The Columbia City Jazz Dance Company Spends Five Weeks In China!
The Olympics are coming to Beijing in 2008. As a prelude to this, the Chinese Ministry of Culture has begun a cultural exchange program and has put several Chinese agencies to task to seek out foreign performing groups and artist to share their art with the people of China during the time leading up to the Olympics.
Imagine the shock when the Columbia City Jazz Dance Company (CCJC) received an invitation to represent the United States in China. Imagine the additional shock when the Company saw that the original invitation was for three full months!!
Sadly, CCJC had to decline. The dancers couldn't be away from school and their families for this amount of time. But Lead Culture persisted and after a considerable amount of negotiations, CCJC was finally offered a five week tour, covering China from top to bottom.
On June 27th, after almost a year of planning and a solid month of rehearsals, the Columbia City Jazz Dance Company presented their China tour show "Around the World" at the Koger Center. Two days later, 21 dancers and 4 chaperones boarded a plane to Beijing, China.
CCJC is proud to have represented the performing art of jazz dance from the City of Columbia, South Carolina, and the USA during this tour. This was a historic event, as no dance group from the United States like the Columbia City Jazz Dance Company has ever undertaken such a comprehensive tour in China. It was a life-changing experience for all that participated. We invite everyone to read about our complete adventure here: http://www.columbiacityjazz.com/jazz-dance-in-china_1.cfm
The Columbia City Jazz Dance Company is a not-for-profit entity supported by the Richland/Lexington Cultural Council, the City of Columbia, Richland County, the SC Arts Commission, which receives funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the generosity of the community.