After thorough training, it is mostly practical experience that turns young talent into skilled dancers. An important component of talent development within Conny Janssen Danst is how she supports young dancers on their way to their professional careers.
The company offers these talented dancers an extensive program, within which they are guided and challenged to flourish in their personal development, as well as the development of their artistic skills and dance techniques
In ROOM FOR TALENT young dancers fully participate in the company’s different activities. Additionally, they receive a personalized plan designed to work on their technical dance qualities, development of their creativity and stage personality, experience with specific routines, repertoire knowledge, and the language of movement of art director Conny Janssen.
A good dancer is not necessarily the one with the best dance technique. And that fantastic dancer is not automatically an interesting choreographer. Talent is an intangible mixture of different characteristics and qualities that make the (dance) artist the person they are. For a dancer that is the combination of mental, physical, and artistic qualities. Conny Janssen
Meet the six dance talents that started in August ’23 in the ROOM FOR TALENT program:
– Artistic development: understanding the artistic process and their role within this, being able to communicate and work together with the choreographer and fellow dancers, utilizing their creativity and stage personality.
– Mental development: discipline and ambition, mental resilience and perseverance, the willingness to reach your full potential, sense of responsibility for yourself as well as the bigger picture, dealing with opportunities, and the courage to stand for who you are.
– Physical development: physical abilities of the body, attention to dance technical level and diversity in education, training and technique, physical intelligence (understanding your own body), awareness of strong and weak points and how to improve them.
ROOM FOR TALENT is focused on these topics with the goal of developing young dancers into allround dance artists. Additionally, based on performance, dancers may be offered a contract at the end of this extensive program.
The curriculum includes:
– Repertoire studies: based on an existing repertoire, specific learning goals are formulated. This helps make the dancer aware of their own talents and skills, but it is also a chance for the young dancers to get familiar with the specific movement repertoire of Conny Janssen.
– Workshops that are aimed at the development of personality, creativity, and artistry.
– Contributing to the creation of a new performance: artistic director Conny Janssen likes to work with her dancers on a new performance, instead of ‘imposing’ a finished piece on them. That is why it is important that her dancers can manage this responsibility. So it is for good reason that the repertoire studies happen before creating a new performance. The studies play an essential part in offering young dancers a chance to develop themselves in order to be able to fully participate in the creative process. They will experience the artistic process from the inside and get in touch with all the aspects of the professional dance industry: like daily rehearsals, performing under pressure, experiencing being on tour, and coping with setbacks.
– Extra rehearsals, where the young dancers are teamed up with a colleague/coach from the experienced dancer’s ensemble who will support them during rehearsals for the new creation. During those extra rehearsals, the duos work on individual questions and situations.
As an experienced educator, Conny Janssen guides these courses supported by the dancers of the company, who will be able to acquire new training and coaching skills this way.
Dance talents in former Room for Talent seasons :
- Season ’21/’22: Sarah Zechut, Carmine Vigliotti, Toon Theunissen, Sophie Tukker, Ovidi Álavarez Ferré
- Season ’20/’21: Alberto Albanese, Laura Costa, Glinshi Biantama, Ricky Naninggolan
- Season ’18/’19: Ian Ancheta, Romee van de Meent, Hiro Murata*, Chanel Vyent
- Season ’17/’18: Richard Nagy
- Season ’16/’17: Maud Huizing*, Youp Scheffer*, Ricardo Vera Afanador, Liza Wallerbosch*
- Season ’15/’16: Yoko Ono Haveman, Patrick Di Quirico, Courtney Robertson, Tuan Tran
- Season ‘14/’15: Remy Tilburg*, Francesca Ciaffoni, Milang Lie Meeuw Lew*, Lorenzo Ponteprimo en Nick van de Ven
- Season ‘13/’14: Christiaan De Donder*, Karen Brinkman en Kayla Tuggle
* These dancers were offered a full time contract at Conny Janssen Danst after their talent development program.