**DRAFT**
Revés Costa Rica
San José | 2019
The Gist
Revés is a 4-week program: you can choose to attend any or all of the weeks as a student. Each week features three 2-hour movement classes dails (9-11, 11-1, 2-4) and 6 different teachers (teachers either do M/W/F or Tue/Thur) from a variety of movement backgrounds. It takes place in Heredia (just outside of San José) Costa Rica, so you get to spend a month in one of the most nature-heavy countries in the world!
Highlight
The teachers. WOW. I can't tell you how many classes I left with that exact feeling. I've never participated in a dance seminar of this intensity/length, but I must say that the teachers (in general) exceeded my expectations and were so good at what they did.
Lowlight
Lack of leadership:
Filler classes: I am a firm believe that you cannot please everyone all the time. In-fact, in some ways I appreciate that people are so different that sometimes one group will hate something that another group Loves. However, there were absolutely some classes at Reves which I was not impressed with, and I know (and saw from attendance) that many of the other students weren't impressed either.
Structure
This year, there were around 100 students broken into two groups (red and blue) and two large movement spaces (one indoor and one outdoor) with a large padded marley floor.
Friends
Week 1
Arrival
I must say, I wasn't super impressed by arrival proceedings: there was a lot of "what's going on" and our group of friends had been split nearly 50/50 into the red/blue group which they refused to let us change. That's pretty whack and silly: of course people are going to want to dance with their friends, especially if they traveled internationally from different countries! A short-sight on the admin side for sure.
The energy was exciting though: so many epic looking people from so many places! You could hear 3 languages being spoken at any time, and it seemed like every new person I met was from a different country (Peru, Ecuador, Russia, Australie, Argentina, USA, Mexico, to name a few).
Classes
But then classes started, and all the weaksauce went out the window.
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Money Matters
The Damage:
Tuition:
Flight:
Housing:
Cost of living:
Total:
Average cost per day:
Reflections
As with so many movement seminars, Revés was not just a movement experience: it was a LIFE experience. A month is a long time. Long enough to get to know people, make actual friends, establish a routine, get comfortable and then get uncomfortable, etc. I was definitely relieved when the program ended, because i'm not sure how much more my body could take, but I was not ready to leave Costa Rica or the friends I had made over the course of the month.