Archive for the ‘2009 | 03 | March-April’ Category

March/April 2009 cover

Columns
Ask Rhee Gold
2 Tips for Teachers
A Better You
On My Mind

Departments
Thinking Out Loud
Mail
Humor & Heartstrings
Teacher in the Spotlight | Candra Preshong
 

Feature Articles
Ballet Scene | Classical Dance: A Colorful Twist on Classicism by Theodore Bale
Stepping Stone to College by Lisa Traiger
Dianne McIntyre by Nancy Wozny
Preserving a Culture by Nancy Wozny
Bringing Modern to the Masses
Talking Shop with 6 Top Contemporary Dancemakers by Margaret Fuhrer
Captivating Capoeira by Anne E. Silveri

Advice for dance teachers

Dear Rhee,
I read in your Q&A section about studio owners expanding locations. I was thinking about expansion two years ago myself and am glad I didn’t do it. Many homes are in foreclosure and people are losing their jobs—and this is a more affluent area that seemed to be stable. I had 485 students in 2006 and now I have 235, the number I had my first year in business, six years ago.

The students we do have are dedicated and happy, as is my staff. But I am out of money. My expenses in payroll, accounting, advertising, and rent have all increased since my first year. I just had a baby and my 16 instructors and office manager are running the studio beautifully while I recover. I have subs for the six classes I teach. I know I will teach more classes next season, but I am actually considering lowering my rates in order to stimulate an interest in dance and make it accessible to the population again. Any thoughts? —Affected by Economy

Dear Affected,
I am sorry to hear about your circumstance, and I want to assure you that you are not alone. Many school owners across the United States and Canada are feeling the strain of the economy. They too are losing enrollment and finding that the unemployment rate in their area is making it impossible for parents to afford to keep their children dancing.

Although we can’t predict what will happen down the road, I’m finding that dance schools in pockets of North America are feeling the pinch, while other areas have not been hit as hard. The latter group is maintaining their enrollment numbers, and I have spoken with some school owners whose enrollment is actually up this season.

Overall it seems that though many households are forced to cut back on expenses, parents want to keep their children dancing or in their other activities. Keeping your children active is a good thing in today’s society, and many parents are doing what they can to make that happen.

The most important thing you can do is be realistic and start eliminating expenses right away. In your situation, I would think about the possibility of combining some of the smaller classes and reevaluating whether a school with 235 students needs to maintain a faculty of 16. One of the keys to making it through this period is consistent, realistic self-evaluation of your status and what steps you need to take to make it to the other side of this major bump in the road.

Regarding lowering the cost of tuition, I feel conflicted. My instinct says not to do it. I believe that if you do, once the economy improves you will have a hard time increasing your rates to where they are today. And that could make your own economic slump last longer than it has to. If you cut your rates to encourage new enrollment, your current clients will want the discounted rate as well. And if you do not get new enrollment, your business will be bringing in less income than it does today.

That said, if your instinct tells you that you can bring in a good enrollment with this move, then I can’t advise against it. But please look at the numbers first. Know how much your income from your current clientele will decrease and how many new students you must enroll to make up for that loss. Target the additional number of students that you need to acquire to increase your profits, and then do everything in your power to make it happen.

It’s also important to keep your cool and understand that this is about the state of the economy and not about you. Lately I have met school owners who believe that they are experiencing a downturn because they have done something wrong or because they are not good enough. It’s not about the quality of their work or a lack of passion; it is about an economy that is far beyond any school owner’s control. This is a time when dance school owners need to be as creative with their business strategies as they are with their choreography and curriculum. Evaluate where the income is really coming in and know that you must focus on what you do best to stay ahead in the economic game. Let go of your ego and emotions that can keep you from doing what you know is best for your future. Try new things, and look at this as a time when we all need to get back to the basics in life, our classrooms, and our schools.

I wish you all good things. —Rhee

Dear Rhee,
I own a dance studio in a small shopping center with four stores. I am in my third year of running the studio and on the last term of my lease. After attending the DanceLife Teacher Conference last summer, I was ready to get back into the swing of things. But as soon as I got back I found out that one store that was in my center had moved and my landlord had rented the space to a young girl who is starting a ballet academy.

Since then I have not been myself. I am so worried about this ballet studio that it is consuming me. I feel betrayed by my landlord and, most of all, lost. Parents are already asking me if I know who this girl is. And since my lease is up in August, I am scared that my landlord might throw me out, since he knows this girl’s father.

I had asked the landlord to let me know if any space opened in this center. When I found out about the opening and asked him about it, he told me that parking was an issue since my studio uses the bulk of the center’s lot. Then he told me they didn’t want to rent two buildings to one person. I explained to him that I teach ballet too and that we would be competing with each other, and he said that he would have this girl call me to discuss the situation, which she never did.

So my question is, should I resign my lease there and look for another space? Sometimes I feel like quitting, but when I focus on teaching my classes, especially the little ones, I know I love it. I know that right now, especially with the economy, getting a new space might be hard, but I see the benefits of it also. When I go to the studio now, the first thing I do is look at her studio, because she is in the storefront and my studio is in the back. I could use your advice and guidance. —Janine

Hello Janine,
Coincidentally, I recently spoke with a woman who had opened a dance school next door to another. I asked her, “Why did you make the choice that you did?” Before she could answer, I added, “Did it cross your mind that the move would be perceived as unethical?” Her response: “This is America; capitalism is alive and well, and I am taking advantage of the situation, even if it puts the other school out of business.” It’s not very often that I want to smack a person, but I did at that moment.

I relate your tale to that conversation. Yes, America is based on capitalism, but I do believe that there must have been a time when we mixed integrity, ethics, and just plain old respect into the recipe for success.

With all that said, from what you’ve described, it’s time for you to start looking for a new location. Get a lawyer to scan your current lease to be sure that your landlord has the right to rent to a competing business. If there is not a clause in the lease that he is unaware of, then ask the lawyer to get you out of the lease. And while he’s working on that, find a new location. Make your move as soon as possible so that your clientele will be familiar with your new home before the end of this season. That should keep them from entertaining the thought of going to the new ballet school in your former location.

I understand that you are not yourself and that this dilemma is consuming you, but you have to whip yourself into shape to carry on with your dream. You will discover that this is a kick in the butt that will force you to take a leap into something new. Chances are you will be smarter, better, and stronger when this situation is behind you. Don’t allow it to get you down; see it as motivation to make yourself the best you can be, and hold your head high. As corny as it sounds, what goes around comes around. Carry on with your ethical capitalism intact. —Rhee

By Mignon Furman

Tip 1
Hyperextended (or swayback) legs create a beautiful line but present problems with strength and stability in some areas, including pointe work. When working on pointe, the weight needs to be well forward and the knees must be in line over the toes, not pushed back.

Tip 2
Teachers often ask whether it is better to tell students to get the knees straight and allow the heels to be slightly apart in first position or to stand with the heels together and the knees slightly relaxed. I recommend standing with the heels together and the weight more forward than normal. The knees should be as straight as possible and one knee must not be in front of the other. A therapist once advised me to put a small, soft lift in the heels of the shoes; it certainly helped to get the weight forward.

By Suzanne Martin, PT, DPT

Got sunlight? Of course. Well, maybe—depending upon the season, how far you are from the equator, and how much sunblock is in your moisturizer. We all know that a little sunlight can make us feel better, and most of us know that it’s a source of Vitamin D. Yet how many dancers do you see with a George Hamilton tan that’s not painted on? In my studio experience I’ve seen many a pasty face; even in Miami Beach, Phoenix, or San Diego, beaucoups hours of teaching, rehearsing and performing can keep even the most devoted sun-child indoors. And what about the ozone-layer scare? Most dancers with experience (read: age) tend to wear sunscreen not just for melanoma prevention but also out of vanity. We all want to stay wrinkle free as long as possible.

Why does Vitamin D matter? For starters, it plays an important role in bone density, especially in women. The American College of Sports Medicine and the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science have made groundbreaking statements about the incidence of amenorrhea, osteoporosis, and stress fractures in female athletes and dancers. It is now well known that dancers, especially the young, need to eat enough calories to sustain the energy level necessary to excel in dance and avoid the risk of imminent stress fractures and down-the-line osteoporosis that often accompanies low blood levels of estrogen. Now we have one more important piece in the well-dancer/strong-bone puzzle—Vitamin D—thanks to recent research spearheaded by Dr. Michael Holick and others at Boston University School of Medicine.

What is a vitamin, anyway?
Technically, a vitamin is a catalyst for necessary chemical reactions that make our cells and tissues function well. “Vitamin D” is a nickname because now we know that it is actually a full-blown hormone, a chemical messenger with functions that go beyond the all-important role of bone manufacture.

Sources of Vitamin D
Most people now know something about the so-called “sunshine vitamin.” The traditional belief was that we get enough Vitamin D from sunlight. But after health officials discovered Vitamin D deficiency’s link to bone problems in sun-deprived slum dwellers in Warsaw and London in the late 1800s and early 1900s, D began its roughly 100-year history as a food additive into such products as milk and juice. Severe deficiency creates undeveloped bones in children (rickets) and fractures in adults (osteomalacia).

According to Holick, in about 1930 U.S. government regulations slackened the requirements regarding Vitamin D as an additive; the problem was solved. But was it? Frightening research from Dr. Holick tells us it likely is not. His recent studies on human blood levels at various latitudes, the true amount available in milk and juices, blood-level findings across skin color, and the amount of sunshine that actually passes through glass are reason enough to pay attention.

Holick’s argument for Vitamin D supplementation to avoid deficiency is profound. The farther you are from the equator, the less D you absorb. Plus, you need a large amount of leg, arm, and facial skin exposure, for about 15 minutes 4 times a week, to get the minimum. The amount found in juices and milk often varies from the stated packaging. Dark skin colors and the filtration effect of glass block the beta ray exposure necessary for Vitamin D production.

Dancers at risk
Both baby ballerinas and seasoned masters appear to be at risk for a double whammy of shaky bone health. Young dancers run the risk of low estrogen levels and body weight having a negative impact on bone production and density; add the factors of geographic location, skin color, and limited exposure to the outdoors to create a tricky skeletal situation. Older dancers share those geographic, skin, and cultural issues, and those who are post-menopausal have a recipe for fracture if they don’t take preventative measures. In younger dancers, think stress fractures; in older dancers, think hip replacement. Add the fortunately going-out-of-style cultural behavior of smoking and/or consuming sodas to either demographic, and you’ve got a surefire recipe for disaster.

