Six dancers from the Oregon Ballet Theatre are on their way to Copenhagen, to train at a prestigious European ballet school in preparation for their fall production of August Bournonville’s classic ballet Napoli.

Bournonville, who spent four decades as the artistic director of the Royal Danish Ballet, is known for a ballet technique characterized by fluid and graceful upper body movement contrasted with quick, intricate footwork and leaps.

The OBT dancers already started preparation for Napoli—part of the theater's Amore Italiano bill—in February, when former Royal Danish Ballet Artistic Director and Bournonville authority Frank Anderson—who’ll be staging the fall OBT production of Napoli— visited Portland to instruct the company in the Bournonville style.

Now six lucky dancers get to dance and train in Copenhagen, Bournonville’s hometown, and they plan to blog about it and send photos along the way.

“The program is basically a week-long Bournonville boot camp,” says OBT dancer Katherine Monogue. “I'm really looking forward to experiencing the dance community in such a culturally rich and historic city.  I've never danced in Europe and I'm really excited to just soak it all in.”

The first of the dancers leaves today (Thursday, July 23) with the rest following on Friday, with the intensive course to begin Monday. Follow their European adventures on the OBT blog here.  

Oregon Ballet Theatre's Amore Italiano opens on October 10.