My first Publication Alumni Magazine21-online | Page 29

ISSUE 21, JUNE 2019
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Kosta Karakashyan ’14 and Lora Beltcheva ’15 are currently
collaborating on the site-specific dance film A Glance from
the Edge, to be filmed this summer across 12 different cultural-
historical sites in Bulgaria – Sofia, Plovdiv, Prohodna cave, the
Black Sea coast, the Ovech fortress, and many others. Kosta is
directing and choreographing the film in collaboration with
fellow Bulgarian dancer/choreographer Stephanie Handjiiska
after they worked together on a project in Egypt last year, and
Lora is their invaluable line producer making sure the budget,
travel and filming logistics are all in order.
Kosta and Lora both just graduated from Columbia
University in New York last month with their respective
degrees in Dance and Economics/Sustainable Development.
The film explores the spatial dialogue between contemporary
dance and the environment in which it is realized. With a
team of six dancers including the two choreographers, the
film will investigate our collective memories of different
historical spaces and ask the question whether spaces have a
memory of their own.
We can’t wait for the movie premiere, to be presented in
Sofia and Plovdiv in the autumn of 2019!
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At the end of May we were thrilled to hear from former
ELL teacher (2015-17) Isabel Norwood:
“Since leaving Bulgaria, I’ve spent the last two years
working on my Master’s degree in English literature at
the University of Mississippi. Mississippi has been a blast,
and I’ve been lucky enough to see a couple of other ACS
teachers while I’ve been here! Mr. Boyd Shafer and Ms.
Kamo-McHugh visited me last year on their trip around
the US photographing immigrants in every state. And Ms.
Hood lives just one state away in Arkansas, so I’ve gotten
to visit her.
While completing my Master’s, I have also been working
as a teaching assistant, helping to lead English classes
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at the university. Though it has been fun to work with
college students, it has definitely made me miss ACS. I can
honestly say that ACS students are graduating with better
reading and writing skills than many of these students who
speak English as their first language!
Next year I will be heading back to my home state of Colorado
to go to law school, but first I’ll be headed back to Bulgaria
for a short visit this summer. I can’t wait to see some of my
favorite spots again like Borisova Gradina and Vitosha. I
also left before the new building opened on campus, so I’m
excited to see all the changes (and I’m sure feel a bit jealous
that it wasn’t there when I was teaching). I hope to see some
old students and colleagues while I’m there as well! By the
way, congrats to the class of 2019, and good luck next year!”