What if you don’t care about bone health? Isn’t that an abstract idea? Don’t those problems happen to other people? Not really. All dancers can relate to muscles. Muscles equal technique; muscles dictate control. Muscles determine how you look onstage and whether you have the strength to execute an entire variation. Yet the real zinger is that muscles can only be as strong as the bones they pull on. Soft, hollow bones mean little muscle strength. In the flexible body type of the typical dancer (called hypermobility), muscle strength translates into less joint pain, fewer sprains, and generally less body pain. And to have strong muscles you need strong bones.

How much is enough?
Are all dancers doomed? The good news is that Holick’s research caused other researchers to jump on the Vitamin D bandwagon, and they have some concrete recommendations. The recommended daily allowance has been bumped up to 1,000IU from its previous levels of 400IU for children over age 4 and 600IU for postmenopausal women. Another recommendation is to have your blood level of D2-OH measured; a minimum value of 40 ensures the bone strength necessary for good muscle tone.

An adequate amount of Vitamin D, along with the recommended daily allowance of 1,200 to 1,500 milligrams of calcium for adolescent dancers and post-menopausal dancers, respectively, is crucial to bone deposition. There is now evidence of Vitamin D’s influence on other important physiological functions that have an impact on cancer risk and immune disorders. That means that everyone, especially those watching their caloric intake, needs a multivitamin supplement for basic nutrition.

An often-asked question is how to get it naturally in food sources. The obvious ones are D-fortified milk and juices. Unfortunately Vitamin D occurs best in cod liver oil, not a favorite food for most of us. That’s why supplementation makes sense. Look for the D3 form in supplements and heed the 1,000IU level for a daily dose.

The farther you are from the equator, the less Vitamin D you absorb. Plus, you need a large amount of leg, arm, and facial skin exposure, for about 15 minutes 4 times a week, to get the minimum.

Still not convinced?
Dr. David Feldman of Stanford University School of Medicine’s endocrinology division tells us that Vitamin D is now recognized to have expanded activity beyond its traditional role in prevention of osteoporosis, rickets, and osteomalacia. Recent evidence points to its role in the prevention of autoimmune diseases such as fibromyalgia (considered a muscle endurance problem in physical therapy), and the development of certain cancers.

Feldman correlates distance from the equator with the incidence of breast, colon, and prostate cancers. This is good information for boomers, and especially to those of us in Northern California. Adding some D to the diet could decrease the usual cancer risk associated with our lack of sunlight and advancing age. Vitamin D promotes natural cell death, a problem with self-perpetuating cancer cells, and blocks the blood supply development needed by growing cancer cells.

What’s the bottom line?
Wear your sunblock when enjoying outdoor activities, but do try to get 10 to 15 minutes of sun exposure several times per week. Get your blood level checked so that you know your baseline. Take the recommended daily supplement to ensure a good blood level. Be sure to take calcium; D doesn’t work alone. All dancers should take 1,200 to 1,500 milligrams of calcium per day, coupling it with magnesium for maximum absorption.

The take-home message is that we all want to keep dancing, and we have enough information to know how. A strong infrastructure, our skeleton, is our insurance to keep dancing into the sunset.

I have faith in you.

Words from the publisher

By Rhee Gold

A parable for dance teachers:

Maureen opened a school many years ago, instilling in hundreds of children the passion for dance. She was making a comfortable living, raising her children, and her school was growing. Then one day Sandy, a lead faculty member and one of Maureen’s former students, became upset with one of her boss’ new policies. Without hesitation, Sandy and her parents opened a school up the street from Maureen, enrolling the majority of the students Sandy had taught at Maureen’s school.

Maureen was devastated. She had given her student a gift, and now that student was using it to harm the teacher/mentor who inspired her. You can’t blame Maureen for being upset, but for a while an obsessive rivalry existed between the two schools. Never a kind word was said about the other, and the students took sides, which carried over into their public school and personal lives. The situation was a mess for a long time.

Maureen hung in there and after a couple of years things settled down and both businesses were doing fine. However, the resentment was still alive and well, just simmering on a back burner. Meanwhile, Sandy married and had three children she adored. Soon she wanted to spend more time with her family, so she started to train teachers who had grown up in her school to take over the bulk of the teaching. All went well for a few years and then one of Sandy’s teachers, Bethany, who had started dancing at Maureen’s school, became upset over a new policy. Then—you guessed it—she went up the street and opened her own school. And she talked three of Sandy’s teachers into jumping ship with her.

Now Sandy was the devastated one, because she had to rebuild her business or close her doors. At that moment Sandy wished she could call Maureen, just to have someone to speak with about her situation. But of course that was impossible because she had done the same thing to Maureen that was happening to her. Too bad.

Meanwhile, all was going well for Bethany and her staff in their first year of business. But before the end of the year, two of the teachers she had pulled from Sandy’s school got upset with Bethany’s policies, so they went up the street and opened their own school. And you know the rest of the story.

When someone asked Bethany why she would open a school near Sandy when she knew it would hurt her former employer’s business, she said, “I thought that was the way it is done. That’s what my teacher did to her teacher.” Yes, Sandy, Bethany, and the others got the passion and learned how to be good teachers from their mentors, but no one ever taught them about ethics in the dance community.

Dance teachers set an example in so many ways, and often in ways that have nothing to do with steps or technique. Be sure you are setting the right example both inside and outside of your classroom.

By the way, the real benefactor in all of this was Maureen. She continued to run her school with much success and it became known as the place to go to avoid the “dance school wars” that everyone in that community had become accustomed to. It’s interesting how things play out!

By Kim Yarborough

“Excellence.” I’ve come face-to-face with this word and its true meaning in recent weeks and it’s made me a better person. Well, I’m working on it, anyway! For the theme of the upcoming year-end performance at my school, Step Ahead Dance Studio in Garner, North Carolina, I chose the U.S. military. As my staff and I began brainstorming ideas for the season and the show, we came up with a lot of similarities between dance training and the military. I know, it sounds ludicrous. What could fluffy pink tutus and camouflage fatigues possibly have in common, not to mention pointe shoes and combat boots? Bear with me.

As dance teachers, we train our students to be disciplined, strong in body and spirit. We encourage, even demand, dedication to the art we are so passionate about because we know that dedication and commitment are vital to achieving our goals. We push our students to be the best they can be through hours of classes and rehearsals, so that when they take the stage, what they do has become second nature. There is no thought involved, only the beauty of motion that comes from the heart.

On our tour we came face-to-face and heart-to-heart with excellence in its purest sense.

Our country’s military personnel are trained much the same way. Because they are required to be in top condition, they endure rigorous physical training. They are dedicated to their service and their country, and once they are on the field of battle, all the training takes a back seat. They go through the motions that have become second nature and they act from valiant hearts full of concern for their countrymen and fellow soldiers.

In keeping with our theme for the season, our studio has adopted a squadron of airmen in an effort we call “Operation: Encourage!” We are communicating with active duty military personnel, sending cards, well wishes, and gifts to show our support for their efforts to preserve our freedom on a daily basis. We were invited to tour Pope Air Force Base in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and meet some of the airmen. What an amazing experience! On our tour we came face-to-face and heart-to-heart with excellence in its purest sense. The airmen exceeded all expectations for our visit and exhibited the high caliber of character that is prevalent in our military.

The students, their parents, several teachers, and I caravanned to the base, where we learned about the soldiers in “our” squadron and their jobs. Our students were full of questions for the airmen, whose patience never ran out. We visited the training course, sat inside a Humvee, and explored the inside of a C-130 airplane used for training purposes. We were told of soldiers who, though they were badly injured, wanted to know when they could return to their buddies in the field. How humbling it was to hear those stories.

At the end of the day, the airmen asked the students to line up and then presented each one with a small American flag, a photo of the squadron next to a C-130, and a Challenge coin, a coveted military prize. I received a shadow box containing the patches of the squadron, two Challenge coins, and a folded American flag that had recently flown on a combat mission in Iraq. We were all moved to tears as the flag was presented; it now hangs in a place of honor inside the studio.

That trip increased my own motivation to be the best individual that it’s in my power to be. And as a dance teacher, I hope to build that same kind of character in my students. I want them to show excellence in everything they do, both inside and outside of the studio.

We had hoped to be a source of encouragement to the airmen and show our support of their efforts in ensuring our freedom. However, we are the ones who have been most blessed so far. Our relationship with the squadron has renewed our commitment to strive to do our best and to expect the best from our students. We have learned what true excellence is all about.

Words from our readers

Thanks so much for this one [“Wish They’d Stay, Wish They’d Go,” DSL, October 2008]! Although we all think that way, it’s nice to see the words in print to confirm what we are feeling. This year, for the first time in over 30 years, I suggested that a parent find another school after only one week of evaluation. I stated that it was quite clear to me that she felt she knew better than my staff in what level her daughters should be placed. If she was that insistent, hardly knowing me, what would she be like in a year? That was not something I wanted to experience! It’s a hard decision to make but better for all in the long run!

Tracy Davenport
St. Charles, MO

I just finished reading Tom Ralabate’s articles on jazz [“Defining Jazz Dance,” “All That’s Jazz,” DSL, December 2008]. This was so fantastic. What a great piece of information! (I think Tom is one of the very best.) I think that type of article has been missing; congrats to you for those stories.

Debbi Dee
Debbi Dee Productions, Inc.
Boynton Beach, FL

Reading the letter from Lee [“Ask Rhee Gold,” DSL, December 2008] was like reading a letter from me! It brought up so much emotion as I am facing burnout myself. I so love the art of dance. Ballet is still beautiful. I get excited watching tap and jazz. The issue is the business of dance. I have a hard time thinking of putting myself first, as I’m sure most women do, but I will most certainly try. If not, I may end up in a loony bin!

Thank you for your articles and all your work for our wonderful profession. I have been to several of your conferences and always leave rejuvenated!

Kim Farmer
Mulford Dance Studio
Mount Ephraim, NJ

I have been reading your publication for years. It has been an inspiration and an affirmation of all my goals and hard work. You speak for all of us with neighborhood studios, dedicated to personally making a difference to many lives through dance.

I had to sell my studio two years ago due to circumstances beyond my control. I have continued to get your magazine and have been very grateful for it. It’s the only dance magazine I read anymore. It warms my heart. What’s in there reflects what’s at the top, and that’s you. Just as I was my studio, you are your magazine, and it’s wonderful. No other magazine can come up to your standards in its genre.

Margo Slaughter
formerly Springfield School of Dance
Springfield, OR

Anatomy Lesson
I was teaching a musical-theater camp over the summer and one day I took two of the younger students to the bathroom. Both girls are 4 years old, and they left their stall doors open in order to engage me in conversation. One of the girls decided that she needed to educate me about the differences between boys and girls, so she told me all about how her daddy and brother have “wieners” and how they have to go to the bathroom standing up, but that girls have to sit down. She then told me how her baby brother will someday have a “wiener” too! It was very hard to control my laughter. I never thought that as a dance teacher I would hear something so “educational” and funny from a 4-year-old.

