After the Curtain Call
Dickinson bids fond farewell to summertime guests
by MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson
Many people come to the Carlisle area in summer, whether to visit the nearby auto shows or U.S. Army Educational Center, take a tour of campus, attend a popular bluegrass concert on the Dickinson lawn or perhaps enjoy the region’s peerless trout fishing and hiking. But few visitors overtake the town with quite so much grace as the young dancers who study at the nearby Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet (CPYB).
They come to attend CPYB’s summer camp, an intensive, five-week program that attracts more than 300 dancers, age 11-20, each year. And because many of the campers live too far away to commute, they stay on campus during June and July, thanks to a partnership between the college and the renowned ballet school that reaches back more than 30 years.
Approximately 315 dancers arrived in mid-June to begin the camp, which offers up to 16 classes each week. While in town, the dancers slept in Dickinson’s residence halls, ate in the Dining Hall and used other college resources, like the Devil’s Den, Quarry, Durden Athletic Training Center and the Waidner-Spahr Library. Their final day was July 22.
The dancers are part of a diverse summertime community that includes summer interns and student and faculty researchers, year-round administrators and staff, visiting alumni and prospective students as well as fellow guests, like the students who take part in summer sports camps, the Center for Talented Youth (CTY) program and CONNECT.
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Published July 21, 2016