INTERNATIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS
Since its establishment in 2001, our school aims to educate students that would be able to make professional careers in the international arena and has adopted an academic education program. With our international achievements, the school has started to see the rewards of this intense study in a period of time that could be rather short for ballet training.
2005 Prague Dance Festival
In 2005, the school was invited to the 9th International “New Prague Dance Festival” in the Czech Republic when it was celebrating its 4th anniversary. With the pride and responsibility of being the first Turkish ballet school invited to this competition, our school has participated in this festival with the aim of proving the talents of Turkish children and youth to the international ballet community and won important awards leaving behind dancers from many countries such as Russia, USA, Italy, Belgium, France, India, Czech Republic, Korea, and Panama, etc. The awards were:
1. “Art Director” award to Zeynep Okçu, the founder of our school, ballet teacher and choreographer
2. Second Prize in Modern Dance
3. “Ballet Talent Award” for the “Little Fairies” group consisting of 6 students
4. “Jury Special Award” to 3 of our students
Click here to see the photo album about New Prague Dance Festival.
2006 Italy Dance Grand Prix
Following this huge success, Zeynep Okçu Ballet School was invited as the first Turkish school to participate in the “Dance Grand Prix Italy” contest conducted in Italy in 2006. Our school won the 1st Prize in every category it contended in, leaving behind its rivals from Italy, Switzerland, England, South Africa, Scotland, Iceland, USA, and France, etc.
1. 1st Prize in the Ballet Category under 16
2. 1st Prize in Pedagogy Category for Zeynep Okçu
3. UNICEF Special Award
Our school, having won the most awards, was repeatedly invited to the stage and met with applause both from the audience and the jury. The biggest prize for us was the pride of putting our country’s name on the map to the dancers from all over the world.
Click here to see the photo album about Dance Grand Prix Italy.
2007 Germany Tour
Apart from competitions, Zeynep Okçu Ballet School gives high importance to international cooperation and intercultural exchanges because we believe that this will help our students to not only be enriched in ballet but also in intercultural communication. For this purpose, we created “The Bridge Project” in 2006: Our school hosted one of the most important ballet academies of Germany, “Dance Center No. 1” in Bodrum, and together we conducted common ballet classes and did a common performance with the guest school students and instructors. During the project, guest students were hosted in our students’ houses, thereby the children of two countries had the chance of being closer and experiencing, sharing, and learning each other’s culture. At the end of this project, one of our students was offered a scholarship from the German Academy for 2007 summer school. In summer 2007, our school conducted a Germany tour between 23rd of June and 7th of July as the second part of “The Bridge Project” and performed a similar program in Augsburg as the guest of Dance Center No. 1 and also in Berlin as the guest of “Balancé Balletschule”. Our school also staged 3 performances in Augsburg and Berlin during this tour.
Click here to see the photo album about our Germany Tour.
2008 Dance World Cup in Canada and USA Tour
In 2008 our school was qualified to participate at Dance World Cup representing Turkey at Canada, Vancouver. Our school won these awards there:
2nd Prize for Ballet Groups Under 16 years old
2nd Prize for Ballet Group Under 16 years old (our 2 choreographies received the same points from the jury and were equally qualified for 2nd prize)
3rd Prize for Ballet Groups Under 16
3rd Prize for Ballet Solo Under 12
3rd Prize for Ballet Solo under 16
And many 4th, 5th and 6th awards.
Click here to see the photo album about Dance World Cup – Canada.
With these achievements and experiences gained at international stages in such a short period of time, our school is prepared to honor the name of our country at the international stage in the future as well.