Idyllwild Arts Foundation Manager of Communications and International Student Relations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \tAsk Hannah Wakelin if she can still do a Highland Fling and the smile that creases her face most of the time becomes even wider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tThe Idyllwild Arts Academy Dance major from New Zealand, who will graduate in May, isn\u2019t wearing a kilt. That\u2019s just as well since the outside temperature is in the 30s. But Hannah is game even in her blue jeans and hiking boots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cThe thing about Highland dancing,\u201d she says, as she removes her down jacket, \u201cis that it\u2019s great training for other dance styles because it strengthens both legs equally.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tHannah is being interviewed in a tiny office on the Idyllwild Arts campus. She has just enough room to reach an arm skyward, bounce up and down on one foot with the other foot poised at her calf, and then switch so that her other arm is reaching and her other foot bouncing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cOnce you\u2019ve learned the Highland Fling, you never forget,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tShe looks so happy that you wonder why she gave up Highland dancing in order to learn ballet as well as modern, jazz and tap dance. Then you remember that she always looks happy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tAnd then, when she talks about the importance of being able to make a sick child smile, you know she\u2019s going to become the kind of pediatrician you\u2019d want for your own child if you needed one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cI don\u2019t know yet if I\u2019ll do my premed studies in the U.S. or back in New Zealand,\u201d she says. \u201cBut either way, I want to make a place for dance therapy in my practice.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tAs for the Highland dancing she started to learn when she was only 3, the huge proportion of people of Scottish descent accounts for its popularity in New Zealand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s common to take Highland dancing lessons there,\u201d Hannah says. \u201cBut it doesn\u2019t seem strange, either, like it would in the U.S.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tIn New Zealand, her home was Ashburton, a city of 20,000-plus on the east coast of the South Island. When she was 11, the Highland dancing teacher she\u2019d learned from for eight years moved to Christchurch, 50 miles away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cI was in middle school by then. I think at that age you usually want to try new things that you don\u2019t associate with being a little child.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cBut Hannah still loved movement, so among the new things she tried were lessons in ballet and modern dance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cThat meant one hour a week of each. Not quite as intense as what I suddenly found myself doing at Idyllwild Arts!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tIt was the fall of 2015 and she was a freshman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cI never thought the countless hours of practice every week were too much, though. The hard part about being here was missing so many things from home, even though I was a day student, living with my father.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tHer mother had remained at home, along with her brother and her friends and everything else that makes New Zealand so different from Southern California, despite the absence of a language barrier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cLike the cold winds that in the winter blow up from Antarctica, 3,000 miles south. Sounds like a long way, but the wind\u2019s coming straight across the water.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tNone of which meant that New Zealand was better. But it was home, so Hannah almost decided not to return to Idyllwild Arts for her sophomore year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cBut then I went back to Ashburton at the start of summer, which is New Zealand\u2019s winter. I started thinking about the huge opportunity that Idyllwild Arts was and how much I loved the whole environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tIn the fall of 2016 she was back, and she hasn\u2019t looked back. She has danced, earned excellent grades in her academic subjects, taught 3- and 4-year-olds in the Idyllwild Arts Children\u2019s Dance Program, babysat regularly for several of her teachers \u2014 and, of course, never forgotten how to do the Highland Fling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tTo hear more about Hannah\u2019s artistic journey, attend her Idy Talks appearance at 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21, at the Town Gallery. There is no cost to attend this Idyllwild Arts series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dancer from New Zealand\u2019s South Island next up at Idy Talks By Don Stoll\u00a0 Idyllwild Arts Foundation Manager of Communications and International Student Relations Ask Hannah Wakelin if she can still do a Highland Fling and the smile that creases her face most of the time becomes even wider. The Idyllwild Arts Academy Dance major […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":411076,"featured_media":59684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"amp_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,19],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/idy-talk.jpg\")
Photo courtesy Idyllwild Arts<\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n