Natalie Harber
Cal Elite Kids
Rancho Santa Margarita, CA

Following Instructions
In my early years of teaching small children I learned how important it was to be very clear with my instructions. On the first day of class, all the young students were proudly standing in front of the mirror. I said, “Everyone, let’s step on our right foot.” So Sally picked up her left foot and stepped on top of her right foot. Now I say, “Step with your right foot.”

Sharron Washington
Washington Dance Studio
Manhattan, KS

Bustin’ Out
During my first year of owning my studio I was trying so hard to be an awesome teacher. I always tried to dress like a dancer so that the kids in class would too. One day I wore a pair of jazz pants that were about eight years old; they were so comfortable that I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away. Even as I put them on that day, I thought about how old they were. So in the middle of jazz class the butt of the pants just busted out, and of course I hadn’t worn plain black panties that day—I was wearing my Victoria’s Secret polka-dot panties! After the kids finally stopped laughing, they asked why I had on such colorful panties, adding to my total humiliation. Luckily I had a jacket with me that day that I tied around my waist!

Susan Ables
Susan & Co. Performing Arts Center
Camden, AR

Send your funny, cute, or touching stories to Arisa at arisa@rheegold.com or at Dance Studio Life, 10 South Washington St., Norton, MA 02766. Please include your name and contact information.

Teacher, Dream in Color Foundation, Annandale, VA

NOMINATED BY: Theresa Corbley Siller, students’ mother: “My daughters have gained unbelievable strength from Candra’s classes and choreography. I have been a dance teacher for 23 years and have never seen anyone of this caliber at any of the 12 studios where I have taught, in three different states! This year, she finally realized her dream of starting a pre-professional dance program at her studio. She teaches a dedicated work ethic, and her students share her zeal for raising the bar.”

Students Shelley Siller (on the floor) and Rachel Westernik (in penché) get the emotional and physical challenge of a lifetime in working with teacher Candra Preshong. (Photo courtesy Candra Preshong)

AGES TAUGHT: 10 to 18.

GENRES TAUGHT: Jazz, lyrical, ballet, hip-hop.

TEACHING DANCE FOR: Nine years.

WHY SHE TEACHES: I enjoy facilitating self-esteem, confidence, and a good work ethic in my students. I know how important it is to have a positive force in your life.

GREATEST INSPIRATION: In life my greatest inspirations are my children. I feel like I wasn’t a whole person, and therefore able to give myself wholly to others, until my children were born.

PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING: I believe that hard work and dedication can get you almost anywhere. I believe that class should be an extreme mental and physical challenge because it is only when the body is at its weakest that you can push farther and become stronger. I also believe in positive reinforcement. You can tear a person down physically but you must be there emotionally to support each victory and motivate after any failures.

WHAT MAKES HER A GOOD TEACHER: I think being a good teacher is defined as caring about your students—all of them, not just the ones who show talent. Anyone can come into my class and know two things: They will get the emotional and physical challenge of a lifetime and they will have a teacher who will care enough to be by their side for the entire journey.

FONDEST TEACHING MEMORY: The best moments for me are when my students come to me and express their gratitude. When you hear someone call you a “hero” or “mentor” it’s quite amazing. I have had a lot of students approach me who were beginners and by the end of the year they really felt like dancers. They are usually the ones who have been ignored in previous classes, and seeing how much my attention means to them is very touching.

BEST PIECE OF ADVICE FOR STUDENTS AND/OR TEACHERS: Take as many classes from as many quality teachers as possible. It will only make you more versatile. Solid ballet training is essential. Having a solid modern, jazz, and lyrical background is becoming just as important as ballet. The best advice I can give teachers and dance studio owners is not to be selfish and hang on to students who are ready to be let go. Encourage them to try other classes, audition for shows, and get involved in workshops.

WHAT SHE WOULD DO IF SHE COULDN’T TEACH DANCE: I would be a psychologist. I don’t ever see myself not teaching!

MORE THOUGHTS ON DANCE AND TEACHING: I feel so blessed that I am able to do what I love for a living. How many people get to say that? And I encourage all parents out there who are inclined to force their children to give up dance and pursue academics to stop and really listen to their children. I know it can be scary to think of your child having a career in dance; it’s a tough path. But if you can help your children do what they are passionate about for a living, I have to ask: Where is the greater joy?

DO YOU KNOW A DANCE TEACHER WHO DESERVES TO BE IN THE SPOTLIGHT? Email your nominations to David@rheegold.com or mail them to David Favrot, Dance Studio Life, 10 South Washington St., Norton, MA 02766. Please include why you think this teacher should be featured, along with his or her contact information.

The story of traditional dance in classical and neoclassical ballets

By Theodore Bale

Dances from other cultures are often described, in today’s politically correct language, as “world” or “ethnic” dance. But scattered throughout many classical ballets—and neoclassical and contemporary ballets—are various types of what’s known traditionally as character dance. Developing centuries before the advent of classical technique, character dances add variety, virtuosity, and exotic flavor to ballets such as Marius Petipa’s Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and The Sleeping Beauty; Jerome Robbins’ Other Dances; and George Balanchine’s “Diamonds,” Theme and Variations, and Stravinsky Violin Concerto, among others. And for many students of ballet, they offer short bursts of fun, some relief from the rigors of classicism, and unlimited possibilities for exotic costuming.

Flamenco lessons for the dancers added authenticity to Royal New Zealand Ballet’s new production of Don Quixote. (Photo by Maarten Holl, courtesy Royal New Zealand Ballet)

But character dances in classical ballet have become a bit of a sore spot for contemporary audiences. The term is often misconstrued. In general, it refers to regional (and most often European) folk dances that have been modified for ballet dancers. In this age of globalization and multiculturalism, however, character dances in classical ballets sometimes play out as clumsy cultural appropriations. For example, it is difficult to imagine what Petipa truly understood about dances of the Middle East or China when he choreographed his Nutcracker in 1892.

But before we cast full blame on Petipa it should be noted that character dances in the Russian-based classical ballets of the late 19th century are more accurately attributed to Alexander Viktorovich Shiryaev, Petipa’s choreographic assistant. Numerous sources credit Shiryaev with codifying many regional European dances as they entered the ballet lexicon. Of course, the concept of featuring folk dances in ballet divertissements was nothing new. Prior ballet history is rich with examples of folk dancing.

Consider August Bournonville’s 1842 Napoli, which includes the famous Italian tarantella. The dance must have seemed quite exotic and inspiring to a Danish audience. Ballerina Fanny Elssler had made it famous three years earlier, in Paris, in a ballet called La Tarantule. In its traditional form, however, the tarantella is exceedingly complex, developing as it did in multiple regions throughout Italy. In one instance, the tarantella originates in the earlier Danza alla Strega, or “dance of the witch, and dates back to the second century (CE 170). This early form involved women attempting to create an invisible web to trap unsuspecting victims.

A later version of the tarantella includes a loose narrative of two lovers, stemming from the pilgrimages to Monte Virgine near Naples. This form greatly influenced the aspects of courtship, pursuit, and seduction found in many classical ballets. But wait—it’s named after a spider, no? That’s because the tarantella is a very fast dance, often performed to tambourine and drum accompaniment, which was believed to cure someone who had been bitten by a tarantula (a kind of wolf spider, not the large, hairy arachnid familiar to most of us) by inducing sweat and exhaustion. (The epidemic known as “tarantism” lingered in Italy and other European countries from the 15th to 17th centuries, even though it is now known that the spider’s venom is only as dangerous as that of a wasp. Allegedly, Italians died from the spider’s bite.)

The healing intent of the tarantella has mostly disappeared from the character dance versions in late-19th-century ballet, which are more often romantic endeavors. The traditional forms continue in Italy today, where the tarantella involves extensive improvisation on three or six counts.

Petipa’s choreography for Don Quixote contains variations based on traditional flamenco. In companies around the world today, authenticity and traditions are becoming more and more of a focus, due to the explosion of Spanish flamenco ensembles that now tour internationally. For example, for the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s new production, based on Petipa’s original, Jill Tanner-Lloyd from Desde Sevilla Flamenco Dance Company was hired to give the ballet dancers flamenco lessons.

Contemplating character dance in ballet inevitably brings up the difficult matter of hierarchy, or more simply put, social snobbery.

Flamenco’s legacy is possibly even more complicated than the tarantella’s. With roots in ancient Rome and Egypt, it can be traced back to 2500 BCE. Early terminology mentions the Flamen-kau of Iberia, dancers who were sent to Imperial Rome to reinvigorate a sacred flame at the beginning of the New Year. Early flamenco “ring” dances were performed by Basque ancestors as well. Somewhere along the line, the dance was linked with movement of cranes of the Camargue, an area along the Rhône in southern France, near the Mediterranean Sea; hence the relationship to the modern term “flamingo.”

Traditional flamenco, however, with its weighted style and stamped rhythms, stands in sharp contrast to the ideals of ballet. Ballet, obviously, floats on pointe or through the air. A woman’s flamenco costume might have a lengthy train of heavy ruffles, an impossibility for a ballet dancer on pointe. Flamenco has been described as a dance that “begins in complete agitation and, over time, comes to rest in equanimity.” By contrast, “Spanish” ballet variations usually follow the musical forms of the Romantic European composers who provided the scores, and there is no dialogue between musician and dancer. In ballet, a Spanish variation might refer to another Spanish form altogether, such as a bolero, fandango, malagueña, seguidilla, or habanera.

Contemplating character dance in ballet inevitably brings up the difficult matter of hierarchy, or more simply put, social snobbery. It’s possible that European ballet choreographers of the Romantic and classical periods viewed their art as superior to folk dancing, more refined than the “simple” dances of peasants and the proletariat. For example, the Hungarian czardas (pronounced “char-dahsh”), which appears to have begun in the early 19th century (though its origins go back centuries), was given its name by the Hungarian aristocracy, in condescending reference to the type of country inns where the form grew in popularity. It’s like calling an American folk dance a “shack.” At first an all-male dance, the czardas later became formalized into a male–female coupled dance with both a slow (lassu) and a fast (friss) section, alternating back and forth. The dance would have the same melody for both sections, but at different tempos, and usually ended in a kind of frenzy. It was extremely popular in 19th-century European ballrooms.

A stunning modern example of the czardas is found in Balanchine’s 1973 Cortège Hongrois, a farewell gift for ballerina Melissa Hayden on her retirement from New York City Ballet. Over the years some critics have considered this dance a sort of failure, claiming that the traditional czardas had merely been staged side-by-side with a grand pas and other classical forms. Balanchine intended the dance not only as a gift to Hayden but also as a loving tribute to Petipa, who had made an extensive Hungarian episode at the end of his full-length ballet Raymonda (from which Balanchine took Glazunov’s score for Cortège). Balanchine was among the first to restore dignity and a heightened authenticity to character dances in classical ballet, inviting a fresh look at movements that evolved out of ritual and work rather than of theatricality.

