Archive for the ‘2009 | 11 | November’ Category

November 2009 cover

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

Departments
Thinking Out Loud
Students Speak Out
Mail
Humor and Heartstrings
Teacher in the Spotlight | Tonya L Guldenpfennig

Feature Articles
Ballet Scene | Culture Shock by Heather Wisner
Smooth Sailing at Showtime by Theresa Corbley Siller
Casting a Net by Debbie Werbrouck
Lighting at Your Fingertips by Jim Hollborn
Going One-on-One by Vanina and Dennis Wilson
Moving in the Spirit  by Pierre Ruhe
Clean and Green by Julia Holt Lucia
Birthday Bashes by Carol Yearout
Get Hip to History by Lauren Shapiro
Desperately Seeking Music by Julia Holt Lucia
Performance Plus by Karen White
Angelina on the Small Screen by David Favrot
No, Your Other Left Foot by Larry Sousa
Hyped Up by Brian McCormick
How to Get a Rent Break by Dale WIllerton
Preschoolers With Polish by Melissa Hoffman

Advice for dance teachers

Dear Rhee, 
After returning from a dance convention, I feel old and out of place. When I was a kid, we went to dance conventions to learn from the masters who would inspire us with their movement, words of wisdom, and sometimes personal attention. I still carry with me today a few words of encouragement from one of them.

Yesterday my students and I returned from what I’ll call a two-day party, also known as a convention. There was no personal touch; the teachers entered through a kitchen door for classes and were escorted out that same door after class by bodyguards who kept the dancers and the teachers at bay. There were loud music and lights flashing in a dark room that reminded me of a barroom atmosphere, and the teacher was maybe 22 years old. He was on one of the reality TV shows—and that’s what made him a master? But he couldn’t count music and had no inclination to actually teach the students; instead he kept telling them to watch him do the combination over and over.

I get that things have changed, but my students paid a couple hundred dollars to learn new techniques and what they got was a two-day show of 20-somethings who loved themselves a whole lot more than the students in the classrooms. Do we really need all the lights and screaming and yelling by both the teachers and the students at a dance convention? And what happened to ballet classes? If the conventions are not offering them, how do we convince our students of the importance of training in ballet? 

I thought I was bringing my students to take from masters who would teach them something to improve their technique and their understanding of the art form, and also inspire them. That is not what they got. What happened to mature teachers with credentials as professional teachers or choreographers? How does a 22-year-old with no teaching experience become a master teacher? 

Although I felt completely out of place, several hundred students were slammed into ballrooms with no room to actually move. That indicates to me that this is what the future is all about, and I am so sad to see what it’s all turned into.

Any words of advice for a teacher who will not be taking her students to a convention anytime soon? —Old Lady 

Dear Old Lady, 
I too grew up attending dance conventions that would be considered old-fashioned by today’s standards, and like you, I was inspired by the master teachers who passed on their experience and wealth of knowledge to students who were hungry to learn. I remember taking from Luigi, Gus Giordano, Beverly Fletcher, Frank Hatchett, Robert Joffrey—and the list goes on and on. As for the atmosphere, it was a big old ballroom, fully lit with no flashing lights or hype. It was simple; you went to a convention to take class, to learn, and to go back to your hometown school with new knowledge.

In defense of today’s conventions, the dance world is evolving in ways that make it far different than it was 25 or 30 years ago, when most students’ goals were to become the best dancers they could be and maybe land on Broadway or in Los Angeles as professionals. But the reality TV shows you mention have produced a different mind-set in younger dancers now. Today, young dancers hope to be on one of those shows, and they strive to make that happen any way they can. Attending these conventions and having the chance to see those who have succeeded at their goal is what they want to do. Maybe, if the reality shows had been around in our day, we would have done the same thing. My brother Rennie and I were on Star Search, and I look at that show as the predecessor of what we see today.

Don’t give up on exposing your students to the dance conventions. Instead, become a little more particular with your choices. There are still many events where the masters of today teach and where you will find ballet classes. Look for the conventions that reflect your values and those you want to instill in your students.

Also, instead of thinking that conventions have changed so much, look at them as offering many more options. There are conventions that focus on hip-hop, complete tap events, and everything in between. The diversity in conventions of today reflects the range of opportunities that dancers have in the new dance world. We wanted more opportunities in our day; today’s options are what we were dreaming of. Though different than we might have imagined, they are there, and the passion for dance is growing like never before. All the best to you. —Rhee

Dear Rhee,
I am struggling with my moral duties as a studio owner. I feel like I try to do the right thing, but this generation of “need it now” students doesn’t understand. Of course, when some of these people don’t get what they want, what do they do? They walk. It seems like it gets harder and harder to stay true to teaching dance the correct way vs having to satisfy every crazy request to be on pointe, every kid (or mom) who wants to move up when they clearly aren’t ready, etc. I even dread picking competition kids because if they don’t make the team, they travel up the road until they do. Everyone says to be patient and my hard work will pay off in the end and my reputation will take over. It just seems like with this generation it will never happen. Thank you for any advice you can give. —Sarah 

Hi Sarah, 
Everyone who reads this column has felt your frustration at one point. What becomes important is staying true to your values. Let go of the worry that some students (or parents) will choose to leave because you have values that don’t match theirs. You know what is right for your students and you’re doing it, instead of simply giving them or their parents whatever they want.

You are teaching more than dance; you are educating children about life. And one of those lessons is simple: You can’t move to step #2 before you’ve accomplished step #1. The fact that you have a standard—that hard work and physical readiness are what get you into a pointe class—teaches children that effort, dedication, and focus pay off.

No, not every parent or student will appreciate that you have integrity, and it will be frustrating at times—but you can go to bed at night knowing you are doing the right thing. That is more valuable than becoming rich by teaching dance. A reputation for honesty, quality, and integrity will pay off in the long run. You need to stick to your beliefs and forget about what others are doing. Be different in your area by becoming the teacher known for doing it right, and you will attract the clientele that is looking for that. I wish you all the best. —Rhee 

Hi Rhee,
I have owned a dance studio for 36 years, which has had a competition team for 34 years. At a workshop this summer, several teachers mentioned that in addition to class fees, they charge a monthly fee for their team members to offset time spent on paperwork, extra rehearsals, costume ordering, master workshops, faculty time, hotel rooms, and gas mileage (all pertaining to competitions). My faculty and I tossed around ideas—perhaps a small yearly fee as opposed to monthly? I have never charged a fee and would love your input on this. —Tory  

Hello Tory,
In my travels I have heard of a couple of options. First is to charge a one-time separate fee that covers the studio’s costs to participate. This could be charged at the beginning of the season in one lump sum or over the first few months. The fees seem to range from $50 to $100 per dancer. The other option is to add a surcharge to the actual entry fees; for example, a $25 fee might be increased to $28.

The key to making this work is to be honest with your clientele. Once you rattle off the list of expenses you described above, there will be little for the parents to question. It is when we charge fees without explanation that problems arise. In most cases, the parents appreciate the honesty. Good luck! —Rhee

By Mignon Furman

Tip 1
Many young teachers do not teach the vocabulary of classical ballet. We have such a wonderful tradition, and it is necessary for teachers to continue it.

Changement, échappé, pas de chat, and glissade are known by most teachers, but how about assemblé, sissonne, jeté, and pas de bourrée? All basic vocabulary, they are taught as over (dessus) or under (dessous). En avant or devant, en arrière or derrière—it is amazing how many interesting combinations can be devised.

Tip 2
A forward bend is an important stretch (particularly for the hamstrings), so start it at a fairly young age, about 7 or 8. It can be done in two ways: Either the head commences the bend and the body rolls down, or the body hinges at the hips. The head still initiates the movement, but the body hinges at the hips so that it looks like a plank. The head is still relaxed and the bend continues.

In either bend, there must be no pulling back on the legs; the weight of the body should be over the balls of the feet with the heels firmly into the floor.

Want to improve your day? Make sure your nights are spent slumbering.

By Suzanne Martin, PT, DPT

Missing a little sleep? Well, think twice about doing that, if you can. As someone who travels frequently across both national and international time zones on business, I can attest to the mental and physical challenges of sleep disruption. And judging from the plethora of commercials for sleep medication on television and in magazines, sleep—or more important, insomnia—is a national concern.

Freud made sleep important in 1900 with The Interpretation of Dreams, which maintained that dreams reveal one’s motivations. When I took an abnormal psychology course, one of my favorite parts of it was recording my dreams. (The best one involved marrying Michael Jackson!) Oddly enough, sleep wasn’t considered essential for physiological health until the 1950s, when it was discovered that sleep was an active mental state, not a passive suspension-of-life one as theorized by the scientists of Freud’s time.

Types of sleep
Neuroscientists now know that the sleep–wake cycle is a part of normal physiology and progresses through life from the frequent sleep periods of an infant, to the twice-a-day pattern of a napping child, to the adult’s circadian cycle of one sleep period and one awake period.

Technically sleep includes several phases of deep non-REM (rapid eye movements) sleep and the lighter REM sleep. Non-REM sleep is characterized by a very heavy, still period during which the sleeper is hard to awaken. The lighter, almost hyperactive REM phases are what we see in dogs when they twitch and imitate running while snoozing.

Sleep deprivation
Although sleep has been well studied, its exact physiological mechanisms remain elusive. However, numerous studies cite the effects of deprivation, even though we still don’t know exactly how it works. Of particular interest to dancers is the effect of sleep deprivation on muscles, metabolism, and mental function.

Not only is a sleep-deprived person unlikely to have the energy needed to get through a week; in addition, sugar may be deposited in the fat stores too quickly, causing weight gain.

Deprivation tends to lead to problems with blood sugar regulation. There are several possible reasons for this. One is that without adequate sleep, your body fails to store carbohydrates in the muscles as sugar (called glycogen, which is the major form of energy that dancers use). Because muscle sugar tends to become depleted over consecutive days of exercise, further depletion caused by sleep deprivation poses a problem for dancers, who often dance six days a week. So not only is a sleep-deprived person unlikely to have the muscle energy needed to get through a week, in addition, sugar may be deposited in the fat stores too quickly, causing weight gain. Sleep deprivation can also lead to an oversupply of circulating blood sugar, which is a big problem for diabetics, who must pay critical attention to their blood sugar levels.

What’s the big deal?
It’s easy to recognize that staying up all night, or losing sleep due to working the swing shift, or moonlighting due to the recession could be hard on a person’s health. Yet many of us justify losing a bit of sleep every night, thinking those small losses couldn’t possibly add up to much. Winding down after night classes and late rehearsals is a particular problem for many in the dance and theater set.

A study involving driving looked at the scenario of losing one hour of sleep per night (in a typical eight-hour night) over many nights. Expected effects were seen on cognitive functions such as judgment, impulse control, attention, and visual acuity. The frightening thing was that the study’s subjects weren’t aware of these deficits.

It gets even worse: In other studies, in which even more sleep was deprived over a week, the subjects’ thinking ability became comparable to that of stroke patients. The most common point between a little lack of sleep and severe lack of sleep was that the subjects were unable to recognize the deficits. This is proof that if you want to be in charge and perform at your best, then you have to take charge of your sleep habits.

