Shortly before 1:30 pm, a group of twelve students from the Sa Colomina secondary school in Ibiza trooped into the ‘Catalina Bufí’ Professional Conservatory of Music and Dance of Eivissa and Formentera (Ceif). They go up to the first floor and enter the room that the school has set up as a dining room. They take their cups out of their backpacks and get ready to eat before starting their classes. All of them are in their first year of Professional Education in the Classical Dance speciality, which has just been introduced this October. “It’s a big step for dance in Eivissa”, says the head of Dance Studies, Mabel Ribas, who is also their ballet teacher.
To gain access to this level, Ribas explains, the young women had to pass the Conservatory’s entrance exams in order to demonstrate their “knowledge of classical dance and music”. It was not a requirement that the applicants had studied Primary Education at the Conservatory of Eivissa and Formentera. It was essential that they adhere to the Programa d’Ensenyament Integrat (PEI), which in Eivissa is only carried out in the institute sa Colomina, in Vila. “The PEI makes it possible to make ESO and Bachillerato studies compatible with dance studies. Students who adhere to this program are validated for music and are exempt from doing physical education,” explains Ribas.
There are dance students at the Conservatory, such as Ophelia Dolores Templeman , who have had no choice but to change schools to continue training as dancers. Until last year this fourteen year old resident of Sant Joan was studying at Balàfia, now she continues her studies at sa Colomina, although the change, she says, has been for the better. “Before my family used to make four trips to take me to school and then to the Conservatory, now they only make two because I stay for lunch in Eivissa”, she explains.
Anastasia Cortés , who used to study in Santa María, also had to change schools . The sacrifice has been worth it. “I’m very happy because I’m with my friends and I can train in what I like, dance”, says this fourteen year old student, who has gone directly from the third year of Elementary to the first year of Professional. This level, she admits, is “stricter”. She goes to the Conservatory from Monday to Thursday from 2.15pm to 4.45pm and on Fridays from 3pm to 5.30pm. In total, every week she and the rest of her classmates receive ten hours of ballet; an hour and a half of character dance, taught by Emma Torres , and an hour of music with the teacher Óscar Calatayud. In all the dance classes they are accompanied on the piano by Aina Contestí.
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