DVDs

Rudolf Nureyev’s Don Quixote for Australian Ballet (Kultur 1999): examples of flamenco influences. Most versions of Don Q also include a seguidilla (Act 1) and a fandango (Act 3).

On Choreography by Balanchine: Tzigane, Andante from Divertimento No. 15, The Four Temperaments, Selections from Jewels, Stravinsky Violin Concerto (Nonesuch 1979): Check out Stravinsky Violin Concerto—Balanchine was from Georgia, and this ballet shows a strong influence from Georgian folk dance. The finale of the “Diamonds” section of Jewels is a polonaise, a traditional dance from Poland.

Bournonville: Napoli, Royal Danish Ballet (Kultur 2006): tarantella

On YouTube:

czardas: Swan Lake, Raymonda, Coppélia
tarantella (Neapolitan): Napoli (Royal Danish Ballet), Swan Lake
mazurka: Coppélia, Swan Lake, Paquita
polonaise: The Sleeping Beauty, Paquita
seguidilla: Don Quixote

Traditional African-based dance sends a powerful message to teens

By Lisa Traiger

Kids come to Summer Steps to dance. And dance they do, all day, every day, for a week. When they leave, they want to go to college. Every last one of them. And that’s the point.

At Summer Steps, the team classes and rehearsals take place under the watchful eye of Step Afrika! founder Brian Williams and his 12 dancer/educators. The DC-based company is an anomaly in the dance world, focusing on professionalizing step dancing, traditionally a community-based art form.

Step dancing was born in African American fraternities and sororities on college campuses in the early 20th century. So it comes as little surprise that Summer Steps combines step dancing with college motivation. The form grew from the song and dance rituals that African American frat brothers and sorority sisters practiced to identify themselves and to compete against one another on college campuses.

Step Afrika! demonstrates the isicathulo, or gumboots dance, in 2007 at the Atlas Performing Arts Center in Washington. The boots pay homage to the black South African miners who do their stepping in rubber Wellington boots. (Photo by Sharon Farmer/sfphotoworks)

Drawing from popular 1950s harmonizing song groups like the Platters and traditional African tribal dances, step dancing is a rich admixture of doo-wop, African percussion, call-and-response, and contemporary hip-hop, all melded into a distinctively rhythmic form of body percussion. Its percussive nature—flat-footed stomps, hand claps, body slaps, lightning-fast synchronization—and its frequently amusing, sometimes sassy, chants make stepping an irresistible draw for the 4th through 12th graders in Summer Steps, which is highly subsidized by Washington Performing Arts Society (WPAS) to target low-income children.

While Summer Steps is plenty of fun—just look at the smiles and listen to the laughs and chatter of the 125 kids gathered for assembly one August morning—the program “incorporates a heavy educational component in order to prepare young people for college,” says Katheryn Ray Brewington, assistant director of education at WPAS, Summer Steps’ sponsor. That means dance warm-ups, rehearsals, and college prep sessions daily.

Brandon Peel doesn’t mind. At 6′ 2″ he towers over most of the kids and teachers. And at 13, he’s got a few years before college applications come due. Long and lean in his black shorts and T-shirt, a baseball cap shading his eyes, he says, “I like learning the steps and being able to move with the rhythm. It feels pretty good.” But he also finds the college prep component helpful. “I was already planning to go to college,” says the ninth grader, citing Duke and Villanova as possibilities, “but this summer with Step Afrika! has clarified it for me, although I’m still not sure if I’ll join a fraternity.”

In the past two decades, stepping has infiltrated Hollywood films like Spike Lee’s School Daze and 2007’s Stomp the Yard. These days, step dancing can be found in elementary, middle, and high schools as well as community centers and churches, particularly (but not exclusively) in predominantly African American areas.

But Williams was stepping long before the genre expanded beyond college campuses. A member of the oldest African American fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, founded in 1906, he noticed similarities between the step dancing he practiced on the Yard at Howard University and the dances he saw diamond miners in South Africa perform in rubber Wellington boots. The one-time marketing major built an exchange program between step dancers and South Africans in Soweto Dance Theatre into a full-fledged professional dance company. By 1994 Step Afrika! was sharing its step dances with children in townships and performing for under-served kids in the DC region before venturing onto the concert stage.

Step dancing is a rich admixture of doo-wop, African percussion, call-and-response, plus contemporary hip-hop, all melded into a distinctively rhythmic form of body percussion.

Today Step Afrika! tours the nation extensively each year, performing in major concert venues like the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in DC and Lincoln Center Summer Stages in New York. Along with original step numbers, the equally percussive isicathulo, or gumboots dance, and hard-driving Zulu tribal numbers make up its repertoire. Yet the more contained and motivationally directed shows presented in school cafeterias and gymnasiums remain its most important.

“Nowadays it’s not cool to talk about good things and righteous things and commitment and teamwork and discipline,” says Sumayya Ali, a former company member and opera singer, who has worked with youths and seen the problems that come from dwindling arts-education budgets. “Step Afrika! is one of the only groups I know of that shows that it’s cool to be righteous, to uplift, and to empower. We do things that make a difference in people’s lives. It’s not just about entertainment on the stage. There’s a real message.”

During Summer Stages that message gets imparted by the contract the youths must sign to participate: No disruptive behavior, excessive talking, profanity, disrespectful conduct, lack of attention, or uncooperative behavior is tolerated. And each day an age-appropriate session is devoted to college prep. For the youngest kids it might be motivational talks; for high schoolers it might entail how to navigate the college application process. By the time the week culminates in a visit to the campus of Howard University, one of the oldest and most significant historically black colleges, virtually every kid is sold on college.

And when Williams stands up to speak, the children listen. “We want to connect what we do in stepping with where it came from: college campuses,” he tells them. “We want you to know that college is a place for you to think about your future, to have a great time, to live and study, eat and take classes, and to have fun.”

June Idrissa, a parent volunteer, watches her 12-year-old son, Imran, make new friends and learn new steps. “It’s wonderful to see them working as a team,” she says. “They learn rhythm, which is extremely good for the brain. And it’s a good age for them to focus on discipline.” Idrissa, who lives in DC, also values the college push. “It’s an excellent approach to get these kids focused and thinking at an early stage about college. It’s better for them to have aspirations now and not wait until high school.”

Canaan Peterson, a 14-year-old who attends Baltimore School for the Arts, has already made up his mind about pledging a black fraternity and continuing the stepping tradition once he reaches college. “I want to study business, maybe become a mortician. And I think I’ll join a fraternity because you have a chance to serve and go back and help others.”

Held near downtown Washington in the grand Vermont Avenue Baptist Church, Summer Steps keeps kids dancing and thinking all day. The morning begins with breakfast followed by an all-camp session to practice basic rhythms, chants, and movement combinations before breaking into smaller, age-appropriate groups. The rest of the morning is spent rehearsing individual numbers for the end-of-the-week showcase. The tightly packed schedule keeps the majority of kids out of trouble.

Company member Delonte Briggs flings his long dreadlocks behind his shoulders as he oversees an energetic group of early teens. “Remember these two words—attention and intensity,” he says as he tightens the less-than-precise claps and spaghetti arms into something more defined and razor sharp. “I see you in the back, cargo shorts and black cap,” he calls over the heads of a gaggle of girls, to fine-tune one young lady’s final pose. “Don’t hit it and then flinch. Make it tight.”

“We’re stressing commitment,” says Darrius Gourdine, an early company member who now runs a graphic production company but remains a Step Afrika! supporter. “We’re stressing discipline. We’re stressing teamwork. We’re not only giving them theatrics, we’re giving them real-life ideas to deal with. Before you step, you study. Before you see your friends, you do your chores. You couldn’t do the step show if you didn’t have a 3.0. That’s the core of the [fraternity] culture and of Step Afrika! It’s about keeping the tradition.”

As the kids board the bus and head back to Summer Steps’ home base, the chatter is incessant. Along with grade school gossip, other snippets leak out: “Howard University, just like my dad”; “I’m gonna pledge Alpha, like Brother Brian”; “I’m applying to Bowie University”; “I’m thinking of Ball State or Maryland.”

It turns out that in a week, 125 youngsters, many from underserved neighborhoods in a rapidly gentrifying city, not only learned how to step, they know where they’re going.

Modern dance’s beam of light

By Nancy Wozny

A lone dancer swaggers onto the stage, initiating a conversation with the five-piece jazz band at the side of the stage. In a sinewy gesture he reaches skyward and the band responds. More dancers enter and their exciting dialogue with the musicians seamlessly unifies movement and sound.

Dianne McIntyre leading a repertory workshop in Durham, North Carolina, at the 2008 American Dance Festival. (Photo by American Dance Festival 2008/Sara D. Davis)

These dancers, from Dianne McIntyre’s sound-and-music class at the 2008 American Dance Festival (ADF), performed that piece, Invincible Flower, just two hours before McIntyre received the festival’s highest teaching honor, The Balasaraswati/Joy Ann Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching.  The award is one of the most prestigious dance education awards in the United States, and in receiving it McIntyre, 62, takes her place alongside such dance giants as Donald McKayle, Pearl Primus, and Matt Mattox. Her collection of awards includes a National Endowment for the Arts Three-Year Choreographers Fellowship, a 2007 Guggenheim, and two Bessies, but this is the first one that acknowledges her contributions solely as a teacher.

McIntyre’s beginnings in dance predate her setting foot in a dance studio. She remembers, as a youngster in Cleveland, dancing to music from the radio in front of her living room window. “I hoped that people driving by would think that there was a dance studio in my house,” she says. “I don’t even know if I had ever been to a real dance studio.” At age 4 she began classes with Elaine Gibbs, the most prominent local dance teacher for African American children. “I did not know then that dance schools were segregated. We were satisfied and content,” she says. “There was something about how my parents elevated what we were; I never wondered why there were no white children.”

Teaching and dancing merged early in her life. “When I was 9 I would help out with the younger ones. That’s how it is in a small dance studio,” McIntyre says. “Part of what you do as a dancer and choreographer is sharing with other people. I took those qualities from those teachers over the years even though I didn’t consciously know I was studying them.”

As a child and young teenager McIntyre studied modern dance with Virginia Dryansky, a member of the Karamu Dancers at Karamu House in Cleveland, one of the nation’s oldest institutions dedicated to African American culture. “Virginia helped us develop our own choreography. We danced to some songs by Odetta. That was some strong dance for 10-year-olds,” McIntyre says. “I loved the expressive element of modern dance. Back then I thought modern dance was primarily an African American dance form. I think I even thought Martha Graham was black.”