Taking charge
Here are some tips to make the most of your sleeping hours:

1. Watch your alcohol intake. Dancers often use a “painkiller” to wind down at night and to ease aching legs and back. While one glass of wine may help you nod off initially, it actually disrupts the sleep stages, causing you to linger in the non-deep stages and making you awaken before you’d like to. Instead, try an Epsom salts bath (about ¾ cup in a tub of warm water) and a warm, calming tea like chamomile to slow down the churning wheels of body and mental activity.
2. Do some aerobics. Nothing is better than oxygen. Getting cardio by walking, running, or biking about three times per week can aid sleep as long as you exercise at least 3 to 4 hours before bedtime. (Exercising too close to bedtime can disrupt sleep.) Dancers may be resistant to other forms of exercise or feel so tired at the end of the workday that more activity seems impossible. Remember that even 10 minutes done at several separate times of the day can count. Walk to the store or take the stairs—anything to get in more oxygen. Dancers use “spurt” energy instead of the aerobic type of metabolism marathon runners use. So it’s important for dancers to get aerobic exercise; the oxygen is a natural sleep aid.
3. Work on your stress level. For busy studio owners, this is easier said than done. Try forming a habit of journaling, meditating, praying, or any other form of internal concentration. It will take discipline to get started, but you’ll succeed in setting the behavior if you persist for 21 days. Even if you feel you can’t devote an actual sit-down time to stress defense, try self-talk. Take a tip from principal dancers, many of whom help themselves succeed through self-talk. Encourage yourself during the day as you find yourself feeling frustrated or starting to fade. Reassure yourself that you only have so much time until the end of class or whatever task you have to do. It works. That way, at the end of the day you don’t have to process all the little (or big) annoyances and frustrations that happen in a normal business day.
4. Create a bedroom sanctuary, a designated space for sleeping. Remove stimulating things like TVs and computers. Stereos are fine if you avoid loud, stimulating music; soft music can help produce that sanctuary feeling. And “white noise” (a low, static sound, like that of a fan) can help calm you.
5. Allow yourself a wind-down period of about 15 minutes before you want to go to sleep. Light reading is the trick; don’t try to absorb detailed technical material. And save the whodunnits and bodice-rippers for daytime. Getting so involved with a novel or movie that you can’t bear to put it down or turn it off could give you double eye bags in the morning.

A positive approach
Another interesting finding in sleep-deprivation studies is that people who were not satisfied with their sleep actually may have slept a full eight hours and not recognized it. So just getting yourself to stay in bed is a good discipline. A common mistake is to get up and read or do work when sleep is interrupted, which only reinforces the insomniac pattern.

A better approach is to soothe yourself, with self-talk and pleasant sensations, just as you would an infant. Remember, we have an evolutionary hindbrain, a low-level primitive brain, as part of our total makeup. Rub your hands on your bedding and notice the texture; tell yourself how pleasant the sensations are. Listen to your breathing. Tell yourself, “All is well,” because at that moment, chances are that you really are OK. You can train yourself to focus on pleasant rather than unpleasant stimuli, a skill often used by patients who suffer chronic pain.

You spent all that time training yourself in meticulous dance skills. Getting your sleep patterns under control may seem like a daunting task, but with a little knowledge and effort, you can sleep well. And a good night’s sleep can make daily life an enjoyable event.

I have faith in you.

Words from the publisher

By Rhee Gold

I’ve been thinking about the issues of respect and credibility among dance teachers. Is the teacher who produces phenomenal ballerinas more credible than the teacher who produces the best hip-hop dancers? Is the teacher in small-town America less passionate than the teacher in big-city America? My thought is that all dance teachers pass on the gifts of dance in the most appropriate way for them. They share a common goal and I don’t judge how they do it.

In fact, in my writing and seminars I always encourage teachers to get together with one another to share the life with those who best understand it (even if the other teacher happens to be in the same town). One of our loyal readers, whom I will call Mary, took the “common bond” message to heart. She sent an email flyer to the school owners in her area, inviting them and their students to a day of master classes at her school. Sounds like the perfect way to open the doors of communication—or was it?

In response to Mary’s email, she received the following:
Today I received your invitation for September 19. We are a professional school teaching dance as an art form, not a commercial dance studio. Our students go to summer programs at Joffrey, ABT, and Governor’s School, to name a few. We would not be sending our trained pre-professional students to the boonies to study with former beauty queens. Please kindly remove us from your mailing list.

What strikes me most about this response is that this school owner made the time in her busy and obviously successful teaching life to ridicule Mary. Of course, it’s acceptable not to respond at all—we all receive email invitations to dance events that don’t interest us—but why go out of your way to be mean? What inspires a dance person to hurt another is beyond my understanding.

There isn’t one positive thing that comes from this teacher’s mean-spirited response to an invitation sent in a gesture of goodwill. Instead of the proper response—silence, or a polite “No, thanks”—this person has created resentment. Without claiming to be an expert in psychology, I am confident that she could be described as an insecure person with a need to feel superior to someone—anyone. And she chose to stroke her ego by degrading another person who loves to do the same thing she does. Too bad.

But wait—I just thought of the good that comes from this email: It inspires me—and, I hope, Dance Studio Life readers—to be resilient advocates for bringing the dance community together, especially educators and school owners. No matter where and how we choose to share it, we all share a passion for our art. We can’t help ourselves.

By Justine Mann

Over the last few years I have become increasingly concerned about some of the judges and teachers at dance competitions and conventions. While some are amazing teachers who know their stuff and have a great deal to offer to our students, others seem to have a distinct gap in their understanding of technique.

I have been a judge, and it is no easy task. Sometimes you teach all day at a convention and adjudicate all evening, putting in a 16-hour day. I get it. Sometimes you are so tired that you misspeak or reverse your words. It’s understandable and I really do empathize, but I’m not talking about those occasions. I’m talking about giving incorrect information or making ridiculous comments.

For argument’s sake I’m going to focus on ballet technique. I look forward to a good critique of my students. A teacher can make all the corrections in the world, but sometimes it takes one other person to say it differently—and suddenly the student gets it. I always hope that the judges’ critiques will give my dancers more understanding of how they can improve.

Recently I took my students to a high-end, distinguished dance competition. On the outside it looked good, with seasoned judges with good working backgrounds and resumes. Afterward, my dancers and I sat down to listen to the judges’ comments. I do not censor the remarks; my teens have been around long enough to know the drill.

We were listening to the comments on a duo when suddenly all eyes whipped around and looked at me. Did I hear what I thought I heard? I replayed the comment, and sure enough, I hadn’t misunderstood. One of the judges said (and I quote), “I don’t understand why this is a lyrical dance as there are no lyrics in it.” I cannot possibly defend that lack of education. I try to teach my students respect for professionals in this field as well as for other dancers and studios, but I can’t ask my students to respect someone who has no idea what he or she is doing.

The next few examples are verbatim. One judge told my ballet students to “tuck your hips under really hard.” A personal favorite of mine: “Whip your leg around past your hip line in a fouetté turn.” And yet another said, “Your hips need to be over your heels, not your toes, when you are on pointe.”

When a pas de bourrée is called a “behind, side, front” or when a judge or teacher calls a tour en l’air “that turning jump thing,” it takes away from the integrity of the work.

Why is it so hard to find people who understand ballet technique? When a pas de bourrée is called a “behind, side, front” or when a judge or teacher calls a tour en l’air “that turning jump thing,” it takes away from the integrity of the work. It dishonors it.

One panel member’s only feedback for a 2 ½-minute ballet group was, “They should use more gel in their hair.” How is this helpful or even relevant? Don’t waste my time and, more important, my students’ money.

By definition, if you are a judge you are holding yourself up as an expert. That means you should be able to speak knowledgeably and explain your reasoning. So my question is: Should we accept these comments or should there be a way to bring these problems to the attention of someone higher up without risk of looking like a troublemaker?

If a competition has ballet categories, I feel that it is the responsibility of the company to have qualified judges at the table; otherwise, don’t have a ballet section. It is irresponsible to allow people to give out this erroneous information. I know better (I have an extensive background in ballet), but young and new teachers use the judges’ comments to improve their own teaching skills. At best it’s bad information and at worst it could lead to a career-ending injury. Either way, it’s not good enough.

I have spent much of my life educating dancers and teachers; I continue to educate myself so that I can be a better teacher. Why do these people not take the same pride in dance history and the teaching profession?

I know there are wonderful, caring teachers out there; I have had the privilege and honor of working with them. Why is it OK to be mediocre? As teachers and judges, we owe these young, wonderful dancers so much more than that.

Dance Is the Answer

By Genevieve Scandone

I started taking modern dance and ballet classes 40 years ago, when I was 22. For most of those years, I had a great time, doing something I had only dreamed of as a kid.

The exception to this idyllic picture is that from 1991 to 1999, I pretty much couldn’t walk. For no apparent reason, my knees stopped bending and straightening. They had a range of motion of only a few degrees, which made walking and just about everything else difficult. I also was in quite a lot of pain. As an added wrinkle, I couldn’t lift my right arm above shoulder height. For two years I went from one chiropractor to another, one masseuse to another, in addition to MDs and an osteopath, and I tried a dozen prescriptions. Nothing helped much, or for long. Finally, in 1993, I had arthroscopic surgery in both knees. I had expected to be able to run, play tennis, certainly walk! But that was not the case. I still had a long road ahead.

I know this sounds impossible, but during the year before my surgery I was dancing at Astoria Dance Centre in Queens, New York. The school’s owner, Maureen Gelchion, had started an adult tap class with Rhonda Price—a “hoofing” class, so I didn’t have to move around too much. I performed in the first recital of my life in June 1993.

Over the next two years, my mobility got worse. My motto was “I can’t walk, but I can dance!” The doctors thought I had rheumatoid arthritis. I was terrified that I would be using a wheelchair by the time my 10-year-old daughter entered high school. I’ve always been good in an emergency; I just never imagined that an emergency could last for years.

What gave me hope was that although I was barely able to shuffle to class, after dancing for an hour I would bounce down the stairs and sashay home as if there were nothing wrong with my knees!

I refused to stop dancing. I would creep the five blocks to the studio, pull myself up the stairs by the banister, and take tap class with Debbie Frye. What gave me hope was that although I was barely able to shuffle to class, after dancing for an hour I would bounce down the stairs and sashay home as if there were nothing wrong with my knees!

This unbelievable but undeniable fact convinced me that I could and would get better. For the 1995–1996 season, Maureen hired Paula Bentivenga to teach tap and modern. Of course, crazy person that I am, I signed up for both, even though, among other things, I still could not lift my right arm. Paula’s release technique involved a lot of arm swinging. My shoulder started to loosen up, and my whole body started to get stronger. And when the tap number in that year’s recital called for us to raise our arms overhead, I could do it! I was happier than I’d been in a very long time. My husband and my masseuse were cheering from their sixth-row seats.

After that I kept taking class—mostly tap, some ballet—but I did not have the opportunity to perform again until 2004. And then last year, at the age of 61, I fulfilled a childhood dream—I performed in my first ballet recital.

Was it the loose-limbed movement of tap and modern? The “be here now” of dance class? The fun? My refusal to be sick? Endorphins? Some indefinable combination? Whatever it was, I don’t think I could have recovered my mobility without dancing. At Astoria Dance Center I never heard a word of criticism or complaint, was never made to feel that I was a burden or too out of commission to participate.

