Marquette Catholic High School’s partnership with St. Denis International School, in Loches, France, is now into its tenth year.
What began as a simple student exchange has now grown into a semester study abroad program, as well as a week-long festival of arts and sciences.
On Friday, April 17th, Marquette senior, Emily Johnston, left for her third trip to St. Denis. This time, she is participating in the festival with her two friends – Miranda Mahaffey, a senior at Michigan City High School and Abigail Pilecki, a senior at LaPorte High School. All three girls dance together for Works in Motion Dance Company in LaPorte. In addition to being students at Works in Motion, Emily and Miranda are student teachers and Abigail is an assistant teacher.
The trio is bringing with them to the festival a dance called “Blinded me with Science.” It earned them a First Place in a recent competition and they will be taking it to the national level with their competition dance team – Synergy – this summer. Along with this dance, the girls will bring another group performance and three solo performances they choreographed.
Marquette’s Principal James G. White states, “Emily loves France. She loves to travel. When the opportunity arose for her to attend the festival this year – she grabbed it and asked if the rest of her trio could join her.
We found this to be the perfect opportunity to open up some of our Global Studies opportunities to students in our community – students who do not attend MQT. We see it as another way for us to partner with other schools to help bring the world closer together. We want our students to now just know the world, but to change it.”