McIntyre’s work with Dryansky prepared her well for the dance program at The Ohio State University, where she studied with Helen Alkire, Vickie Blaine, James Payton, Lucy Venable, and guest artists Anna Sokolow and Viola Farber. “I was one of the few dancers [there] that had any modern dance background,” McIntyre says. She remembers every detail of one incident with Blaine. “She would crack the whip in a loving way; she wanted to make sure you were getting it right. I remember one choreography study I did for her. She never raised her voice or scolded, but I knew I wasn’t going to sit down until I gave my whole heart and soul to that [rehearsal].”

During the summers McIntyre returned to Cleveland to teach modern dance, using the same methods she was learning at Ohio State. By 1970 she had headed to New York City and begun dancing in Gus Solomons jr’s company. Then she heard a second calling. In 1972 she started her own studio and company, Sounds in Motion, in Harlem. With packed classes, the studio became a hub for aspiring African American modern dancers, including Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, founder of Urban Bush Women.

But by 1988 McIntyre felt that Sounds in Motion had reached a threshold. “We were on the verge of becoming a larger institution and I felt that my creative energy was being drained.” She decided to fold the studio and company and began working as a freelance artist.

McIntyre has worked in television, theater, and film, including as a choreographer and consultant for director Jonathan Demme and Oprah Winfrey on the 1998 film Beloved. Her television credits include 1986’s Langston Hughes: The Dreamkeeper and 1982′s for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf. She received an Emmy nomination for the award-winning 1997 HBO movie Miss Evers’ Boys. In addition to creating numerous works for her own company, she has choreographed for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Repertory Ensemble, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, and Dayton Contemporary Dance Company.

‘I was ecstatic to be working with her. She has the most tremendous spirit in such a little body.’ —dancer DeAngelo Blanchard

McIntyre is a leading authority on the work of modern-dance pioneer Helen Tamiris. In 1991, she reconstructed Tamiris’ 1937 epic How Long Brethren?, which has been performed by numerous professional and college dancers at ADF. Her daring dance career, chronicled in Dance in America: Free to Dance in 2001, continues to define itself.

Equally comfortable in theater, McIntyre has choreographed more than 40 plays and recently worked on two new choreo-dramas, including Peaches, Plums and Pontifications with jazz musician and longtime collaborator Olu Dara. “I like that in theater you get longer runs,” McIntyre says. “That allows the artists to grow through performances. We don’t get that too much in modern dance.”

When ADF asked her to teach a class in dance-music connection, McIntyre jumped at the chance, eager to bring her unique take on music to college-age dancers. “There was also a gap for me, in that, although I work with live music in my choreography, I wasn’t doing it consistently in my teaching,” she says. At ADF, she could start to fill that gap.

Interacting with live music had been a regular part of life at Sounds in Motion. “We had a group of musicians who were part of our studio. They were not just accompanists; there was a strong tie to everything we did together. We learned as much from the music as we did from our own dance backgrounds,” she says. “It was not just from the quality and the dynamics, but the way the musicians interacted and supported each other. There was a lot of power in that for me. They were categorized as jazz, but they had a broad background and all kinds of music came through in their playing.”

Over the years McIntyre has worked with such notable artists as Dara, Lester Bowie, Max Roach, and Cecil Taylor. “It was two-way exchange—we benefited from watching how they worked so well together, and they learned from the dance and developed innovative ideas from what they saw us do.” She had some concerns about how the loss of live music in dance classes was affecting the development of musicality. “At a recent performance I wondered if the dancers were actually listening to the music,” she says.

McIntyre started her classes at ADF from a basic place of learning how to listen. During the first week she worked with one dancer and one musician at a time, developing a “conversation.” “The musician would do a phrase and the dancer would respond, repeating exactly what they heard,” she says. “This exercise developed [the dancers’] hearing.” Gradually they moved toward a call-and-response, alternating being the leader. The other students learned by watching. “It tuned their ears,” McIntyre says. “They could see the musician and the dancer getting closer.”

Later, she added a rhythmic component, layering dancing and making music into a conversation between the dancers and the drummer. Eventually the exercises became increasingly complex so that the dancer became like a solo instrument. The dancers learned to move inside and out of a rhythm, flowing over the top of it or going underneath. “This is the way a jazz musician improvises, connecting to a certain harmonic,” she says. “As time went on, the structure became looser. But if the dancers were fuzzy they got a [correction], because the music was never fuzzy.”

McIntyre’s assistant, Shireen Dickson, says that watching the teacher at work in the ADF classes proved a learning experience for her, even though she has been working with McIntyre for 10 years. “I was amazed at how professional our final showing was in the amount of time we had to get it ready,” says Dickson, 34. “Dianne uses her voice in such a way that it guides the students to listen better. It’s more about accents than counts.” She also appreciated McIntyre’s unconditional confidence in her students. “She puts the material out there and fully believes they will get it, and they do.”

Dickson is amazed by the breadth of McIntyre’s work. “She crosses over to so many different arenas and is successful in all of them,” she says. “I am astounded by her passion for dance, young people, and teaching; it’s inspiring to see the love and dedication that come through; even within frustration and impatience, the love is still there. The students feel that and they love her for it. She has their best interests at heart. She’s not afraid to be vulnerable in the classroom.”

Dancer DeAngelo Blanchard, 21, a senior at Ohio State, started and ended Invincible Flower at ADF. “I was ecstatic to be working with her. She has the most tremendous spirit in such a little body. The way she would let sound become her movement was very impressive.” Describing how McIntyre stood with her arms stretched up and eyes to the sky, Blanchard says, “You couldn’t help but emulate the very idea she was after. She loves music, and so do I, so it was very easy to understand physically what she wanted from the dance. She wanted the dancer to be the music and the music to be the dancer, so there was no worry about being distracted by either.”

On the day McIntyre received the award at ADF, she closed her remarks with a story: While teaching at a college dance program she found herself with a group of talented but listless dancers who didn’t give their all to the movement. She remembers inwardly asking for some kind of help with these students. She heard an internal voice saying, “See them as light.” “I didn’t know what it meant; however, I was carrying this message with me as I prepared for class,” she said. “Seeing them as light seemed to have translated into my loving them, and my heart just opened up to them.”

From the first reach of her hand skyward the entire class transformed before her eyes. “When I saw them as light I came to love every one of them. I loved everything about them. A love for them overtook me completely. In that moment I cared about nothing but them, and to give them the love I have for dance.” Her students sensed her transformation and danced that day like they never had before.

The audience at ADF that day knew exactly what she was talking about. By the end of her impassioned tale, they were seeing her as light.

After the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, traditional Cambodian dance lives on

By Nancy Wozny

Dancing “to save your life” has a literal meaning for classical Cambodian dancer, teacher, and choreographer Sophiline Cheam Shapiro. Sophiline, now 41, lived through some of the most turbulent times in her country’s history. She was 8 years old when the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in 1975. She lost her father, two brothers, her grandmother, and many other relatives during this time, as most families did. Today Sophiline is one of the most significant artists in the movement for the preservation of classical Cambodian dance.

Dances like Apsara, performed by Khmer ArtsAcademy, include stylized movements with sculpted hand gestures that communicate a story. (Photo by Michael Burr)

Sophiline’s story reveals the deep connections between a country’s culture and politics. From 1975 to 1979 the dancers of the royal court, all graduates of the National School of Fine Arts (NSFA), which has had various names over the years, went into hiding for fear of being killed by the Khmer Rouge, which ruled Cambodia during that time. With a motto of “To keep you is no benefit, to kill you is no loss,” the regime is most remembered for the brutal deaths of 1.5 million Cambodians.

During that regime, an estimated 90 percent of Cambodia’s classical dancers perished, and the art form seemed to face certain extinction. After the Vietnamese drove out the Khmer Rouge in 1979, the remaining dancers sought out each other for support. In 1980, the government organized a national arts festival in Phnom Penh in order to determine how many artists were still alive, and in 1981 the National School of Fine Arts reopened.

However, the new government questioned the relevancy of an art form associated with the gods, royalty, and feudalism. So for the second time in its 1,000-year history, classical Cambodian dance faced extinction. Its survival came at a cost: The government heavily politicized the dances with new themes that glorified Marxism and Leninism. It then sent out a troupe of NSFA students and faculty (on foreign tours, it was sometimes called the Classical Dance Company of Cambodia) to sell its socialist message to the villagers in remote provinces.

With the fall of the Khmer Rouge, civil war broke out in Cambodia and few were safe, including the dance troupe, which Sophiline had joined after graduating in 1988 in the first class of the reborn academy. They performed outdoors on makeshift stages and traveled during the day, says Sophiline, because it was safer. “Every time we performed there was a chance we would be killed; after all, we were representing the government. We were aware of the danger we were in; there were land mines everywhere.”

Sophiline remembers one show that involved the god of thunder and the goddess of water; during a performance Khmer Rouge guerrillas showed up with weapons in hand. “Everything we did was political then—thunder may have [represented] capitalism,” she explains. She believes that the guerrillas intended to kill the troupe that day. Instead, they stayed and seemed to enjoy the dance. “Even though the work we were dancing was essentially government propaganda, the form shines through the politics. Art goes beyond this political message; it’s about beauty and the continuity of our culture,” says Sophiline. “I would like to believe [the guerrillas] connected to the beauty of the dance.”

Sophiline’s immediate family included no artists, but she found support for her life as a dancer in her extended family and teachers. She credits her uncle, Cheng Phom, the minister of culture from 1981 to 1989, as an important influence. She also mentions her dance teacher Soth Sam On as a significant mentor. “They are my heroes,” she says. “I saw them rebuild and revive classical Cambodian dance out of the ash; that was something that stayed with me. When I moved to California [to teach in 1991], I could see myself in the same situation as my uncle and my teacher—I had to start from scratch.”

Classical Cambodian dance originated in the Hindu temples of Angkor as part of the royal court. The slow, hypnotic dances were considered a form of ritual prayer. Dances linked heaven and earth—a central theme in Cambodian thought—and were believed to offer protection against floods, wars, and diseases. Today, because the country is primarily Buddhist, the dances are no longer performed as part of a religious service, though they may still be done in temples or at the royal court. They often portray Hindu mythology, which “typically tells morality tales that transcend religious classification,” says John Shapiro, Sophiline’s husband.

The dominant aesthetic in Cambodian dance involves fluidity in the arms, with the fingers bent back to form a crescent shape, the toes usually flexed, and the lower back slightly arched. A tremendous degree of suppleness and strength is required, and there is a sense of constant flow. Dances, either solos or ensemble works, include stylized movements with sculpted hand gestures (actually an alphabet) that communicate the story to the audience. The elaborate costumes of patterned silk skirts are decorated with sequins and din (metal spirals) arranged in a distinctly Cambodian pattern, usually diamond shapes. The pointed, gold headdress, or mkot, and gold-painted jewelry add to the majesty of the dancer. Though classical dance is primarily a female form, men dance as well, in roles such as monkeys, hermits, pirates, scribes, horses, and birds.