I still can’t do a grand plié in first, and I doubt that I’ll ever again do a grand jeté en tournant, but I can do a passé (even a pirouette!), several kinds of time steps, and Graham spirals and sparkles.

These days, I have a new motto: “Dance is the answer!”

Words from our readers

We want you to know how thrilled we were after reading the wonderfully written article, “When Frank and Victor Met May” [August 2009]. Everyone who read it loves it, including the entire board of May [O’Donnell’s] foundation in New York City! You did a super job of describing the essence of Shawl-Anderson and its inspirational source—May!
Frank Shawl and Victor Anderson
Shawl-Anderson Dance Center
Berkeley, CA

I want to thank you for including Dance Expressions in your article “Directors’ Dialogue” [DSL, September 2009]. We are a small company that has been on the competition scene for 18 years. It felt good to be part of such an important discussion among contemporaries that I respect. I love your publication—it always offers fresh ideas and always puts a smile on my face!
Cathy Tubolino
Dance Expressions

And some words from our Facebook fans:

I love your magazine and look forward to my issue every month. It has given me so many ideas and helpful tips, etc., etc. Thanks for such a great magazine.
Susie Pennington

I love the magazine! The most useful dance magazine in my library!
Susan Hubert-Jeep

I have taught dance off and on for eons. Years ago, a class of new kindergartners and I were taking a break, sitting and pointing and flexing our toes. One little blond cherub informed me that her feet were “so tired.” I asked her what she did at school that day to make them so tired. She stood up, hands on little hips, and, looking very serious, replied, “What do you expect? I have been walking on these feet for five years!”

Diana Duda
Diana’s Dance & Fitness Dynamics, Ltd.
Glenwood, IL

Anything to be a princess
After being invited to join the MusicWorks young ballet apprentice program, 7-year-old Nina Dove ran to her mother and excitedly told her that she was going to be in the “a-princess” program. Close enough.

Shelia Sumpter
MusicWorks Studio of Performing Arts
Waynesville, NC

Too much information
I was working with 3- and 4-year-olds, having them move around the room balancing beanbags and holding them on different parts of the body. I asked them to hold the beanbags between their knees and walk around the room. A few seconds later one of the little girls said, “Miss Toni! I’m carrying my beanbag on my vagina!”

Toni-Lynn Miles
Middlesex Dance Center
Middlefield, CT

Times have changed
The kids see my records and say, “That’s the biggest CD I’ve ever seen.” And my 13-year-old teaching assistant didn’t know how to turn the record player on!

Donna Butters
Donna’s Dance Place
Cedar Rapids, IA

Too much information, take 2
You know how when little kids get talking they always enter the “more than I need to know” zone? When I was pregnant and teaching 3- and 4-year-olds, there were always plenty of questions from them. I tried to answer in a delicate and appropriate way. One little girl said, “My mom can’t have babies anymore—she got her cords connected.” I said, “OK! Let’s do some pliés,” and moved on.

Jill Keating
Pointe Chautauqua Dance
Mayville, NY

Artistic director, Premier Dance Academy, Clearwater, FL

Nominated by: Elizabeth Wolfe, student: “Tonya Guldenpfennig is the person I admire most in the whole world. I started taking ballet when I was 50, at another studio. It was as if I was invisible. Then Miss Tonya opened Premier Dance Academy, and I started my real ballet instruction there at age 53. Miss Tonya gives her personal attention to each student. She has a contagious positive attitude and truly believes each dancer can achieve her dreams. Miss Tonya has fixed my hip alignment, my arms, my bottom—my everything. She inspires us all with her energy, her brilliant choreography, her faith in each of us, her amazing knowledge of dance and performing, her effort to make the studio better every day, and the way she has faced her own dance challenges with unwavering determination and plain hard work. She expects no more from us than she is willing to do herself as she dances with us, works out with us, sweats with us, side by side, every class. She is what every dance teacher aspires to be!”

AGES TAUGHT: 2 through adult.

GENRES TAUGHT: Ballet, pointe, jazz, tap, lyrical, and contemporary.

TEACHING DANCE FOR: 20 years.

“When you see a dancer with the look of ‘I finally got it!’’— that’s the memory every dance teacher cherishes,” says Tonya Guldenpfennig. (Photo courtesy Tonya Guldenpfennig)

WHY SHE TEACHES: I learned at a very young age that there was no greater passion in my life. I felt whole when I was dancing. I would wake up each morning, and still do, looking forward to being at the studio and surrounding myself with all the joys, body aches, and fulfillment that dancing brings to me.

GREATEST INSPIRATION: Ray and Cindy Hollingsworth. I started at their school in my hometown as a little girl, and Ray took me under his wing, fostering a very special appreciation for the art of dance and making evident the importance of passing on all the wonderful experiences to future dancers.

PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING: To offer every student, at all levels, skilled, compassionate training and to educate and guide dancers through the exciting world of dance while promoting self-confidence, creativity, and success. To provide an outlet for those students who dance not because they want to but because they must!

WHAT MAKES HER A GOOD TEACHER: I am very strict and require discipline within class, but I also take great pride in the knowledge of each student’s strengths and weaknesses and being creative in knowing how to push in a positive way to allow the dancers to accomplish the goals they reach for.

FONDEST TEACHING MEMORY: I can’t even begin to put my finger on just one—new memories are born every day in each class. When you see a dancer with the look of “I finally got it!”—that’s the memory every dance teacher cherishes. The memories of all your dancers growing before your eyes, in dance and in life!

BEST PIECE OF ADVICE FOR STUDENTS AND/OR TEACHERS: Dance for joy, for accomplishment, for success—because if dancing makes you happy and brings you joy, you have achieved success.

WHAT SHE WOULD DO IF SHE COULDN’T TEACH DANCE: I honestly could not see myself doing anything other than teaching dance. (Just ask my husband!)

MORE THOUGHTS ON DANCE AND TEACHING: I would like to thank all my past and present dancers for letting me be a part of their growth in dance and the parents for their amazing, daily support of their children’s desire to dance.

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.

Dancing Across Borders follows Sokvannara Sar’s incredible journey from Cambodia to the U.S.

By Heather Wisner

As a young folk dancer in his native Cambodia, Sokvannara Sar never dreamed of pursuing a professional ballet career; not long ago, in fact, he was unaware that ballet even existed. So how he got from his village to the corps of Seattle’s Pacific Northwest Ballet—with an extended layover in New York City and a side trip to Varna—makes for a remarkable story. Anne Bass has captured it in her engaging documentary, Dancing Across Borders, which came out last summer.

A bold move
The story begins in 2000, when Bass, on a visit to Cambodia, saw Sar perform with a local folk dance troupe entertaining tourists at Angkor Wat. “His performance really struck me,” she says. “He was very musical, with perfect proportions, and full of joy, which is important for a dancer. He was very charismatic onstage. He just stood out.”

Sokvannara Sar demonstrates his elevation as he dances in Benjamin Millepied’s Etude No. 5 (Photo by Erin Baiano)

Sar, called Sy (pronounced “See”) for short, had started dance training in fifth grade, mostly for fun, but later as a way to supplement his family’s income. After his training, he moved on to the performance stage, then to the company. He enjoyed performing with his friends and making extra money for school—“a dollar or two, which would help us with books and pencils.”

Bass thought about Sar long after her trip was over; she believed he deserved greater access to dance training than he was getting. She mulled over the idea of bringing him to the United States to study at New York City’s School of American Ballet (SAB), where she had served as a board member for many years. “In a way, when I look back on this, it surprises me,” Bass says of her involvement. “It’s not something I might usually do; it was like I was being made to do it.”

Eventually, the invitation was extended to him through the World Monuments Fund, which helped sponsor his dance troupe. The WMF, which helped him obtain a visa, told Sar’s family that it could be a good opportunity for him and that he would be in good hands.

“I always heard a lot about America; I saw it on TV and thought it was pretty remarkable,” Sar says. “When someone told me to travel there, I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t think it was going to happen, but I said, ‘OK, I’ll go to America.’ It’s a big move, to go to the other side of the world.”

Culture shock
Sar and his chaperone arrived in New York in May 2000. He thought he had come just to look at SAB, but he wound up staying for the next few years, with Bass as his sponsor, making the school’s dorms and studios his new home.

The situation became complicated almost immediately, as everyone recalls.

“When someone told me to travel there, I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t think it was going to happen, but I said, ‘OK, I’ll go to America.’ It’s a big move, to go to the other side of the world.” —Sokvannara Sar

Bass had brought photos of the 16-year-old Sar to SAB’s offices, but hadn’t mentioned his age to Peter Boal, who was teaching men’s classes at SAB. Boal says he trusted Bass’ eye for dance, but after he and colleague Jock Soto gave Sar his first ballet audition, they were skeptical. The audition “wasn’t a disaster,” Boal says. “He was handsome and well proportioned and he had great elevation. But he was untrained, and we had the language problem. The level of a 16-year-old was just not there.”

Although Sar had dance experience and knew how to charm an audience and respond to music, Boal says, launching him into a professional ballet career was “a one-in-a-million shot.”

Enter Olga Kostritzky, a longtime SAB teacher who retired last summer. “When I first saw him, he was tiny, tiny, tiny. I thought he was 12,” she says. Rather than giving him a ballet audition, she asked him to perform Cambodian dance. “I lift his leg, I touch his foot, and because he is a dancer, he can follow. I tell Anne, ‘He has a good jump, good feet, a good plié. He is musical; he is elegant. I think in a previous life, he was a prince. He makes a statement. He has a presence.’ ”

A compromise was struck: Bass proposed that Sar study privately with Kostritzky over the summer, then see how he progressed.

“It was sort of like My Fair Lady—a good challenge for a great teacher,” says Boal. “She had the time and wanted to take it on. You could see the frustration in the studio, but that’s how you get where you want to go.”

The sheer determination of both dancer and teacher is evident in the film, which features extensive studio footage. If nothing else, the film offers an unvarnished look at the plain hard work it takes to be a dancer. (Sar didn’t speak any English when he arrived, so in addition to studying with Kostritzky, he started English classes through Berlitz.) That summer he also trained at the New York State School for the Arts in Saratoga and at the Rock School in Philadelphia.

According to Kostritzky, their early relationship had its ups and downs. “It was very difficult: He didn’t speak my language, I didn’t speak his language, everything that was beautiful to me was ugly to him,” she says. “When you are a foreigner, you miss your parents, you miss your country, people make fun of the way you speak. I understood him, so we had a bonding experience. We were nice to each other, but it was also rough. Where he comes from, a woman doesn’t tell a man what to do. We talk about, ‘Oh, I miss the food,’ but then I tell him what to do and he becomes a man! We didn’t fight, but it was boot camp, for him and for me.”

Everything seemed difficult to Sar at first. Turning out was a foreign concept and his teachers were frustrated when he didn’t finish combinations. “Olga had to break me a little bit. She would yell at me a lot and I would get mad, so I would try to do better so I wouldn’t get yelled at,” he jokes. But as he improved, he became more enthusiastic about coming to the studio and trying new things. With his teacher’s patience and persistence, he began to enjoy the new dance idiom bit by bit.

“In the beginning I don’t think he liked it; he just wanted to prove to himself he could do it,” Kostritzky says. “But when we went to the center floor, started to jump, do some exercises, I see his interest changed. We motivated each other, actually. I was amazed at the speed he learned.”

