HEARTBEAT'S TRAVEL STUDY AND
PERFORMANCE OPPORTUNITY PROGRAM

With great pleasure, Heartbeat invites its dancers of any age and their family and friends to participate in the following trips planned for our Travel Study & Performance Opportunity Program.  You, your child, family members or friends do not have to be a Heartbeat dance company member or Academy student to participate in the majority of each itinerary.  Details of each trip, including payment due date and forms for completion, are available at Heartbeat’s front counter and in the links below.   

Heartbeat’s students and their parents who traveled to Japan last summer to visit our partner studio in Tokyo, had an incredible educational and life-enriching experience and we want to include everyone at Heartbeat in these opportunities. 

These trips are optional and not a requirement for dancers to participate in Heartbeat’s dance companies or academy program.  They are designed to enhance the dance education of those students, to broaden their perspective of dance, and to provide incredible performing opportunities for them.

Past Travel Study trips

• MARRAKECH, MOROCCO! - Tentative travel dates are November 29th to December 5th or 6th, 2009.

• Summer 2007 –  LONDON, ENGLAND     June 30th to July 7th, 2007
• Next New York Trip     MEA break, October 2007
• Barcelona, Spain     Spring Break (March / April) 2008

• Cairo, Egypt
• Havan, Cuba

About Heartbeat’s Travel Study Program:

             Heartbeat’s Travel Study Program actually began as part of the business plan for the studio when it was constructed in 1997.  In 1999 and 2000, Heartbeat owner, Deborah Lysholm, initiated contact with several dance studios in Europe and received responses from studios in Barcelona, Milan and Geneva who invited her to visit their studios and teach master classes.  In 2003, in response to meeting Deborah in Barcelona; Guillem Alonso and Roser Font visited Heartbeat and taught master tap classes.  Guillem and Roser also performed in Heartbeat’s Summer Gala.  In 2005, Deborah traveled to Japan to teach and establish Heartbeat’s official partnership with Yukiko Misumi and the ARTN Dance Studio in Tokyo.  In November 2005, dancers from ARTN traveled to Heartbeat to teach and perform in Heartbeat’s 2005 fall benefit show.  In July 2006, Heartbeat dancers, parents and staff traveled to Tokyo to meet the dancers at its partner studio, ARTN.  Heartbeat’s artistic director, Kristin Freya, taught a master jazz class at ARTN and dancers and staff from Heartbeat performed with the Japanese dancers in two sold-out shows at the Rising Dragon Jazz Club in Tokyo.  In February 2006, Heartbeat dancers and teachers performed as the opening act for Jason Samuels-Smith on Carnival Cruise Lines (Mexico).  In December 2003, Deborah and Kristin were invited to travel to Havana, Cuba on a US licensed trip to study the relationship between Cuban artistic and religious cultures and had an opportunity to visit the Tony Menendez School of Dance at which time they presented 55 pairs of donated dance shoes from dancers at Heartbeat Studios.  In March 2004, Kristin taught a month-long residency at the American University in Cairo, Egypt and created a multi-media installation of dance, music, painting and video titled, Isis and Osiris, that was presented at the Falaki Art Museum.

This summer from June 30th to July 7th, Heartbeat’s dancers have an incredible opportunity to travel to London to perform at the Leed’s Castle Festival with a crowd of 15,000 expected.  They will also study dance at the Place and the London Studio Center.  Deborah will be meeting with studio owners in London to establish an exchange and partnership program between them and Heartbeat.  Heartbeat’s dancers and staff have been invited to visit Guillem Alonso’s studio in Barcelona in 2008.

The most important part of Heartbeat’s Travel Study Program is the incredible experiences and education that the dancers, their parents, and staff receive. It opens once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for everyone and it broadens their perspective of dance.  Heartbeat’s dancers, parents, families, friends and staff who have participated in the travel have been marvelous good-will ambassadors. With a personal mission to share the passion of dance and its life-enrichment with dancers at home and dancers abroad and its uniqueness as a universal language; Deborah and Kristin look forward to the growth of the Travel Study Program and invite and encourage Heartbeat dancers of any age and their families and friends to participate whenever they can.