Just recently I had the pleasure of visiting Music Arts Show in Milano Italy. It is an Academy of the Arts which offers both dance and theatre arts training with classes in Ballet, Pointe, Cunningham and release techniques, hip-hop, as well as voice, drama and on camera Television training. There are two programs in the Academy one that is primarily concert dance based, and the other which is more of a musical theater, television, video commercial track. They also offer open classes making it the “Step on Broadway” or “Broadway Dance Center” of Milan.

I had the opportunity of not only teaching contemporary classes in the program but sat on the Jury of their Dance Machine competition, after which some of the students of the program performed in both hip hop and contemporary. I was highly impressed with not only their level of training bu their professionalism and stage presence. That having been said what impressed me most was the joy and love of the arts, and for learning, their openness and willingness to embrace a new style and their patience with my broken Italian was endearing. Thus I was compelled to share my experience by interviewing Antonella Bruno the Director of the Program at MAS, Music Arts Show.

Here is Part 1 of our interview. Learn some interesting facts like in Italy if you are under the age of 18 you are not allowed to work professionally. How does that effect young dancers and performers there?