Sar especially enjoyed jumping, which he said gave him a feeling of freedom. He began to catch up with his peers. “Olga is the teacher of many professional dancers, so the fact she would spend her time with me was great. It made me work a little bit harder,” he says.

The experience stretched Kostritzky as well. “Every day was an enormous amount of learning,” she says. “It was the biggest, hardest, and most satisfying experience of my life. I have a lot of beautiful dancers, but when you have someone come from the other side of the world—from the moon!—you learn a lot about yourself.”

Transition time
The hard work paid off. In the fall of 2000, with the approval of teachers who evaluated his progress, Sar started at SAB’s Boys 3 level. By January, he had moved up to Boys 4. The next three years brought intermediate training and the year after that, advanced. The visit had turned into an extended stay.

Sar faced both physical and cultural challenges in class. “Poor Sy had some problems with leg cramps, moments where he felt like his legs would freeze,” says Boal. “Sometimes he wanted to do his own interpretation of the combination, and that can be difficult. It comes through on the film—he’s one of the sweetest human beings with good intentions, but he was facing strict pedagogy.”

Bass and Boal noted that Sar did have some natural gifts: a big jump, musicality, stage presence, good proportions, and a very stretched Achilles tendon. (“Cambodians don’t sit on chairs; they sit on their heels,” Bass says.) He also possessed a strong work ethic and a fair amount of grit. When he began training, he was taking class with children half his age, as well as battling culture shock and a language barrier. Besides a rigorous dance training schedule, he had enrolled in the Professional Children’s School. Boal recalls that Sar had high expectations of himself—and was often hard on himself.

“You have to study all these subjects in English, so it was hard, but there are other students there who aren’t too much better than me,” Sar says with a laugh. “I had some English tutor a little bit, but a lot of it was my own studying. I used my own dictionary and stuff like that. Just walking around, I heard a lot.”

To combat homesickness, he spent time with SAB’s director of student life, who took him out for pizza, and visited the Cambodian family of his translator, where he could relax over familiar foods and conversation. Over time, he made friends and began to have a social life. “Everyone breathed a sigh of relief” about that, Boal says. “He’s very likable.”

Bass says that Sar was something of a stoic, working quietly and without complaint. “The hardest thing was not the work, it was the culture,” she says. “It was very isolating and lonely for him. That was the point where I said to myself, ‘What have I done?’ To this day, I don’t know what was going on in his head. I think he didn’t want to disappoint me, which was hard. We had multiple conversations—at the end of maybe four or five years, I was really sure he loved it. I wasn’t sure he loved it at first, but I wonder how someone could do something so well if they didn’t love it.”

Bass and Kostritzky also persuaded Sar that competing at Varna might be a good experience. At first, he balked. “I just don’t like competing so much, and there wasn’t time to prepare much,” he says. “So we decided to go there and just have an experience. But I’m glad I went—it’s a popular competition, it’s a big one, and I think I’m the first Cambodian there. They flew my flag, so that was good. A lot of people would do the same thing but do it differently, so it was interesting. I learned some tricks.”

Sar also managed to visit home, on one occasion performing ballet for many first-time balletgoers at the reopening of the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh. There were surprises on both sides of the curtain. “The first time going back home—it’s really different, really strange,” he says. “You don’t see how things change in the village when you go away so far and come back. You get shocked a little bit. I do get homesick. I just have to remind myself that I have my whole family back there.”

A new life
Toward the end of his advanced classes, Sar began thinking about his next step. “I couldn’t decide at the time if I wanted to stick with it or do it a little bit and go back home,” he said. “But I kept doing it—nobody told me to do it. There was a little bit of pressure, but I decided if it gets too much, I’ll stop. There was some pressure from my family. It’s hard for someone to leave the country; people expect something. But they kept encouraging me, telling me, ‘It’s a good opportunity, so do what you can.’

“I did put some pressure on myself—for me to catch up, I have to do that,” he continues. “At some point, I thought ‘It can’t be too difficult,’ so I kept working myself.” (In an on-camera moment many dancers will recognize, Sar’s parents tell Bass that they’re proud of his progress, although his father says he wishes Sar did something more stable, like taking a government job.)

Sar took as many auditions as he could, said Boal, who at that time was transitioning from teaching at SAB to becoming the artistic director of Pacific Northwest Ballet. Boal felt that Sar deserved a chance, and made personal calls to directors to plead his case.

But at 5-foot-7, Sar was not the 6-foot-tall romantic lead that many directors were looking for. So Boal invited Sar to try the PNB School for the summer. Sar liked it and was enrolled as a student; eventually, PNB became his next home. “At the end of that year, I didn’t have a lot of boys, so I hired my best girl and my best boy, which was Sy,” Boal says.

So pleased was Boal with Sar’s progress that he offered Sar a job with Pacific Northwest Ballet as an apprentice in 2006; he was promoted to the corps de ballet in 2007. Since then, he has danced a few featured roles—the Sword Dancer doll and Dervish in Nutcracker, the jester in La Sonnambula. He also danced a solo in Benjamin Millepied’s 3 Movements, choreographed at PNB.

Nobody is sure what the future holds. “He has challenges every day in his dancing that he knows about and is working on,” Boal says. “Because of his height, it’s difficult [for him] to partner a ballerina, so he’s hard to cast in some roles. He’ll have to see in the long run if this is the right fit for him. We usually ask if people are interested in doing choreography and he hasn’t expressed that to me. He’s still immersed in learning roles.”

Kostritzky, who periodically speaks with Sar by phone, thinks he just needs a partner his own size. “I told him, ‘Get a girl from the corps and practice the Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux. It would be good for both you.” She doesn’t think his stature should necessarily hinder him. “He could do the first movement from Symphony in C, Coppélia. He could do the first pas in Swan Lake. He could do a lot of things,” she says.

Sar plans to stick with ballet for the next five years. “I’m also looking forward to going to school and picking up something I’m interested in, so when I quit dancing maybe it will help me,” he said. “I have to think what I like to do, and what is good for the long run.”

Editor’s note: Just as Sokvannara Sar never set out to be a ballet dancer, Anne Bass never intended to be a documentary filmmaker. Dancing Across Borders began as a video record of Sar’s progress to send to his parents back home, then developed into a full-length documentary. It debuted at the 2009 Seattle International Film Festival and was shown at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in August and at the San Diego Asian Film Festival in October. Theatrical release and distribution are still in the works.

Want a no-stress recital? Start planning in summer for a springtime show that’s a breeze.

By Theresa Corbley Siller

Before every recital, the pressure builds: Will it go smoothly? You know your dancers are well rehearsed, and the more experienced ones will pull out all the stops, giving a great performance. But logistical problems, unfortunate incidents that result from poor planning or communication, can sabotage what should have been an evening to celebrate.

Take the case of little Jenna, who’s sobbing in the wings because her parents didn’t get the memo about the correct color of tights. Her mother has to risk a speeding ticket, running home to get her the right pair in time. Jenna feels rushed and pressured. Feeling the magic of being onstage will be hard for her tonight.

But there are ways to avoid Jenna’s sad scenario and see nothing but happy dancers and parents from dress rehearsal to the final performance. Good preparation plus communication equals little Jenna beaming, confident, and ready to step out into the lights. At Cuppett Performing Arts Center in Vienna, Virginia, 47 years of producing recitals have turned the process into a science. Here’s how the 10 months prior to each year’s recital play out.

(Photo by Richard Calmes)

August
Each August the school’s director, Amy Cuppett Stiverson, distributes the primary information for the dance year. Her first order of business for the dance year is nailing down the recital date in the last week of August. It’s smart to have the recital around the same time every year. Cuppett’s is usually around June 20, when families haven’t begun their vacations yet.

Stiverson announces the dates and times of the following June’s recital performances at the teachers’ meeting in August and then posts the information on the school’s website and in the thrice-yearly print newsletter, which is sent to students’ homes and posted in the front lobby. Families can then fill in their calendars immediately.

With a large school of 20 teachers and 750 students, multiple shows are needed. Cuppett does four performances: a Friday evening show for the intermediate/advanced dancers, an early Saturday matinee for students ages 3 to 6, a later Saturday matinee for the beginning/intermediate dancers (ages 7 to teens), and a Saturday evening show for the most advanced dancers (teenagers and adults). The dance company performs in all the shows.

Anyone with questions can contact the studio’s administrators, who are both organized and patient. It is amazing how many people miss important information, no matter how hard the entire staff—director, administrators, and teachers— tries to dispense it. For that reason, distributing information in a triple-threat fashion is important. If someone misses it in one delivery, they may catch it in another. It’s cross-checking at its finest.

September/October
In September, Stiverson emails the teachers to ask for suggestions for a recital theme and title. Everyone weighs in with ideas and then Stiverson makes the final decision.

Having the theme helps the teachers begin to think about music for their dances. It’s first come, first served, so the teachers who plan early reap the reward of getting their first choice.

November/December
Teachers’ first and second music choices must be submitted by November 30; these are compiled into a list so that any duplication can be avoided. Stiverson notifies the teachers immediately if there are any problems with their choices.

Costume choices must be made by December 30 so that ordering can begin after winter break, in January. Teachers choose the costumes for their classes, and to guarantee that each selection is correct, they must initial the final list. Stiverson approves the choices, which must be reasonably priced. Once the list is complete, she double-checks everything, which prevents many potential slipups or downright catastrophes.

Measuring for costumes is done during classes in November, and a quarter of an inch is added to accommodate for the students’ growth by June.

Getting through the costuming process requires an army. Stiverson is lucky, because she has one. Her three costume coordinators order more than 1,500 costumes every year and make sure that no one ends up in something that doesn’t fit right. Measuring for costumes is done during classes in November, and a quarter of an inch is added to accommodate for the students’ growth by June.

January
All choreography for recital dances begins in January. (At this point, prospective new students must wait until summer classes begin in July, since costumes have already been ordered and dances are in progress.) At the teacher meeting in August, Stiverson stresses that teachers should never spend an entire class on the recital dance. Fifteen minutes is the maximum, so that the students get their warm-up and technique. Then, as showtime draws near, up to a half-hour of class time can be used for rehearsals if needed.

With an extended rehearsal period, recital pieces are deep in the students’ muscle memory by June, so that they are free to enjoy themselves and shine in front of the audience.

March
The costumes begin arriving in March and continue to trickle in until the end of May. The costume coordinators check them in, put each student’s name on each bag and box, and place them in the correct studio for each class. All costumes are labeled with the dancers’ names, usually with a Sharpie on the tag, which avoids panic and confusion if one gets left behind at dress rehearsal. Teachers let the students do their dances in costume to check for any problems with fit. Any needed alterations are made immediately and the costumes are returned to the students within two weeks.

Late April/early May
Stiverson edits all the music and places it in the studios by late April. The teachers test the music, and if they approve it, they initial the CD jacket. They report any problems immediately and Stiverson re-cuts it within one week. Final CDs of all recital music are kept in all studios, and backup copies are placed in the lighting and sound room at the theater.

In late April, the spring newsletter is sent home with students and posted on the website and in the lobby. It includes detailed information about all rehearsals, both those at the studio and at the stage, plus parking maps, dressing room assignments, and show times. At this point, there’s no reason why families shouldn’t be well aware of all dates and times that involve their children. Still, the office administrators field hundreds of questions.

