Local Dance Students Return From Olympic Performance

Jennifer Graham says that she always tells her students that they should get out, travel, see the world and experience new things.

"The fact that I got to give that to them is really special to me," she said.

Graham and a dozen of her students from the Absecon Academy of Performing Arts, along with other teachers and students' family members all travelled to London for two performances during Olympic festivities earlier in August.

"When they have the Olympics, there are all kinds of festivals all around London and the outlying suburbs," said Graham. "Music festivals, arts festivals, museums, there are things everywhere, and we performed at two of them."

The school's first performance was on Saturday, Aug. 4, when they performed at Warwick Castle, on an outdoor stage. It rained, and the group was asked to perform two hours earlier than expected.

"They learned how to be flexible," said Graham. "Not literally, physically, they learned how to roll with the punches. It was raining, the stage was wet...I like to think I've been preparing them for this the whole time they've been dancing...to be ready for the unexpected."

Sunday's performance was at Island Gardens.

"They were just in awe, generally speaking, being in another country," said Graham. "And being able to perform in another country is such a big deal. I let them choreograph the opening number."

Besides dancing in a foreign country during Olympic festivities, the students also had time for some sightseeing and some fun, and, although tickets to the Olympic games were sold out, some of the dancers said they could watch beach volleyball during their trip to the top of Big Ben.

Most of the dancers who performed are teenaged students at , besides one student from Northfield and another from Mullica. Graham has been teaching many of the students for 12 or 13 years and was herself an Absegami graduate in the class of 1990.