Today Sophiline and John run Khmer Arts, which includes four components in two countries: The academy, based in Long Beach, California; Khmer Arts Ensemble, a 31-member professional dance company based in Cambodia; a media project; and an archive. The couple and their twin 8-year-old boys travel between Cambodia and Long Beach frequently. “It’s difficult but beneficial, because it allows me to build connections in two places,” says Sophiline. “It’s important that we continue to have a presence in Cambodia, and being at the source connects me to the roots of the form itself.”

For John, who manages the organization, the success of the operation depends on having both sites be self-sustaining. Economic factors are involved as well; the cost of living in Cambodia is far less than in the United States. “It would be impossible to maintain a company of that size in California,” says John.

Prior to launching the academy in 2002 Sophiline taught at several Cambodian community organizations in Long Beach. “In 2002 it became apparent that we needed more tools—greater access to resources that would lead to the program’s growth and development—and it became more practical to have our own organization,” says John. Long Beach has the largest Cambodian population outside of Asia. An exchange program at Long Beach State University and a nearby military base that dealt with displaced populations after the war combined to create a critical mass of Cambodians, continuing the growth of the community. “The first wave of immigrants then sponsored the next wave,” says John. “Long Beach is considered the capital of the Cambodian diaspora.”

The academy, based in the “Cambodia Town” section of Long Beach, offers free training for students ages 5 through adult in a 2,200-square-foot warehouse. Some parents donate $20 a month, but contributing is not mandatory. “Most of this generation of parents were exposed to dance classes in refugee camps, where it was free,” says John. “So parents may pay for their children’s music classes, but dance was always free.” Classes, which last two hours and take place four days a week, are taught by a faculty of five, which includes Sophiline when she is on site. The class structure allows for students to come only once a week or as many as four times a week.

There is no set curriculum for teaching classical Cambodian dance. “This form exists in the mind and the body of the dancer-teacher, and this is the way it has been taught since the beginning,” says John. Each class begins with a set warm-up that involves hand and elbow stretches necessary to get the correct shape of the hands.

Dancers start their training between ages 5 and 8. “Training is very hands-on,” says Sophiline. “And one-on-one coaching is part of the tradition. I prefer for the whole class to benefit from that kind of instruction, so if I am working on a small detail I want the entire class to benefit.”

“Students at the National School of Fine Arts start their training at 8 years old and graduate at 18. For the Khmer Arts Ensemble, we give them advanced training after that,” says John. “So in a sense, training never ends. Students who have joined our Long Beach faculty have trained for a minimum of five years.”

Performance is a big part of the students’ life at the academy. “Everyone can perform in the Cambodian new year celebration in April,” says Sophiline, “while our more serious students perform in various festivals and universities. We mix the students with professionals, faculty, and guest artists.” Sophiline believes the time will come when her top students may join the professional troupe.

The Khmer Arts Ensemble dancers, all graduates of NSFA, perform a classical canon along with new work and tour the world with seven musicians and two singers. The repertory includes works created mostly during the 1950s and 1960s, which was an extraordinarily creative time, and new works by Sophiline. The company also boasts the largest collection of classical Cambodian costumes in the world, and that includes Cambodia. “The goal is to make the ensemble self-sufficient, as it receives no funding from the government,” says John.

There is no set curriculum for teaching classical Cambodian dance. ‘This form exists in the mind and the body of the dancer-teacher, and this is the way it has been taught since the beginning.’ —John Shapiro

Sophiline’s work exists in two worlds: The company performs at such high-profile art events as the Venice Biennale as well as at world dance festivals. Last November Sophiline’s Shir Ha-Shirim, set to John Zorn’s music, premiered at the Guggenheim Museum in New York as part of the museum’s Works & Process program. Her somewhat controversial dances reflect and criticize Cambodian culture and tell contemporary stories from the Cambodian diaspora.

“Our work is not ethno-nostalgia, in that we are not just interested in re-creating a Cambodia of the past,” says John. Sophiline’s groundbreaking 2000 dance, Samritechak (based on Othello), which premiered in Phnom Penh, dealt with the Khmer Rouge’s failure to assume responsibility for its actions. Sophiline’s 2002 piece, The Glass Box, explores the confinements of tradition, while her seminal Seasons of Migration (2005), which toured the United States, deals with culture shock.

Khmer Arts Media is building a collection of books, films, videos, and recordings. So far it has produced one full-length documentary, on Seasons of Migration, a book, and four music CDs. The Shapiros are working with a German organization to produce their first feature film. The fourth component of Khmer Arts is the archives, kept in Cambodia, with digitized versions available to the public at Phnom Penh’s Audiovisual Resource Center Bophana. “After 1979, there were only a handful of artists that brought [classical dance] back to life; the world almost lost this precious art form,” says John. “The archive exists to protect from that ever happening again.”

Sophiline has distinguished herself as a choreographer and teacher who is moving Cambodian dance further into relevancy for today’s global culture. She believes that her mission is larger than serving just the Cambodian people. “I want to make dances that respond to the world I live in,” she says. “This is for all of humanity. I wanted to bring this knowledge to the world.”

Love is in the air at Shirley Ubell’s Center for Modern Dance Education

By Darrah Carr

“I was born a dancer and I was born a teacher. I just didn’t know it for a long time.” So says Shirley Ubell, whose lengthy dance career did not begin until she was 19 years old. It is hard to decide which is more remarkable: the fact that she started dancing so late or that today, at the age of 80, she continues to take class three times a week at the school she founded, The Center for Modern Dance Education (CMDE), in Hackensack, New Jersey. “My mother encouraged me to take ballroom dance lessons in the hopes that I would meet a boyfriend,” Ubell explains. “But, when the teacher, Maya Kyla, asked me whether I had ever taken a modern-dance class before, something hit me. I went to the library and read everything that I could find about modern dance. I was hooked.”

CMDE teamed up with Portables, a dance company in Teaneck, New Jersey, to present Claire Porter’s "From Jobs to Geraniums," performed in 2004 at Ringwood Manor in Ringwood, New Jersey. (Photo by Alexandra Pais)

Ubell, who trained with modern-dance luminaries Martha Graham and Mary Anthony, had no plans to open a dance school. Newly married in 1949, she and her husband, Earl Ubell (who died in 2007), bought a house in Paramus, New Jersey. “I was walking around outside barefoot and the neighborhood kids asked me why I had no shoes on. I told them that it was because I danced barefoot. They were curious and so, in my sixth month of pregnancy, I started teaching in my empty living room,” Ubell recalls. “I worked with a friend, and we called it ‘Judy & Shirley’s Dance School.’ I also wanted art and music classes for my kids, but there was nothing around. Paramus was farmland at that point. So I hired Dalcroze teachers to come in from New York City.”

The Ubells eventually bought furniture for their living room and the dance school moved downstairs to the basement. But when the students began to hit their heads on the ceiling, Ubell knew it was time to look for another location. In 1956 she rented a storefront at 815 Main Street in Hackensack, which gave her enough space for her 100 students.

“I was the only modern-dance school in New Jersey for a long time. From the beginning, my philosophy was not to be a commercial school or to enter into competition. My focus was on the individual dancer and on creating as many events as possible at low or no cost for the community,” Ubell says. “My dad was a young, enthusiastic communist, in the good sense of the word. I grew up with a feeling of sharing. And the school has that same sense—that everyone should share. I always felt that art should just be done. And that everyone should be able to do it.”

‘I grew up with a feeling of sharing. And the school has that same sense—that everyone should share. I always felt that art should just be done. And that everyone should be able to do it.’ —Shirley Ubell

In 1962 Ubell made the unusual choice to incorporate her dance school as a not-for-profit, tax-exempt organization. “I wanted to be eligible to apply for grant money, teach in public schools, and offer scholarships. I wanted to be very community oriented,” she says. The organization has received funding from numerous sources, including the National Endowment for the Arts, The New Jersey State Council on the Arts, The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and the Puffin Foundation.

Elissa Machlin-Lockwood, CMDE’s artistic director, who began taking dance classes with Ubell in 1961, describes the decision to incorporate: “It wasn’t in Shirley to want to run a business, but she did want to run a school. For her, it was not about the profit. ‘The profit is in your soul,’ Shirley would say.”

The grants have allowed CMDE to develop a wide array of outreach programs that spread awareness of and appreciation for modern dance. The Moving Into Knowledge program offers free summer classes for youth at risk, including separate camps for boys and girls as well as a teen program. Dance teachers go into public schools to work in alternative classrooms. Children from group homes and residential treatment centers are brought to CMDE for after-school classes. Students over the age of 60 who are enrolled in Elder Dance classes enjoy half-price tuition. The Real Men Dance initiative encourages men and boys to try dance classes. Support from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts has led to workshops at Gilda’s Club, a support network for people living with cancer and their families and friends. In addition to these modern-dance offerings, a grant from the Bergen County Department of Human Services funds free family classes in African and Latin dance.

Underlying CMDE’s programs is an emphasis on nurturing individual creativity and self-expression. Machlin-Lockwood says, “We’re not in this to only cater to people who want to dance professionally. The idea is that we meet the needs of all kinds of people and see what dance can do for people who are not necessarily going to be dancers. This is the seed that Shirley planted—to bring people together.”

After incorporating, CMDE began adding branch locations throughout New Jersey. Over the next decade, the total enrollment in the school’s 10 locations grew to more than 700 students. The curriculum focused on classic modern dance: the techniques of Merce Cunningham, José Limón, and Martha Graham. Faculty members included Graham dancer Mimi Cole and Limón company member Ann Vachon.

In 1969 and 1970, CMDE presented Graham and Limón in a series of master classes and performances. “We were lucky, given our proximity to New York City,” Machlin-Lockwood says. “Shirley wanted the best, and she was able to call Martha Graham and get her to come to Hackensack!”

CMDE’s commitment to modern dance was recognized by the newly formed New Jersey State Council on the Arts. The council encouraged Ubell to start The Repertory Dancers, the state’s first professional modern-dance company (now defunct).

In 1970 the Ubells spotted a church building for sale in Hackensack. They renovated the building to include two studios as well as office space. After two decades of fund-raising, the center paid its last mortgage bill in 1989 and celebrated with a “Burn the Mortgage Cabaret.” “The fact that we own our space is a large reason why we still exist,” Ubell says. “So many not-for-profits have gone out of business because they couldn’t afford their rent.” Owning the building enables CMDE to further its outreach mission by sharing the space with resident dance companies and community groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous.