Tickets are printed and go on sale. Early ticket sales are discounted, and tickets remain available for purchase until the day of the show.

Work on the recital program booklet begins in late April. The director and administrators puzzle together the show order so that harried backstage costume changes are minimized. The program is posted in all studios, and teachers and students check all name spellings for correctness. After checking, teachers initial each class list. Once the program is completed, a feeling of anticipation fills the studio.

May
Teachers send flyers home to parents detailing hair and makeup requirements.

Around May 20 the 3- to 6-year-old dancers have a studio rehearsal. This gives them a chance to get used to the stage setup and the order of their dances in the show, preparing them for the onstage dress rehearsals. While they are waiting for their dance, they learn to sit quietly. Company dancers help with the little ones and the matinee performances.

During the four weeks before the recital, once a week, in the last 10 minutes of class time, all of the students perform their dances for the other students and teachers. Everyone enjoys watching each other’s dances, and it builds camaraderie.

June
The week before the show is devoted to onstage dress rehearsals. Since the dance year has ended, there are no more classes at the studio, which avoids confusion about where to report. The rehearsals are arranged by show order, so the first show’s dress rehearsal is the first one, the second one is second, and so on. The youngest dancers rehearse early and get to go home. Later rehearsals are reserved for the oldest and most advanced students.

Students must arrive at the theater an hour and a half before performance time. Parent volunteers check everyone in, and the students are assigned to dressing rooms. We provide videotapes and games to keep the children occupied when they’re not onstage. Parents have the option to take young students home after their dances rather than staying for the entire performance.

One staff member organizes a group of parent volunteers, who chaperone the 3- to 10-year-old dancers. For their efforts, these generous mothers get complimentary tickets and an acknowledgement in the recital program.  

At performance time, teacher Mozelle Karnette Stanton, who has been at Cuppett for 30 years, supervises the makeup for every show. She is the authority on powder, blush, eyes, and lips. She places her eight assistants at specific task stations, an efficient arrangement that optimizes the flow of children through the makeup process.

In the dressing rooms, all the students give each other a helping hand. It’s so touching to see this. The generosity and spirit of sharing are uplifting. Anyone who forgets something will be quickly accommodated, and we keep small essentials like hairpins, safety pins, and hairnets on hand for anyone who needs them. Tights are available for purchase at the ticket table.

By early morning on the day of the show, with coffee in hand, dedicated parents begin the task of readying the stage. It must be wet-mopped with a solution of water and rosin, with time to dry before the dancers get on it. The school’s three administrators staff the ticket table, while some male volunteers raise the scenery.

Meanwhile, our director consults her last-minute list of graduating seniors (who receive trophies), students who passed their Cecchetti exams, those with perfect attendance, and scholarship recipients. She organizes the trophies and certificates, which will be presented at the end of the show.

When it’s finally showtime, lining up is a snap. Students know to be in line three dances ahead of time. Teachers are posted in the dressing room, in the hallway by the stage door, and in the wings. The show order is posted on the walls for easy reference on both sides of the stage and in the dressing rooms and hallways. Other than the frequent shushing of ecstatic dancers, this infrastructure is well oiled.

After the students have received their post-recital awards and flowers, the staff and volunteers clean up and load out the scenery and props. Forgotten costumes are sent back to the studio to be claimed later. Staff, parents, and students meet at a restaurant later to celebrate their achievements, bask in a feeling of accomplishment, and relax. With a smooth-running recital, happy faces are everywhere.

Why you need dance-teacher friends and what they can do for you

By Debbie Werbrouck

“Oh, you’ve got to have friends,” say the lyrics of “Friends,” an old Bette Midler song. And while it’s true for everyone, for dance educators a more accurate version would be “You’ve got to have friends who dance in your shoes.”

Teaching dance, especially in the private sector, presents a unique situation. We put so much of ourselves into our work—sharing our craft, knowledge, and creativity with students and their parents—that we take it personally when our work is not appreciated or, even worse, is criticized. What we’re looking for is someone who can listen and understand—not simply empathize or sympathize but really understand, because she’s been there herself.

Most of us find that our non-dancing/teaching friends cannot understand the life we live. The stresses, the joys, even what we consider normal—all are aspects of life that we need to share with others who speak the same language. As my husband says, “You know you’re married to a dance teacher when you find sequins in your bed.”

I’m lucky enough to have a wide circle of dance teacher/school owner friends, each of whom would attest to the importance of these friendships. Within that circle, we provide essential services for one another that make life easier and lots more fun.

Sounding boards
Not long ago I got an email from one of these friends with “One of the things I love about my job” in the subject line. Right away I knew she had a problem. It was a parent problem and she wanted to know my thoughts. Every business has customer-service problems, but if you teach children, you are dealing with both children and parents, which takes client relationships to a whole new level.

After I laughed about the complaint letter she had received, I shared my thoughts about what to do: Stay professional and above the fray, maintain your principles, and above all (after responding to the letter), let it go.

This was an easy one since the parent’s demand was over the top. We all know the scenario: The parents want their child to be excused from a required rehearsal because of a conflicting activity. When they are not given the desired dispensation, they focus their discontent on the school owner, faulting all aspects of the school. Sometimes their complaints descend to the trivial or even personal level.

It is hard not to take complaints personally, and having the ear of a friendly fellow dance educator can keep things in perspective. A friend of mine once joked about parents who want their children to be picked up from school, taken home, fed a snack, and taught a private lesson by a qualified teacher for $5 per class. Another likes to say that she could set herself on fire and people would complain about the smoke.

Defusing disasters
More than once, a talk with a dance buddy has prevented someone in my network from reacting badly to a situation. The interval created by seeking a friend’s advice (even if it’s just a short pause) can allow you to find a different perspective or a solution to a problem. But while venting is good for the soul, try to keep your conversations from becoming a downward spiral of complaining. Challenging each other to find solutions or brainstorming about improvements or easier methods will keep your objectives positive.

Sharing ideas and more
These friendships meet practical needs as well. Several years ago, while I was bemoaning the backstage chaos that parents created, a friend of mine explained her recital check-in system. At my next show, I put it to the test. The results were amazing, and not only did I never look back, I passed the system on to others in my network. And several of my friends have taken and expanded on a simple organizing idea of mine: To keep the multiple parts of a two-in-one or three-in-one costume together, I place laundry baskets for each class in the dressing rooms during shows.

Our non-dancing/teaching friends cannot understand the life we live. The stresses, the joys, even what we consider normal—all are aspects of life that we need to share with others who speak the same language.

Have you ever come up one short when handing out props? Do you need a backdrop, set, or gobo for your show? Dance buddies to the rescue! Can’t find an old cut of music? You’re one phone call or email away. One year I couldn’t come up with the right piece of music for an advanced tap class, and I mentioned it to a dance buddy at the beginning of a conference. By the end of the first day, I had a two-page list of possible songs.

Friendly neighbors
In my network, those of us who live close to one another share guest faculty, bring our students to each other’s workshops, or serve as guest teachers at each other’s schools. Bringing in friends to serve as impartial judges for auditions and the like can take the pressure off you by eliminating any accusations of favoritism. And your students benefit when guests reinforce the comments and corrections you make, which is likely to happen if their philosophies and techniques are similar to yours.

Unique business models
Dance schools often don’t fit into general business molds. For example, how many businesses provide scholarships? As school owners, we don’t do everything according to accepted formulas; often we have to act according to what we feel is right. Then there are the recurring questions that don’t fit the usual business models: Should I raise my tuition? Should I charge my staff for classes that they or their families attend? Is there promotional value in doing a performance at this particular event? Your dance buddies are your best resources when you’re stumped and need some advice.

Share your strengths
Are you strong in ballet but weaker in your knowledge of another dance discipline? If so, you could be a ballet “tutor” for a friend who can reciprocate in your area of need. Are you short of hip-hop teachers? Maybe your dance buddies can give you recommendations. Perhaps, by working together, you can provide full-time employment for an educator who otherwise would receive only part-time employment at one location.

Share knowledge
What great program have you offered at your school that was a hit? Do you do special events to promote your school or program? Do you specialize in one age group while your friend specializes in another? Each person in your network can benefit by learning from the others. If your school is heavy in one age group or discipline, you can explore ways to increase enrollment of other age groups or participation in other disciplines.

One friend and I used to meet for lunch each month to exchange ideas and techniques. We exchanged printed advertising and marketing materials for comparison and discussed our office staff and operations, how we answered the phones and returned calls, our methods of accepting tuition payments, and whether we offered discounts. We worked our way through the school year from registration to recital, and both of us improved the operations in our schools.

Networking in numbers
Many of the teachers I know belong to the same dance organization, so we spend about 10 days together each summer. It’s always great to catch up with distant friends, and we’ve never been at a loss for subjects to discuss. We often bring music suggestions and samples of printed materials to share. In addition to casual individual encounters, we usually schedule a night to meet. It’s like having a convention within a convention.

Attending workshops, conventions, and training schools is a great way to build a cadre of dance friends. Networking with people who don’t live in your immediate area has some advantages; for example, people who aren’t direct competitors feel freer to share their ideas, and learning what is going on in other areas of the country is often helpful.

Once your network is in place, you may feel comfortable with the idea of including other educators in your area. Choosing members of your network should be a natural process—observe things like their level of technical polish (or that of their students), the philosophy of their school, and so on.

Be open to others
Don’t discount someone who has limited experience or whose technical abilities seem lower than yours; everyone has something to contribute and there is value in knowing a range of people with diverse talents. You might have more expertise in dance technique than a younger educator, but she could be the wiz you need to help you with computer technology.

The most important factor is how comfortable you feel with the people in your network. You might have several networks, small or large, or you might prefer to foster individual relationships. What’s most important is to build a web of support and friendship that will make you feel like you’re not alone.

Software sets the scene and saves money

By Jim Hollborn

With recital production costs increasing, many studio owners are looking for ways to cut back—ideally, without sacrificing the quality of the show. Fortunately, technology is making it easier to produce recitals of the quality your customers expect while saving you a great deal of money and, in some cases, reducing the time needed for tech rehearsals at the theater. One such technological advance is the vast amount of lighting software available for theatrical productions.

Using a 3-D image of the stage, lighting software users can begin devising a lighting scheme months before the dress rehearsal.(Photo courtesy of Jim Hollborn)

Purchasing lighting software became a necessity for me while organizing this year’s recital for my wife’s dance school, Performer’s Edge Dance Center in Davenport, Florida. In past years we were able to rent the theater for our technical/move-in day at a discounted rate, which allowed us to set up the sound and lighting prior to dress rehearsal. However, this year the theater was going to charge us the full rental rate, putting a tech day out of our budget.

This left me with a problem: The only chance I’d have to light the show would be during the dress rehearsal, which would be impossible. Since I was already running the sound, I decided this was the perfect time to take the plunge into lighting control software. With the software, you control the lights with your computer instead of a traditional light board, and much of the work can be done without setting foot in the theater.

The goods
I wanted to find a product that would allow me to control the lighting in sequence with the music and provide a 3-D view so that I could set the lighting prior to dress rehearsal. Also, it needed to be cost effective and easy to use. With that in mind I came across a program from Chauvet lighting, called ShowXpress, that fit the bill.

