Video: Middle Schoolers Experience Day in the Life of RWU Dance/Performance Major

Pliés and pirouettes rippled through the The Barn’s dance studio. As the teacher called out instructions, the dancers moved slowly and deliberately to the sound of Accompanist Michael DeQuattro's piano. 

This was not the usual group of undergraduate students one might find dancing in the barn on any given weekday. Instead, this group of dancers was multigenerational, a mix of RWU faculty, RWU students, alum Cayley Dorr ‘17, and her class of sixth graders. 

Now Lead Dance Enrichment Teacher at Achievement First Providence Mayoral Academy Middle School, Dorr brought her class to the place where she, herself, learned to dance, on Thursday, October 3.  

“I teach my classes the exact same way I was taught here at Roger Williams,” said Dorr, who complemented her Dance/Performance Studies major with a second major in Educational Studies. 

Not only did her students get to see where their teacher learned her skills, but they also got to learn from and dance among college faculty and students. They participated in a choreography lab, a ballet class, a music lecture demonstration, and a black box theatre lecture demonstration.  

“Sharing this physical space with my students and seeing them light up the same way that I did when I first walked into this building is so special,” said Dorr. “It makes me so grateful and excited to be back.”