Jordan Pelliteri
Growing up as a competition dancer, one day I saw a video of Netherlands Danse Theater on youtube and I wanted to go there and do that, but it was so different from what I was being trained to do. I had to shift all my focus and training from point A to Z and get the training needed to audition for NDT or just the European kind of dance company since that was something that intrigued me, but I wasn't really doing it at the time and I needed to work hard a different way to be able to be ready for that kind of dance. That was hard because I really had to change.
Very hard. We had opened our 2nd program of the year. The company as a whole was very into the particular program. It was a nice program that everyone was so proud of and we only got to do it a few times and then we knew we wouldn't get to do it anymore. It only ran from March-May so it was really hard. We were all excited to keep growing within the performances and it was completely cut and it was so difficult as a group. We were all at a time of individual growth within the works we were doing.
My mom and dad were calling me because it is crazy here in the United States. People don't know how to process because there are so many mixed messages. People didn't even know what the disease was and my parents were hearing from the states and borders closing and the next day borders weren't closing. My mom told me about what was happening well before we knew anything in the Netherlands. My mom was panicking and it didn't hit the Netherlands for awhile. The Netherlands are taking measures, but not super strict, nothing was ever completely shut down. You can still get a coffee one at a time in the Netherlands and it is not as strict as in the US. I think the Netherlands is just starting to really buckle down on the restrictions.