Since I tend to purchase my sound equipment from online vendors that sell lighting equipment for DJs and bands, the logical first step was to look at software that was created by the same companies. I narrowed down the field first by price, then eliminated those without a timeline feature (which plays the lighting scenes in sync with the audio) or that seemed difficult to use.

The most important feature for me was the ease of use of the timeline feature, and ShowXpress stood out in that respect. Also, I wanted a system that could run with and without a computer. I always like to have a backup plan in case of computer problems.

Chauvet permits you to download a full version of the software to try, although to actually control the lighting you must purchase a USB-to-DMX interface, which can be a cable or a device, depending on the model. All work with the same software, which is free to download or comes on a CD when you purchase the interface.

After testing the software for several weeks and reading all the reviews available, I felt confident enough last March to purchase one of the three USB-to-DMX interfaces: the Xpress 100 ($300), X-Factor ($500), and Xpress Plus ($950). I chose the Plus interface, which has the most features, enabling you to control up to 512 channels, along with the ability to store lighting scenes for standalone playback in the event of a computer crash. (Check current prices on planetdj.com and look for deals on used equipment on eBay or other sites.)

With the software, you control the lights with your computer instead of a traditional light board, and much of the work can be done without setting foot in the theater.

Make sure to read the fine print about computer system requirements before you make a purchase. And don’t forget to consider customer service. I had a question on where to store the audio files so the timeline feature could access them, so I contacted Chauvet via email and someone quickly responded. Also, their site has a discussion board that covers a wide range of topics.

Basic steps
There are a few basic steps to using this software: assigning DMX channels to the light fixtures, building light scenes, creating timelines, and adding timelines to the Live screen. But before you begin you must obtain your theater’s lighting plot, which tells you the types and locations of the lighting fixtures as well as each one’s DMX address (if already assigned).

Assigning the channels
Using the software’s fixture screen, match the DMX channels to the theater’s lighting fixtures as shown on the light plot. If you plan to rent lights to install in the theater, this would be the time to set an address for those fixtures.

I found one limitation with this software while setting the channels. Since the software uses a one-to-one patch (meaning channel 1 controls circuit 1 in the theater), it is difficult to make circuit/channel changes. Keep this in mind when talking to the theater’s technical manager and discussing the light plot. The theater personnel should know what you expect when you walk into the theater and connect your computer to their lighting system.

Setting the scenes
With the fixtures assigned, I created a 3-D replica of the stage at the theater, even down to the backdrops. This function is one of the better features of the software; it allows you to go into the classroom months before dress rehearsal and begin creating lighting scenes. In each lighting scene, a specific group of lights is controlled for a specific time; for example, having the side fills illuminated at 50 percent for 2 minutes. You then name and save each light scene. Use the name of the dance or any other name that’s easy for you to remember; these will be recalled in the timeline portion of the program.

You create a light scene by using the Builder screen, controlling each lighting channel individually; your adjustments are displayed immediately in the 3-D stage view. The number of light scenes you can create (for each dance and for the entire recital) is unlimited.

Creating timelines
Using the Timeline feature, you can drag and drop media files (such as the music for each class as well as the saved lighting scenes) into a timeline. If there are multiple lighting scenes, they can be added at specific points in the timeline, wherever you want them to occur in the dance and corresponding to the music.

A digital counter at the top of the Timeline screen helps you sync the lighting scenes with the music. Again, you can test your lighting using the 3-D view. If the lighting scene does not occur when you want it to, simply go back to the timeline and shift the scene to the left or right. At this point, it is useful to sit in the classroom and watch the students dance; as the timeline plays back in 3-D view, you can ensure that the lighting cues match the movement.

Configuring the Live screen
Once you have created timelines for all the dances, you can play them back by using the software’s Live screen. You create a button for each dance by recalling the timelines and organizing them in the order of the show, which is very easy and takes only about 10 minutes. If the show order changes, simply move the buttons to correspond to the new show order. No more wasting time by re-burning CDs every time the show order changes.

Keep in mind that both the Timeline and Live screens must be open in order to recall each saved timeline during the show. The Live function is the easiest and most rewarding part of using this kind of software to run your show. It acts as a CD player during the show. With the Live and Timeline screens open, you press the button in the Live screen that corresponds to the dance you want to run, which calls up the timeline that corresponds to the button you pressed. This function makes running the show very easy.

At the theater
With the pre-production work done, you will need to take care of a few things during the move-in and before the dress rehearsal. The USB-to-DMX interface must properly be connected to the theater’s lighting system. The sound output from your computer should also be connected to the house sound board. Then you can focus the lighting fixtures and begin testing the scenes and timelines.

If scene adjustments are needed, you can make and save the changes using the Builder screen. Most likely you will need to modify the channel levels for the lights; typically the stage will be darker than the 3-D view on your computer. Once you have saved any adjustments, use the Live screen to recall your timelines—simply press the button that corresponds to each dance and you have perfectly timed lighting.

Preparation and payoff
There is quite a bit of preparation, but it is worth it in the end. I spent about two weeks watching the dances and taking notes. I then worked on the preliminary lighting at home for about a week, for roughly an hour a day, and made adjustments during in-studio rehearsals (three nights, for approximately four hours each night). Then, during move-in prior to the start of dress rehearsal, I fine-tuned it all, which took about three hours, and made adjustments during the breaks.

Even having had little experience with stage lighting, I found that using this software made the recital weekend less stressful. The software gives you precise control over the show, in turn creating a shorter, more visually pleasing production—and for less than $1,000. It saved me more than $4,000 in rental and personnel fees this year. You don’t need special computer expertise to use the program, and once it’s set up, anyone can run it. I say it is an investment well made.

Tips for First-Time Lighting Designers

• Talk to the technicians at the theater. Most are helpful and can answer any questions.
• Be prepared. When adjusting the lighting, have a cue sheet for each dance handy. You might want to create a “Magic Sheet”—a cheat sheet that lists each channel and the lighting fixture it controls. Usually you would group the channels by color, area of the stage, or function.
• If you rent additional lighting fixtures, make sure you know the electrical capacity of the theater as well as of the fixtures. Ask the theater’s technical manager before you rent!
• Keep it simple. The software allows you to control “intelligent” lighting as well as many LED fixtures. You might be tempted to fill every DMX channel with these types of fixtures, which will not only complicate your job but also increase the amount of time needed to set the lighting.

When to recommend private lessons for students

By Vanina and Dennis Wilson

Many dance schools offer private lessons; for some students the increased attention is indispensable. But judging whether to offer one-on-one training to particular students requires a clear understanding of the benefits and potential risks.

Advantages of classroom instruction
Group dance classes offer numerous advantages, including economic ones (cheaper for students and a better return for the school), compared with private lessons. But more than mere economy drives the popularity of class instruction. Most students do feel a degree of “safety in numbers.” They are not under the constant, potentially stressful scrutiny of an instructor and can relax a bit when instructors shift their critical eyes to others.

Another plus is that students may apply to themselves the corrections given to others (if they can recognize the same errors in their own dancing). Moreover, students who hear others being corrected learn that they are not alone in making mistakes, reducing their insecurity.

Inexperienced students quickly discern which students in the class are the best and try to emulate them. Working alongside students who are better than themselves may challenge and motivate some students to improve their own technique, although it may discourage and demoralize others.

And finally, the social interaction among the students before, during, and after the lesson adds to the enjoyment of attending class.

Susan McCullough, a School of Dance faculty member at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, works with student Pattersen Floberg. (Photo by Richard Calmes)

When to recommend private instruction

Despite the advantages of group instruction, in some situations dance instructors and school directors may justifiably recommend private lessons.

Addressing specific flaws
The classroom environment is not well suited for students with technical flaws who need close observation and careful correction. In group classes, instructors must limit the time they spend with individual students and devise exercises that result in the greatest good for the greatest number. In private lessons, by contrast, instructors can design exercises that enable student and teacher to analyze specific problems and devise remedies for them.

Coaching for competitions or other solos
In private lessons, instructors can focus on a particular student’s routine and offer suggestions for improvements, whether for the entire routine or only the portions that pose unusual difficulty. Coaching is, in fact, almost a necessity for dancers who wish to become professionals.

Shy or fearful students
Private lessons can be beneficial to certain types of students; for example, motivated students who began dance instruction (particularly ballet) later than usual can speed their progress considerably with private lessons. And students who are recovering from an injury may also profit from private lessons, since the instructor can devise exercises that take into account their physical limitations.

Excessively shy or apprehensive students may do better in private lessons than in group classes, although some students might be more intimidated in a one-on-one situation with a teacher than they are in class. While shy students must eventually transition to the classroom environment, a series of private lessons designed to build confidence may ease the transition.

Adult students sometimes fear that they will be lost and embarrassed in a group class, which they might envision as packed with former professional dancers and gifted amateurs. If these newcomers start their studies with a few private lessons, they will have much greater confidence when they move to the classroom environment.

Who should give private lessons?
Ordinarily the same instructor who teaches the student’s class will give the private lesson. Consistency in instructors reduces confusion for the student, especially for the beginner, and the instructor is already aware of the student’s strengths and weaknesses. Also, the regular teacher might resent a change in instructors, seeing it as a financial loss and a vote of no confidence.

But the right combination of instructor and student is, if anything, more important in private lessons than it is in class, and sometimes private lessons should be given by someone other than the student’s regular instructor.

Some teachers are less effective in a private setting because they enjoy the attention that they receive in a class—they “turn on in a crowd.” If they do give private lessons, it might be simply for the money. Meticulous and detail-oriented teachers, by contrast, may be more valuable as private tutors, especially in working with students who are already fairly well accomplished but need additional coaching to be even better.

Finally, it may simply be beneficial to subject a student’s dancing to scrutiny from another pair of eyes than those of the classroom instructor.

Determining need
Parents and students (especially teenagers) may ask about private lessons, or instructors may recommend them. However, since instructors stand to profit from private tutoring, it’s important to be aware of the potential for a conflict of interest.

To ensure that private lessons are justified, school directors should require that all instructors clear requests and recommendations for private lessons through the school administration, not only for facility scheduling but also to ensure that the lessons are justified. The director may want to consider a different instructor for the private lesson, for the reasons discussed previously.

Practical matters
Private lessons must be worked in around the school’s existing schedule, mostly before or after regular classes. A school director with a high demand for private lessons will have to balance the short- and long-term advantages of group versus individual instruction in deciding whether a studio should be available for private tutoring during normal class times.

Private lessons should only rarely exceed an hour and a half, since the attention of both teacher and student will likely flag more quickly due to the intensity of the session.

Also, school directors and instructors need to recognize the potential for allegations of sexual or other harassment during private lessons. Holding the lesson when and where there is some possibility of being observed will reduce the likelihood of allegations of harassment.

When to say no
Sometimes instructors or school directors should decline to give a private lesson, even if it means losing revenue. Some students do not make progress because they are uninterested or unfocused in class; their parents may suggest private lessons as a remedy. In such cases, the students will likely not profit from the lessons and may even become resentful, since all the criticism that they hear will be directed at them. Parents’ expectations, moreover, will rise in proportion to their increased expenditure, and they may blame the school when their children fail to improve under the more expensive regimen.

