Other student teachers are interested in physical therapy and dance and religion and dance. "The body is a common denominator, we are human, if we can use the body more to think, feel and experience, then our perception and perspective can change and broaden to a deeper understanding," said Hawley.

One of the traditions started last year that campers and counselors gained a lot from involved flowers. One of the teachers would bring in a different flower for each of the students. It became a powerful symbol for them. Every time before they went to bed, they had a flower ritual and would talk about how unique and beautiful each flower is.  The ritual helped show them how they were all unique and that all ages, all abilities, all body types can move and dance.