If I could describe this tour in three words, I would choose incredible, inspiring and so much FUN! I recently went on the Los Angeles 2017 tour and I can safely say it was the best trip and experience of my life! The things I learned and gained from being a part of it will stay with me my whole life, it was so so eye opening and such great exposure to the professional dance world.
The opportunities on tour were unbelievable! I loved that we got to attend so many classes, workshops and personal development sessions with such incredible, professional and inspiring people. I had so much fun taking classes, sightseeing, going to the theme parks, and lots (and lots) of shopping! We danced at amazing studios that, before the tour I had dreamed of dancing at, like IDA, Edge Performing Arts Centre and Millennium! I also absolutely looooved all the shopping! And I loved going to the theme parks like Universal Studios and Disneyland, and doing the must-do’s in LA like Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Hollywood Boulevard and the Abby Lee Dance Company was all pretty amazing. Not to mention going to a live taping of Dancing with the Stars, and actually getting to be in it! The level of dance over there is so intense and it was so much fun to be a part of it. It was also crazy to come home and see TV shows/ads, movies, celebrity posts from LA and be able to say “I’ve been there!”!
The WCDT team is absolutely amazing. Everything was so organised and thought-out! I always felt prepared for every day because they did such a great job at keeping us informed of everything we were doing. There was something planned for us every day which I loved. The tour managers are so lovely and positive and such awesome people. I had heaps of fun getting to know them and sharing some pretty funny stories with them. They were always so helpful in answering and sorts of questions we had and I learnt so much about LA life from them!
I am so grateful for the people I met and what they taught me. I met my best friends while training for this tour, and became so much closer with them on the tour. I love that WCDT was what allowed me to do so! The dance teachers and instructors we worked with were so inspiring and we learned crazy amazing things from them. Everything from the life lessons to the choreography to the way of thinking in LA is so fresh and new and unlike anything else. I had so much fun getting to talk to people that live in LA like waiters at restaurants and shop keepers on the boulevard! They were always so fascinated by us Kiwis and we had some really interesting conversations with them.
As someone who wants a career in the performing arts, everything I gained from this tour was so valuable and is the best possible way to dive right in to the professional dance world and the opportunities it has to offer. We worked with people that are/were working professional dancers in the industry. Another pretty awesome thing about this tour was coming home and looking at viral dance videos and videos that my favourite dancers/choreographers have posted, and realising that they were filmed in the very studios that we danced in!
I learned the most about dance, motivation and myself in those 12 days than I ever could have imagined. You get exposed to so many new ways of thinking about your dancing, your career paths and mostly your life! This tour has taught me to always put in 100% of myself into anything I do and never hold back, because “how you do anything is how you do everything”. I learned about how important it is to set goals for yourself and to believe in them. Since doing the tour, everything I learned has made me work so much harder and think so much more productively and feel so much more motivated! This is so much more than just a dance tour. I came home from the trip and applied everything I learned to everything I do and I can feel so much improvement.
It really will change your life! I came home feeling, and still feel so inspired and I’m buzzing with everything I learned. You meet so many inspiring people and learn so so many things and the experiences and memories will truly last you your life. I can’t thank WCDT enough for giving me the experience and opportunity they did. I will always always remember everything about this tour and continue to apply it to everythingI do. It is absolutely worth doing, I 100000% recommend it and can guarantee it will change your life as much as it changed mine.
Abby Hewitt, Dancer
Pform.nz, April 2017