Another problematic issue arises when parents wish to sit in on the lesson to see (among other things) if they are getting their money’s worth. For private lessons given to a well-adjusted student as coaching for a competition or role, limited parental attendance may not be a problem. But when the student is struggling, the additional pressure of parental presence can make the entire experience a waste of time and money. Explain to parents that their children will make the most progress in private lessons if the parents show them that they trust the instructor to teach appropriately.

Most dance instruction will be given in group classes. There are times, however, when the benefits of the “splendid isolation” of the private lesson justify the increased cost. Knowing when to recommend private tutoring, and the circumstances under which it can best be given, will result in lessons that lead to genuine progress for students and an enhanced school reputation.

Atlanta’s dance safety net for at-risk youth

By Pierre Ruhe

Before Dana Lupton talks about dance—before she explains the 23-year history of Moving in the Spirit, her youth-development dance program, or boasts that 60 percent of her staff are alums of that program, or recalls that they have performed twice at the White House—she talks about creating a safe place.

(Photo by JD Scott Photography)

Moving in the Spirit (MIS) is above all a nurturing, holistic, and physically safe environment within Atlanta’s urban community. Many of its young people come from the poorest neighborhoods in the city—some with family incomes under $10,000 a year, some in single-parent or foster care or in transient living arrangements, on the edge of homelessness. These young dancers, ages 3 to 18, face all-but-certain hazards, from poor eating habits, low self-esteem, and teen pregnancy to physical abuse, drugs, gang violence, and human trafficking—modern-day slavery—for which Atlanta, with its colossal airport, is a major hub.

“You see some of these kids, and you think, ‘Oh, that’s so sad,’ ” says Lupton, who co-founded MIS and still directs the company. “But really they’re brilliant; they have so much to offer, so much to teach, and they’re resilient.”

Although dance is often tagged as an affluent girls’ hobby—resulting in what Lupton calls “the social chasm”—there’s no pampered art-for-art’s-sake attitude here. At MIS, dance is a conduit to a better life, an art that rewards discipline, preparation, a sense of community—behaviors that apply to school, work, home life, relationships.

The curriculum is based on the academically certified Positive Youth Development model and reaches some 200 kids weekly in 16 class sessions. Even the restrooms hold encouragement posted on the walls: “You are enough. You do enough. You have enough,” and “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.”

At 45, Lupton, tanned, toned, and blonde, is unflappably positive. “If you strip the dance away, it’s about young people finding their voice,” she says. “I want them to be agents of social change. It’s about, What do you believe in? What are you willing to fight for?”

Some of Lupton’s fights are quantifiable: In recent years, MIS seniors have had a 100 percent high school graduation rate (compared with 77.8 percent across Georgia), and 95 percent have moved on to college, vocational school, or the military.

There are giddy examples of young lives spun completely around. Mashunté Glass joined at age 6. By junior high school, as the neighborhood girls were getting pregnant and into other kinds of trouble, she was learning to balance a “checkbook” at dance class, where points were awarded for punctuality and other good habits. The earnings could be spent at the Christmas Store—stocked with donated toys and gifts—so she could bring home presents for her sister, mother, and grandmother.

“In my community, kids didn’t have chores, they didn’t take responsibility, they didn’t learn how to live a structured, self-sufficient life,” says Glass. Now a doctoral student at Florida A&M University, she is planning to work for a government lab studying cancer. “It wasn’t till high school that I realized the accountability skills Moving in the Spirit had given me.”

Although she doesn’t dance anymore, Glass remains close to her old dancemates and close to the mentor she was assigned in 10th grade, a local physician named Stephanie Hassel. “As an African American girl, it was eye-opening to have white women as role models,” says Glass. “They asked for my opinion and [the students] got to shape the outcome of the dance. It was incredibly inspirational.”

Not all dancers live up to their potential. A few years ago, a boy of 15 named Alex joined the program. He flourished when he danced, perhaps for the first time in his life fully engaged and proud of himself. But his family moved four times in a year, and his mother wasn’t consistent about giving him the medications needed to tamp down his violent streak. Deeply frustrated that he couldn’t perform in a big show he’d been rehearsing, he was later given a shining part in a smaller piece. Then he vanished.

“They have to come to us,” says Lupton, who doesn’t have children of her own and doesn’t hide her emotional attachment to her students. “We can’t go find them once they disappear. Together we can be strong, but when you lose them it’s just heartbreaking.”

That wise compassion and sense of social justice is what drove Lupton and Leah Mann, two dancing graduates of the University of Georgia’s business school, to form Moving in the Spirit. It started in 1986 as dance classes at Atlanta’s Stewart Avenue Shelter, where the most essential lessons involved teaching body language to girls with a history of emotional trauma, so they wouldn’t be preyed upon. (Lupton and her husband, Jeff, a home builder, now live not far from the dance studio in a lower-income section of Atlanta; Mann lives and dances in Seattle, although she remains close to the organization, choreographing and consulting for MIS.)

The organization expanded and evolved, winning awards along the way and growing to a $550,000 annual budget. Of that budget, 80 percent is from donations. (Student tuition ranges from $35 to $73 per month; up to 80 percent of students get full scholarships.) MIS now boasts a dozen adult teachers and several student teaching assistants. Guest artists are typically invited from Atlanta’s prestigious universities or professional companies like Atlanta Ballet. There’s a sophisticated mentor program, in which applicants (some of them recruited from the community) go through a training program run by licensed therapists. MIS staff then plays matchmaker, finding shared interests and expectations to hook up child and adult. The four main dance programs at MIS are primarily configured around various commitment levels for the youngsters.

Each dance program has an education component for MIS’s seven staff teachers and occasional visitors, involving teaching the philosophy, classroom management, and other aspects of the Positive Youth Development program.

“You see some of these kids, and you think, ‘Oh, that’s so sad.’ But really they’re brilliant; they have so much to offer, so much to teach, and they’re resilient.” —Dana Lupton

Stepping Stones is the most inclusive group. It meets once each weekend for kids 3 to 18—in age-appropriate sessions—and requires no audition. Junior Company is for 8- to 12-year-old girls, meeting twice a week. Its parallel for boys is Men in Motion. The elite squad, the Apprentice Corporation, is open for teens. It’s hard to get into and is almost a full-time job, meeting for two hours, three days a week and going on regional and national tours in the summer. Before being accepted, students sign a contract that spells out their commitment in time, preparation, work ethic. All except Stepping Stones perform in the community, from retirement homes (for the younger groups) to regional tours (for the Apprentice Corporation), and everyone gets a chance onstage for MIS’s annual big show at the Rialto Center for the Arts in downtown Atlanta. 

Moving in the Spirit’s signature routine isn’t a piece of choreography but a warm-up talk session: “Circle up!” On the stage of The Beam, their 70-seat theater, the students gather and are asked in turn, “How do you feel?” One girl says she got a B on a test at school; the seven other girls offer enthusiastic “Wow”s. Another girl reveals that an uncle died in the past week, to groans of sorrow from the group. In this troubled community, the testimony is often bleak, on cascading problems of poverty and harmful relationships. The point is to get into each kid’s head, to share life’s rewards and fears but also to teach compassion in a world that too often cares nothing for them.

Some days the instructor asks what each child had for breakfast. “You’re responsible for your body” is the message, because if you skipped a meal you can’t dance well and you’re letting down the whole group. (Aware that nourishment might be scarce at home, the MIS staff makes sure that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are always available, regardless of whether there’s class that day.)

After talk comes movement. Ideas and emotions expressed in the circle are launch points for dance, hoping to bring some understanding to matters from peer pressure to racial intolerance. Or, if they are preparing a story dance, they’ll first pick out single words from the text to interpret. Modern dance is the basic technique, and that’s augmented depending on guest artists—the kids may also incorporate African dance, or hip-hop break-dancing, or classical ballet, into their routines. (The advanced students also visit Atlanta Ballet studios for weekly lessons.)

Poet Alice Lovelace has collaborated with MIS for eight years, as “storycatcher.” She listens to the kids’ personal tales and from them crafts a plotline. “I try to see their perspective on life,” says Lovelace. “We talk a lot, so in the end they’re dancing to their own stories.”

Chris McCord shared his story, and danced it. At 11, he saw an MIS performance at a Boys and Girls Club and pestered Lupton to let him audition. By 16, he was a student teacher and at 20 formed the first, informal all-boy dance class. After college at Georgia State University—a business major, on Lupton’s advice—he became a police officer. Ten months later, he was praying for a job on his old dancing stage.

To launch Men in Motion, McCord was told he first had to raise $48,000 to fund the program’s costs and his salary. After two years of labor, he’d brought in $68,000. Now 30, he’s the program’s director, and also leads the organization’s summer camp.

Although the impoverished students don’t see it, money is always the behind-the-scenes focus. For many years, The Beam had a slight (but growing) hump in the middle. Dancers learned to navigate around it. When John Dewberry (a former collegiate star quarterback, today an Atlanta real estate developer) discovered the warped stage, he paid $20,000 to install a lovely white oak floor, topped with a durable polyurethane coating.

Such angels are growing scarce. “Right now, in this economy, funders are making a priority of food banks and homeless shelters and credit repair,” says Lupton. “I was hoping that after 23 years of working 70-hour weeks, this place would start to calm down.

“Till now, we’ve never been in the red, and we were almost steady, then the economy crashed,” she continues. “That makes things really tough, but we’ll make it and grow stronger.”

How to kill germs without killing the planet

By Julie Holt Lucia

Germs.

Studio owners and dance teachers far and wide know them well. They reside in the little sticky handprints—reaching no taller than two or three feet—that seem to cover our studios entirely: floors, mirrors, props, chairs, doors, windows.

They’re there when the ’tweens and teens in the middle of rond de jambes instinctively grab the barres after a hearty sneeze or nose swipe. Still more multiply as dirty dance shoes and bare feet pound out jazz walks and prances across our dance floors, and sweaty arms and legs stretch out on the floor at the end of class. They lurk in the lobby seats and on the floors, where a day’s worth of antsy parents and siblings leave traces of coughs or spills.

And we teachers aren’t exempt: Office spaces are notorious germ-breeding grounds, from the computer keyboard and phone to the mini-fridge and microwave.

With a Lysol spray bottle in one hand and a Clorox wipe in the other, we diligently clean our studios to keep these germs at bay. But are we going about it the right way? Is there a way to disinfect without worrying about the next child who licks the doorknob ingesting trace amounts of dimethyl benzyl ammonium saccharinate? Is there a way to achieve a sparkling mirror without casting a spray of diluted ammonia in the air for all to inhale? Is there perhaps a more effective, more Earth-conscious—dare we say, more economical—way to keep things clean and safe? According to “green” cleaning enthusiasts, the answer is a calming, lavender-scented yes.

Think green
While we’re not required to hug trees or go vegan, proponents of the green cleaning movement cite the planet as a top concern for changing the way we clean. Keeping our bodies healthy is another. And saving money is just the tip of the fast-melting iceberg. Did you know, for example, that some of the best green cleaners are some of the most basic, least expensive kitchen staples—vinegar, baking soda, and lemon juice? Others are more affordable in bulk, such as tea tree oil (a natural antibacterial and disinfecting agent) and castile soap (a non-detergent, plant-based soap). Cleaning green not only helps the environment, your health, and your pocketbook, it’s actually simple.

Vanessa Tanner, founder and president of Welcome Home Maids, a green cleaning service in Atlanta, Georgia, says that the easiest way to transition your cleaning is to first transition your thinking.

