Tracy Kofford, director of City College’s dance company, alongside four students will attend Florence, Italy this summer from June 16 to July 5. 

The workshop has three different levels of students that will be attending. There is a high school level for seniors and a pre-professional level so the age range is around 18 to 25. There are also teacher workshops. Three workshops are all going on at the same time in the three-week period. 

The students are currently preparing by having classes with Kofford twice a week. In Italy they will then dance from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. everyday. 

“I am looking forward to the interactions with different students and also faculty and to see what’s happening in the dance world outside of our bubble here in the United States,” Kofford said. 

The trip is not directly through City College but is an intensive course for pre-professionals. 

In preparation for the trip to Italy, Kofford reached out to his colleague Jenny Mair. 

Mair has been going for years and went for one year as a student in the pre-professional group and has recently become a faculty member who teaches there every summer. Mair put K0fford in contact with Liliana Candotti, the director of the festival. 

Candotti travels all across Europe and the United States doing auditions and hands out many scholarships to different students.

In 2024, Candotti told Kofford she’d be in California and wanted to know if Kofford would host an audition for City College students. 

Kofford put it out for his students and Anna Jensen was the only City College student who went abroad last year. Afterwards she asked Kofford if he would like to participate and teach for summer 2025. 

Jensen held an audition for City College students in November 2024. Five or six of Kofford’s dance students auditioned. Eleni Vivan, Elsa Goldwasser, Darya Hessami and Melissa Vargas were the four selected to attend the study abroad trip to Italy this summer. 

“I’m really looking forward to learning from different choreographers around the world and seeing how I improve during the three weeks,” Vivan said.  

This will be the first international dance trip for dance students and the first for Kofford to go as a faculty member. 

The biggest challenge according to Kofford is the financial part of it. The students have to pay out of pocket. This is due to the trip not being attached directly to City College and also because it’s not considered a study abroad program. 

“I think the spoken language will be not a challenge but something interesting,” Kofford said. “Even if there is a language barrier the language of the body and of dance is so embodied that it kind of crosses all genres and all barriers.”

Hessami as a dance student emphasized the financial part of it but mentioned that it’s easier this year because there are multiple girls on the dance team who are going to do it all together. Hessami said this made it easier to come up with the money. 

Traveling abroad is new to a lot of the four students.

“That’s probably the biggest challenge that we faced in the organization,” Hessami said. “I think we are all just so excited for what we will learn that we are willing to make it work.”

Kofford as well as the four dance students are already excited for this dance experience abroad. 

Hessami is excited to see which theatre in Florence they will perform at. 

“To perform in one of the theaters in Italy is a big deal because a lot of the theaters there are historical so you have the option of many different landmarks to perform in,” Hessami said. 

Vivan said her expectation for the trip is to gain a well-rounded dance education. 

Hessami said they are all appreciative of the support they’ve gained from not just the community, but from Kofford as well.  

One thing Kofford announced is any donation to the GoFundMe, no matter how big or how small, will impact many lives with the experience and the journey that they will take these dancers on.