The late 1980s saw another turning point for CMDE. Ubell received her master’s in movement therapy from Hunter College, and CMDE began the Learning Through the Arts program for people with disabilities. “I always believed that modern dance was so unique that anybody’s body could do it,” Ubell says. “Having a half-brother with cerebral palsy also made me more open to offering classes for people with disabilities.”

Machlin-Lockwood explains, “A big part of the studio is acceptance. You might be in a class where one student has Down syndrome while another student is a professional dancer. Everyone is expected to be gracious and open. In all of my years at CMDE, I can only think of one or two times when people weren’t comfortable.”

The Moving Experience Dance Company for teens and young adults with disabilities is an outgrowth of CMDE’s classes and an example of the center’s belief in the importance of self-expression and performance. “Dance is a performing art,” Ubell says. “If you just take dance classes all the time, then you don’t feel like a dancer. You may not be on Broadway, but in this place you are always a dancer.”

In addition to performing at parks, senior centers, and schools, Moving Experience takes part in CMDE’s annual Danceathon, a performance celebration and fund-raiser held at Bergen County Community College.

“The Danceathon is more like a class demonstration than a typical recital. We try to keep it shorter and more casual. We don’t want to spend half of the year preparing for the recital,” Machlin-Lockwood says. “The dancers sit in the audience so that everyone can watch everyone else. The younger kids don’t come to dress rehearsal. It is more of a ‘show up and dance’ kind of thing. We keep the costumes simple and use our closets. We don’t want to make it about a parade of costumes. We want it to be about the people.” All of the students are given the opportunity to take part in the Danceathon, which also features the CMDE Senior and Junior Repertory Companies.

A scan of the program biographies for a recent performance reveals that many of the center’s teachers and staff began their dance training as children at CMDE. Describing the alumni network, Machlin-Lockwood says, “It is almost like a web. People get entrenched here and don’t want it to end. I got stuck here in a good way. It is a great place and it comes with the satisfaction of doing something with a purpose. The staff keeps ideas percolating. We go with the strengths of who is involved at any given time. When things work, they usually work well.” Today, CMDE’s large and diverse staff offers ballet, jazz, musical theater, hip-hop, Afro-modern, Middle Eastern, and yoga classes in addition to modern dance.

CMDE alumna Linda Mensch, who returns frequently as a guest teacher, has been affiliated with the center for more than 30 years. “CMDE is an amazing place. They are on their own path. I don’t think there is another place like them. They never turn anyone away. They include everyone—any size, shape, or ability. The technique is there if someone wants it in terms of pursuing a dance career, but you can also go through the school without that focus. The emphasis on creativity is in every class, no matter what the style,” she says. “It is a very loving place. You see a kid walk in all nervous and then you see that it’s like jumping into warm water. It’s OK once you jump in. You are never made to feel anything but spectacular.”

In 1995 Mensch opened The Moving Company Modern Dance Center in Warwick, New York, with Ubell’s blessing. “Shirley never made us feel like we shouldn’t be teaching elsewhere. She believes that we should go spread dance to the world,” Mensch says. “I brought their philosophy with me when I opened my own school. We are on the same page in terms of how we work with kids and how we want them to feel. What I learned there and what I bring to my own school is that the student can never do it wrong. No one is made to feel like they shouldn’t be dancing. You dance because it feels good.”

In Ubell’s assessment, good feelings account for the longevity of the center. “I never hired anybody unless I felt bonded to them. And I only hired people I respected. It has always been a communal school. The staff has lots of input. The door to my office is always open. I say, ‘Oh, you know how to do that? I don’t know how to do that. Will you teach that?’ ” she explains. “It creates an environment where you walk into the building and you just feel love.”

Thoughts on dance and creativity, plus advice for students and teachers

By Margaret Fuhrer

It’s a good time to be a contemporary choreographer. Thanks in part to the growing popularity of TV shows like So You Think You Can Dance—which introduced many people to the style—contemporary dance has never been hotter, or more in demand. Dance Studio Life talked with a few of today’s most exciting contemporary choreographers, from both the commercial and the concert dance worlds, about their work and their advice for students hoping to break into the industry.

Aszure Barton
Quirky. Feisty. Witty. Peculiar. Not every choreographer’s work can inspire such a wide range of descriptions. But Aszure Barton, who has earned fans as luminous as Mikhail Baryshnikov, manages to evoke all of these words with her choreography, which often layers singing and acrobatics over its ballet- and modern-based vocabulary. And a glance at Barton’s resume, which includes commissions from National Ballet of Canada, Martha Graham Dance Company, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and American Ballet Theatre II, proves that she’s become a major player in the concert dance scene.

Barton trained in classical ballet at the National Ballet School in Toronto, presenting her first piece at the school when she was just 15. “I’ve always made things,” she says. “Even when I was a child—and I still am!—I used to make little dance-theater pieces with my neighborhood friends.” Barton says that the inspiration for her dances sometimes comes from movies, art galleries, music, or “animal behavior,” but most frequently comes from the dancers themselves. “The dancers are the work,” she explains. She calls her own company, Aszure Barton & Artists, her “family.”

What does Barton look for in a dancer? Divas need not apply. “I like a sense of humor,” she says. “And the willingness to make a fool out of yourself.” She’s put off by dancers who constantly try to impress. “Just be yourself,” she says. “Be interested, interesting, patient, and sensitive to your surroundings.”

This young choreographer has been busy recently. She spent part of last fall in Australia creating Sid’s Waltzing Masquerade for the Sydney Dance Company, with costumes by the glamorous designer Michelle Jank. More recently, her company performed in Santa Barbara, California, at the Lobero Theater. And expect to see more of her distinctive work soon. “There are lots of fun surprises in the future!” she says.

Alejandro Cerrudo
Alejandro Cerrudo first started choreographing because he felt that it might inform his own dancing. “I wanted to know how it felt from the other side, to learn how to give more as a dancer,” the Spanish-born 20-something says. “I thought that if I knew how a choreographer felt, or what they wanted, it would help me be a better dancer.”

But as Cerrudo was creating his first piece, Beige and Brown, which was performed at Stuttgart Ballet’s choreography workshop in 2000, he discovered that he loved making dances—and that he was good at it. Stuttgart Ballet invited him to make another work, Recuerdos. Cerrudo’s career as a choreographer had officially begun.

Now a dancer with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Cerrudo is known for his loose-limbed, fluid performances of company classics. While critics have used similar words to describe the works Cerrudo has choreographed for Hubbard Street—particularly the charming Lickety-Split, set to the music of indie-folk songwriter Devendra Banhart—Cerrudo is hesitant to label his choreographic style. “I don’t want to define it,” he says. “I think a choreographer can take many years to define himself, and I don’t think I can yet.”

Cerrudo advises young students to be open-minded about their training. “Don’t get stuck inside one school’s perspective,” he says. “See and try as much as you can. You are the color that the choreographer uses on his brush as a painter, and more experience makes that color brighter.” He also believes that there’s a place in the dance world for everyone who wants to be a part of it. “Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not good enough,” he says. “If someone doesn’t like the way you dance, that doesn’t mean you don’t know how.”

‘If a dancer understands my language, my style, then even if we’re just goofing around in the studio, great things tend to happen.’ —Tyce Diorio

Tyce Diorio
As a judge and choreographer on So You Think You Can Dance for the past three seasons, Tyce Diorio has seen many great dance auditions—and many disastrous ones. In his experience, the train wrecks involve dancers who don’t know how to showcase themselves. “Versatility is great, and so is confidence,” Diorio says. “But if you clearly have a technical deficiency, don’t do fouettés! Play to your strengths.” And, he adds, be sure that you’re presenting yourself, rather than putting on an act. “Fake performance—something that’s not totally true to the dancer, that you can tell they picked up from someone else—really turns judges off.”

Diorio’s audition advice doesn’t come only from his experiences on So You Think You Can Dance. He also knows what judges like because he’s been winning them over himself since age 17, when he caused a stir on the TV show Star Search by scoring a record-setting perfect four stars each week that he appeared.

Diorio went on to a successful performance career, dancing with Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson, Ricky Martin, and Jennifer Lopez and performing as a featured lead in the Broadway musical Fosse. Along the way he began choreographing at various studios and for workshops, developing the blend of jazz, modern, African, and musical theater that has become his signature style. “The fun thing about choreographing is that with all of those influences, it’s like having a bunch of puzzle pieces and fitting them together to make something beautiful,” says the choreographer.

How do the dancers fit into that puzzle? “If they’re strong and technically stylized, dancers can be really inspiring,” Diorio says. He finds that attentive, communicative dancers often help push his work to a higher level. “If a dancer understands my language, my style, then even if we’re just goofing around in the studio, great things tend to happen.”

Kishaya Dudley
Today she’s an edgy, acclaimed dancer and choreographer who works with artists like Gwen Stefani, Ashanti, and Usher, but as a kid growing up in a tough part of the Bronx, Kishaya Dudley admired the stars of music videos from afar. “I wanted to be Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Madonna—and especially Prince,” Dudley says. “Watching them on TV, they seemed bigger than life. I was totally taken over by their star power.”

But Dudley, who’s known for her determination and no-nonsense attitude, wasn’t just dreaming about being a star; she was working toward that goal. At 11, she started taking ballet, modern, African, jazz, and tap classes with Repertory Dance Company of East Harlem, a public school program. At 16, she got one of her first big breaks in a characteristically gutsy way: She found out where a Lil’ Kim rehearsal was being held, asked the choreographer if she could learn the steps in the back of the studio, and ended up with a job. Later, a friend at Def Jam records asked her to choreograph the video for Ja Rule’s “Holla Holla.” “I’d always known that I wanted to choreograph, but that was really my first experience with choreography,” Dudley says. Her career snowballed from there, and soon she was working with some of the biggest names in the industry.

Unsurprisingly, Dudley likes dancers who have “heart and ambition.” But she won’t tolerate big egos or students who mess around in the studio. “Be on time, don’t complain, pick up the steps quickly, and follow my rules,” she says. “It irritates me to have to go over things over and over again.” And life is too short, she says, to hold anything back at auditions. “That’s the most common mistake I see—people get scared and pull into themselves. But that means that the director won’t see your full potential. Give it all.”

Dudley recently choreographed the Disney Channel Original Movie Camp Rock, starring the Jonas Brothers. And her major, ongoing project? Her 6-year-old daughter, Devyn.

Sonya Tayeh
Sonya Tayeh, the mohawk-topped young choreographer who burst onto the contemporary dance scene when she joined the So You Think You Can Dance crew last season, had what some would consider an impossibly late start. Although she studied dance casually as a teen in Detroit, it wasn’t until she began taking choreography classes at Wayne State University that she truly fell in love. “From then on, I knew that I wanted to be a choreographer,” Tayeh says. “I wanted to make things.”

