Dance in Tuscany is a week-long intensive in one of the world’s most idyllic settings – Castiglioncello, Italy. Get a glimpse of this once in a lifetime experience from the program directors, Douglas Yeuell and Peter DiMuro. Sign up by April 1 and save 15%!

Douglas Yeuell

Each morning I awoke with a sense of amazement and wonder in my head and heart. Why? Because, I was actually in Tuscany on the Italian Riviera teaching dance for an entire week. Not just a guilty pleasure but a once in a lifetime experience – or was it. This year I am going back. There is nothing more special than Italy in the summer time. La Dolce Vita and dance. Dance in Tuscany 2013 is planned to be a great experience from beginning to end. It is a chance for everyone to discover something new about themselves. What will I find this year? Last year I realized that through the power of one (and the support and partnership of many) an amazing dance experience can happen. If you build it they will come is a great lesson. Follow your dreams.

I will be co-teaching and facilitating again with my dear friend and dance educator Peter DiMuro. Peter brings expertise in creating the communal dance – a dance that starts with an internal process of each participant discovering their own movement and culminating in individuals creating solo works and small group structured improvs. Dance in Tuscany incorporates a little bit of everything including the high energy and physicality of jazz dance – I lost close to 10 pounds last year – pizza and red wine be damned – along with ample down time for personal reflection, introspection and simply enjoying the moment. The week-long intensive culminates with a performance that could be at a street fair at a neighboring town or on a small stage by the sea. Either way, idyllic beyond compare and a true Italian experience. The food is great, weather is perfect, dance is divine.

Peter DiMuro

I woke up this morning and was thinking about Italy. I am on the road staying in a lovely B & B in Boston. Now, Boston on the whole is very different from Italy and this B & B is pretty Bostonian proper –very much authentically itself and “of” its place. And that’s what got me thinking about Italy: the last time I was somewhere other than a place I call home that felt so “of” itself was in Castiglioncello, Italy. Our week-long intensive (among my father’s ancestors!) was about ancient, deep ways and new, fresh discoveries – mainly because of the authenticity of this place beyond our usual four walls, beyond our usual boundaries.

And that away-from-home, anything-is-possible feeling inspires one to create new dances, spark new movement and ideas in others and in oneself. The sea and the sun woke me up and reminded me of things I had forgotten. The open market, buying exquisite eggplants speaking badly-formed Italian phrases in the exchange teaches me to take incremental steps with a smile on my face. The street festival, where our group of dancers-in-residence performed for the Italians on holiday last year, reminds me that simplicity is, at times, hard to win back when in our rushing at-home world.

The making of new dances, the learning of new movement and the cultivating of creativity is nestled in these experiences of coastal Italian life, and is more and less at the same time: more depth, more growth; less distraction, less abundance of the wrong kind. So I savor going back, savor more and less, teaching and learning alongside the great Doug Yeuell and my colleagues from Joy of Motion Dance Center and the moving world beyond.