Tavia Hunte brings community dance experience at OHIO to her own community in Antigua

The Ohio University College of Fine Arts aims to provide students with as many resources and opportunities as possible. This mission is well represented in the $5,000 I. Hollis Parry/Ann Parry Billman Fine Arts Graduate Award, which helps talented graduate students realize an ambitious and influential project that may not otherwise be possible due to financial restrictions.

The most recent Billman Award winner is Tavia Hunte, an international graduate student studying community dance. Hunte used the award to bring the principles of community dance to her home island of Antigua in the Caribbean. The project was “Dance4yourlife,” a five-day long intensive camp targeted toward teenagers looking to find a future in dance.

“A lot of people don’t see dance as a feasible career choice and they don’t think it has structure, they don’t think it’s very educational … so I thought that this program would be a way to bridge the gap and I could introduce them to dance benefits in higher education,” Hunte said.

Hunte owns a dance school in Antigua which has operated for over 20 years. She believes the lessons she has learned in the Community Dance program have been in practice for the duration of her professional career, she only just now was able to put a name to it.

“Upon getting into the program, I realized … the ethos of my school has been built around community-based principles, it’s just that there was never a name for it,” she said.

According to Hunte, Dance4yourlife was a “hybrid of a studio dance model and a community dance model.” The second half of that hybrid involved the parents of students joining the classes, both to dance and to hear discussions about dance as a collegiate and career path.

“I did some of the activities that I learned from my community dance programs to integrate them into how dancing benefits them even if they’re not a dancer, and it was pretty successful,” Hunte said. “I was able to get feedback from the parents and it helped them to bond with their children, which was one of my objectives.”

In addition to providing her with lessons to impart on the kids, the Billman Award allowed Hunte to offer the program free of cost to over 60 participants. This meant the program was able to feature things like additional advertising and professional teachers to help enhance the experience.

The program ended with a dance showcase, which featured some of the parents dancing alongside their participating students. The end of the program also brought forward testimonies from many parents that the camp allowed them to fulfill their inner dreams and created dreams for their children.

“Some parents came, and they were blown away, and the students were completely inspired, very motivated, because they’ve never spoken about dance in this capacity where they can see it into their adulthood,” she said.

Hunte will be presenting the program at the upcoming National Dance Education Organization conference and hopes to someday bring it to surrounding islands in the Caribbean. She also hopes to grow the program into an even more fleshed-out bridge into university life through the principles of community dance.

“(My favorite part) was really driving home the point that as creatives, the only way we can remain relevant in our community is to become a service to our community,” she said.

Graduate students interested in applying for the Billman Award to fund their own unique research projects are encouraged to speak to their advisors and visit the I Hollis Parry/Ann Parry Billman Fine Arts Graduate Award website for more information.