And the dances she makes are eccentric, aggressive, funky. Even though she’s only been working as a choreographer for a few years, Tayeh already has a distinctive voice, which she showcased on So You Think You Can Dance in pieces like her raw, combative jazz routine to Mirah’s song “The Garden.” “I think my work doesn’t look like other choreographers’ because I don’t really watch a lot of dance,” she says. “What inspires me most are superheroes, like Superwoman and Spider-Woman. I read a lot of comic books and watch cartoons.”

Since Tayeh’s appearances on So You Think You Can Dance, attendance at her Edge Performing Arts Studio classes in Los Angeles has skyrocketed. What are some of the common mistakes she sees her students making? “Wasting time by being timid,” she says. “I like confident, open dancers who are willing to show me what they’ve got from the get-go.” As a late beginner herself, Tayeh has empathy for dancers who are still working on their technique. “I can fix bad habits and technical problems, as long as the dancer is passionate,” she says. “But it’s hard for me to work with mechanical dancers. You can’t teach drive, and you can’t teach heart.”

Unsurprisingly, Tayeh’s life has been a bit hectic since So You Think You Can Dance wrapped last summer. “It’s been a whirlwind of really wonderful projects,” she says. Foremost among them was her own show, Battles, which played in North Hollywood last November. “The title is very literal,” she laughs. “It’s based on everything I’ve been battling with this year: the fight to keep my integrity as an artist, and the fight to not budge when it comes to the recruiting process.”

Wes Veldink
Wes Veldink has seen many sides of the dance world. His career began in a tiny town in Oregon, where at age 15, already eager to teach and choreograph, he opened a dance studio with his middle-school physical education teacher.

Veldink went on to conquer the West Coast scene, spending 10 years dancing, teaching, and choreographing in Los Angeles. Then he relocated to New York City and made a name for himself on the East Coast, founding his own company, The Wes Veldink Movement, and teaching at Steps on Broadway and Broadway Dance Center. And he regularly travels abroad to choreograph for Oslo Dance Ensemble in Norway, Osaka School of Music in Japan, International Dance Meeting in Italy, and Nadine Bommer Academy in Israel, among others.

That’s quite a wealth of experience—and bits of each place, each project, have found their way into his choreographic style. In fact, Veldink has so many different influences that he has trouble labeling his own work. “My classes are always called ‘jazz,’ or some variant of that,” he says. “But really it’s modern contemporary movement with a bit of a street, hip-hop edge”—all united by a slinky, lyrical fluidity.

What advice does this well-rounded, well-traveled choreographer have for aspiring dancers? “Don’t take the art in dance for granted,” he says. “I see a lot of young dancers getting caught up in execution and technique and forgetting to cultivate the artist within themselves.”

Veldink believes that the development of a student’s inner artist is the most important, and most difficult, part of a teacher’s job. “Dance teachers need to get students to realize that they’re not just bodies but individuals with something to say,” he says. “Balancing art and technique in class is tricky, but without art, technique doesn’t mean anything.”

From its roots as an underground activity, Brazil’s national art form has gone global

By Anne L. Silveri

Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian melding of dance and martial arts, is considered a national treasure in its native Brazil and has become a global phenomenon. But it wasn’t always so revered. When Jelon Vieira, a Brazilian capoeira master and a major force in popularizing the art form in the United States, left his house as a boy of 10, he would tell his mother he was off to play soccer. Actually, he was learning capoeira, which was then held in little esteem, in the streets of his hometown in Bahia. “She believed me because I would return dirty and sweaty,” he recalls.

Paulo Silva and Raphael Novaes, members of DanceBrazil, demonstrate capoeira moves. Nicknames are a tradition in capoeira; Silva is known as “Professor Chuvisco” and Novaes as “Fogo." (Photo by Jelon Vieira, courtesy DanceBrazil)

In this art form, dancers hurl themselves through the air, landing just in time to engage or provoke their partner. It’s sometimes hard to tell if what they’re doing is a form of combat, a game, or a dance. Often described by its practitioners as “a fight like a dance and dance like a fight,” it involves a kinetic conversation between the performers. In fact, one “plays” capoeira.

The basic structure involves a circle or semi-circle, where one performer enters the center and challenges another in a playful game of one-upmanship. The onlookers play instruments and sing as they cheer on the competitors. Dancers move in and out of each other’s negative spaces in exciting, near-miss moves. And some of those moves happen in the air as cartwheels, flips, and other acrobatic feats are melded into the dance. Sometimes a third dancer enters the mix. The movement language involves quick weight shifts, swinging limbs, and constant changes in direction, and there’s always a strong sense of connecting to one’s partner.

Today you’re more likely to find capoeira in a studio and on the stage than on the street. In the 1960s there were only two schools in Brazil; now there are hundreds. Though capoeira’s many styles and masters are distinct, they share a common ancestry.

Capoeira is taught in health clubs and physical education classes as well as in schools dedicated to the art form. “It’s become far more athletic,” says Vieira. At first exclusively practiced by men, capoeira today embraces people of both genders and all ages and levels of fitness. As in martial arts, there is a belt system, with specific requirements for each level, but no weapons are involved and there’s no Eastern influence. Music, which includes drums, tambourines, and the berimbau (an ancient, bow-like, stringed percussion instrument), is a huge part of the experience.

‘[Jelon Vieira] is such an example of humility; when he is teaching all the passion for life and capoeira comes out. He gives it all and demands the same.’ —Mauricio Campos

Capoeira originated in the 16th century as a way for African slaves who worked on sugar cane plantations to train physically under their owners’ noses; its game-like structure disguised what was intended as physical conditioning. Music was intertwined into the form early on, which helped keep up the false front. The paradox of the dance remains intact even today.

Even after Brazil abolished slavery in 1888, capoeira was illegal for decades. But it flourished underground, and eventually two leaders with distinct styles emerged. Manuel dos Reis Machado, known as “Mestre Bimba,” founded Capoeira Regional. Bimba convinced local leaders of capoeira’s cultural value and was instrumental in getting the ban on it overturned in the 1930s. Considered by many as the father of contemporary capoeira, he founded Academia-escola de Capoeira Regional, the first capoeira school, in 1932 in Salvador-Bahia. Vicente Ferreira Pastinha, known as “Mestre Pastinha,” is considered the father of another school, Capoeira Angola.

Capoeira Angola is considered the “mother” form. Unlike Capoeira Regional, it doesn’t award belts (cordas), and its rhythms are different; the pace is slower and the game much closer to the ground. Capoeira Regional might seem more athletic because of the flash moves and fast pace, but in Capoeira Angola the games are much longer, which also requires strength. In both forms, dance moves are often the preparation for a powerful strike.

Vieira, who divides his time between teaching all over the world and touring with his company, was one of the first people to bring capoeira to the United States. He founded Capoeira Luanda (which has studios in Texas, New York, Florida, Colorado, Missouri, Massachusetts, and Brazil), and directs the Capoeira Foundation, a New York–based performance and teaching group. The 55-year-old master teacher, who was recently honored with a 2009 NEA National Heritage Fellowship, trained with many famous teachers in Brazil, including Mestres Bimba, Eziquiel, and Bobo.

Eventually Vieira sought to expand his dance training, coming to the United States to study with Alvin Ailey, José Limón, and other pioneers of modern dance. In 1975 Ailey suggested that Vieira start a company and call it DanceBrazil. “He told me to keep [the name] simple,” recalls Vieira. “And make it easy to pronounce.”

DanceBrazil represents a blend of its own; the company includes both traditionally trained modern dancers and top capoeiristas. “There’s no way to separate the dance from the martial arts,” says Vieira. The company’s dancers, who have trained in modern, ballet, and capoeira, need to sharpen their acrobatics chops, and the capoeiristas need to blend in with the dancers. Vieira likes to throw some samba into the mix as well. “There are so many cultural influences in capoeira,” he says. “There’s also maeucule, a traditional folk dance, in there as well.”

As happened with hip-hop, changes occur when an art form travels from the street to the studio; typically the movement vocabulary becomes codified and the form develops in new directions. And that is just what DanceBrazil is all about. Though Vieira admits that a stage performance demands planning, he works toward keeping the risk-taking quality intact so that the dance maintains its edginess. It’s not unusual for the end of a DanceBrazil show to include an improvised feast of acrobatics.

One of Vieira’s leading students, Mauricio Campos, 40, has developed a successful training center, Brazilian Cultural Center, in Houston. A São Paulo native, he came to the United States in 1990 as a professional skateboarder and first encountered capoeira in a workshop in Texas. After his first class he was intrigued; after he encountered Vieira’s teachings he was hooked. “His classes are just amazing, first because of the kind of person he is—for him it’s always about becoming a better human being,” says Campos. “He is such an example of humility; when he is teaching all the passion for life and capoeira comes out. He gives it all and demands the same.”

Campos’ sunny studio in the Heights, a culturally diverse area of Houston, features a colorful, wall-sized mural that tells the history of capoeira. The school’s students hail from Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, France, the Philippines, Venezuela, and Belize. They come for a variety of reasons—for fitness or self-defense, or to be part of an exciting dance art—and spend a good deal of time learning to play traditional instruments as well. Campos infuses the spontaneous spirit of capoeira into his teaching. Unlike in traditional martial arts, testing is not a rigid procedure. “Our testing process is more of a celebration,” he says.

Vieira and his colleagues regularly visit to offer master classes. “Jelon carries 45 years of experience in capoeira and it is an honor to be his student,” says Campos. “It’s a great treat for all of us to have him sharing his knowledge and wisdom with us.” The school also offers classes in samba and Portuguese. “Samba is always part of capoeira,” Campos says. “You will find most schools offer classes; it’s part of who we are as Brazilians.”

Campos, who is known as “Gringo” within his community, says that nicknames are part of the capoeira tradition. “I know intuitively when a student is ready for their nickname. That’s an important day. I try to choose a name that fits, and I wait for it to come to me,” he says.

Campos is deeply connected to Houston’s lively dance scene and he and his students often participate in contemporary and world dance festivals. Modern dancers are even known to give his classes a try from time to time. The form is not unlike contact improvisation, where support and interaction take on an exciting element.

Last fall Campos brought capoeira back to its street roots when he hosted a festival, “Samba Night on the Plaza,” where 3,000 people gathered to listen to samba music, watch capoeira, and sample Brazilian food. “I felt so proud to be sharing my culture,” says Campos, who is planning a second festival in March.

Though Campos is proud of what he has achieved in Houston, he stays connected to his mentor. The two travel between the United States and Brazil, continuing to learn and teach this unique art form. “It’s about being alive every second,” says Vieira.

Both men agree that capoeira is a philosophy of life, but Campos takes it even further: “Jelon has said this before and I completely agree—with time you become capoeira.”