Cleaning green not only helps the environment, your health, and your pocketbook, it’s actually simple.

“Green cleaning, by definition, means that we’re trying to protect our health and the Earth by using eco-friendly products,” says Tanner. “Although the EPA and FDA provide guidelines to limit our exposure to hazardous chemicals through consumer products and foods, it’s really up to us to make sound decisions—based on facts, cost, and experience—that will keep us healthy. When you really think about it, you have to flip the question around and ask yourself, ‘Why wouldn’t I clean green?’ ”

Hazards of commercial cleaners
Tanner explains the slippery slope of using synthetic chemical-based cleaners, such as Lysol, Clorox, and Windex brands—and typically any product with a label that reads Warning, Caution, Poison, or Danger.

“Most products like these have fumes that can aggravate asthma and allergies in children and adults and can cause further skin or mucous membrane irritation upon contact. Think about when you use a harsh chemical like chlorine bleach and it makes your eyes water, or it stings your nose. These are the same types of chemicals that are toxic if ingested, and possibly toxic when they are rinsed into our local water supply.

“Long-term toxicity with repeated use is also a concern—including hormonal disruption in children,” continues Tanner. “Most of us use these cleaners because we don’t want to take risks with germs, but ultimately we may be taking more of a risk than we would if we used naturally based cleaning products.”

Natural is safer
It’s important to note that cleaning green doesn’t necessarily mean the products are meant to be ingested, inhaled, or otherwise used beyond their intended purpose. What it does mean is that the products are safer, more tolerable cleaning choices for humans and animals, and they leave smaller carbon footprints on the environment.

Borax, for example, is a popular mineral-based cleaning agent that can be included in a wide variety of homemade cleaners, including clothes-washing detergents, deodorizers, and mildew removers. Still, its directions indicate use in small doses. Eco-friendly brands of cleaners also usually state that their products are only to be used “as directed,” even given their ingredients’ history of safety. Borax, vinegar, baking soda, and plant-based soaps are much greener, healthier choices than many other products, but like all cleaners they should be handled with care.

How to get started
So what are the best ways to proceed with green cleaning at your studio? Start with inexpensive homemade formulas or eco-friendly store-bought products, such as Mrs. Meyer’s or Seventh Generation brands. To be extra green, you can use cotton cloths or mopheads on surfaces and avoid overusing paper towels. Sturdy microfiber cloths are another good choice, since they can be washed and reused and are gentle on surfaces. Natural cellulose sponges are also effective on spots that need a bit more elbow grease.

Tackling areas such as the bathrooms, lobby, and office is fairly straightforward: A baking-soda–based paste is one of the best ways to scrub away pesky stains in sinks, toilets, bathroom fixtures, and other nonporous surfaces, while a vinegar-based all-purpose solution makes an excellent disinfectant for nearly all surfaces.

If using vinegar everywhere seems a bit—let’s say this nicely—pungent, you can add a few drops of your favorite essential oil to the mix. (Orange, eucalyptus, and lavender are popular choices and available at most natural food stores.) Effective window and mirror cleaners can also be made using a solution of water, vinegar, and plant-based soap.

Most of these products can be mixed ahead of time and stored just like their synthetic chemical counterparts; however it’s also easy to keep the ingredients in a plastic tub with a cheat sheet and mix what you need as you go along.

Handle with care
Apart from the usual cleaning zones, a few areas in dance studios need special consideration. One of them is our dance floors, since most of us aren’t willing to take chances with such an expensive investment. Floor manufacturers, such as Harlequin and Stagestep, typically recommend using floor cleaners with a neutral pH, especially with vinyl marley-type floors. A neutral pH means the cleaner is in the mid-range between acidic and alkaline, and fortunately for our green cleaning efforts, a neutral pH usually means a gentler product with less sudsing and little-to-no residue. (One eco-friendly product is Zep Green Link Neutral Floor Cleaner.) If you have particular concerns about your floor, contact the manufacturer directly about the products they recommend and ask about green alternatives.

Another cleaning challenge can be classroom ballet barres, probably the fixtures with the highest microbe potential, especially given our tendency to forget about them as a prime source for germs.

Barres that are steel, aluminum, or wood finished with a glossy seal can typically withstand a rubdown from a washcloth soaked with an all-purpose cleaner. Alternatively, you could use a surface wipe from one of the eco-friendly brands mentioned previously. Unfinished barres require more caution but can generally be cleaned with a barely damp washcloth, using water and a little vinegar (similar to how you might clean unfinished wood floors). While cleaning your ballet barres, you should be careful not to drip what you’re using onto the dance floors; if you do, wipe up spills immediately to avoid damage.

Everyday healthy practices
One of the easiest ways to keep your studio’s environment healthy is to do a quick, end-of-the-day clean sweep of everything—or at least as much as you can. It not only prevents the grimy buildup that can occur over a (short) time, it gives a fresh impression the next day. A washcloth dampened with an all-purpose cleaner or a surface wipe is perfect for swabbing door handles, light switches, faucets, and other frequently touched fixtures. (Also, if customers catch you in the act, they’ll be impressed!)

Encourage frequent handwashing, or at a minimum, hand sanitizing among your employees and dancers. Seek out hand soaps and sanitizers with plant-based ingredients, and avoid triclosan, an unnecessary antibacterial agent that may kill good bacteria (the kind that keeps us healthy) as well as bad. Be a good example to your customers and your employees by washing up between classes, coughing into your elbow instead of your hands, not touching your face, and keeping hand sanitizer available in the busiest parts of your studio.

Whether or not they notice, your customers will benefit from your attention to the green cleanliness of your studio and your consideration of their families’ overall health. To those who inquire (and let’s face it, some always do), you can assure them that not only are your eco-friendly cleaning standards sufficient for your studio and for their children, you are also doing your part to protect the planet. And that’s quite the global statement.

Green Cleaning Recipes

These are a few of the many variations of inexpensive, eco-friendly products you can make yourself. Recipes can vary slightly among green cleaning groups and proponents; the products here are used and recommended by Welcome Home Maids.

All-Purpose Cleaner
1 teaspoon borax
1 tablespoon castile soap
1/8 cup distilled white vinegar
2 cups hot water
5–10 drops of essential oil (optional)

Mix all the ingredients and pour into a spray bottle. Great for disinfecting most surfaces.

Window Cleaner
1/8 teaspoon liquid soap (such as castile or Ivory)
3 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
2 cups water

Mix all the ingredients and pour into a spray bottle. Shake it up a bit and use as you would a commercial brand. Safe for mirrors.

Creamy Soft Scrub
½ cup baking soda
Liquid soap (such as castile or Ivory)

Pour about 1/2 cup of baking soda into a bowl and add enough liquid soap to make a frosting-like texture. Scoop the mixture onto a sponge, or make more for bigger jobs. Good for bathroom fixtures, and it doesn’t leave grit behind.

Note: Add 1 teaspoon of vegetable glycerin to the mixture and store in a sealed glass jar, to keep the product moist. Otherwise just make as much as you need at a time.

Green Reading

Interested in learning more about cleaning green and living the green life? Here are some excellent books and websites to explore.

Naturally Clean: The Seventh Generation Guide to Safe & Healthy, Non-Toxic Cleaning
by Jeffrey Hollender, Geoff Davis, and Meika Hollender

Green Housekeeping by Ellen Sandbeck
Vinegar: Over 400 Various Versatile, & Very Good Uses You’ve Probably Never Thought Of by Vicky Lansky

www.eartheasy.com
www.thedailygreen.com
www.planetgreen.discovery.com

How to throw spellbinding fairy-tale princess parties

By Carol Yearout

Hosting children’s birthday parties is a popular sideline business at many dance schools. Along with bringing in more revenue, these parties can boost your studio’s enrollment; once parents have been introduced to your school, they might decide that it’s just the place for their children to explore dance. So you’ve got two great reasons to offer them a party like no other.

What little girl doesn’t dream of being a princess? With fairy-tale princess-themed parties, you’ll be making her dreams come true. Here’s how to do it.

Step 1: Getting ready

Advertising
Make a one-page flyer to include in your sign-up package for new clients. Additionally, create a poster-size version and post it in a prominent position so that parents know the school is available for birthday parties. Don’t forget to advertise on your website too—once you’ve given a few parties, post some pictures of the fun.

Reserve a two-hour block for each party. Saturday afternoons are a good time. Base your fees on two hours of studio time, plus setup and cleanup, three helpers, and anything else you want to offer, such as refreshments. Typically, pizza, cake, and ice cream will keep everyone happy. You can include the food in your package price or allow the parents to opt to provide their own food. One large pizza should be enough for five children.

Invitations
Limiting the parties to roughly 12 attendees makes the group manageable. If there will be more than 12 children, simply make sure you have enough helpers, costumes, and food.

For invitations, look for something with a fairy tale or princess theme. Try prom supply stores like Stumps (stumpsprom.com) for blank, castle-shaped metallic invitations. You can make the invitations available to parents; sell them for twice what you paid for them and then let them put anything they like on them. Encourage them to get creative with something like this:

“One enchanted day, when twinkling stars fell from the night sky, Samantha was born. Come celebrate Samantha’s Happy Happy Birthday with us at [time], Saturday, [date,] at [school’s name and address]. RSVP: [parent’s phone number].”

Costumes
Have a big box of beautiful princess costumes for the party guests to use. (Collect them at yard sales or salvage them from past dance recitals.) Make sure to have something for the boys as well. Capes, crowns, and swords are always appropriate. (Boys can’t seem to resist fighting with any weapons, even soft, rubbery swords, so designate a helper to keep the boys on track.) Or if you prefer, you can specify that the children should come to the party dressed in their own princess or prince costume.

Story
Choose a fairy tale to read at the party and then go to a bookstore or library and get the biggest, most beautifully illustrated book you can find.

Music
Buy or borrow the classical music for the fairy tale you’ve chosen. For The Sleeping Beauty, I like to use the Philharmonia Orchestra version of the music, conducted by John Lanchbery. There are many great recordings to choose from. For example, EMI has a complete recording with André Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra ($11.98 for two CDs on Amazon), and many recordings of the suite are available.

Craft and game supplies
Choose a project for the children to do and purchase the supplies you’ll need at a craft supply store or order them from Oriental Trading (orientaltrading.com) or similar sites. Tall, pointy princess hats and wands are popular with girls; choose crowns for the boys.

Base your fees on two hours of studio time, plus setup and cleanup, three helpers, and anything else you want to offer, such as refreshments.

You’ll need enough tables to give everyone room to work and glue guns to attach feathers, jewels, ribbons, and other bits of decor onto the hats or wands. Buy several colors of ribbon to use as streamers, which can be attached to the top of the hats. For wands, have the children add jewels on one side and feathers on the other, with ribbon streamers on one end, extending down the handle.

You’ll also need two pieces of carpet, approximately two feet wide by three feet long.

Helpers
Ask the advanced dancers at your school or older girls who are good with children to help out with the crafts and dancing. You’ll need one helper for every three children.

Step 2: The party

Dragon game
After all the children arrive, put the rug pieces down about 15 feet from each other (leaving enough room for the children to run and jump over them). Then gather the children together, use a dramatic voice, and tell them this scary story:

“Children, I have something to tell you. This room looks like a regular room in a regular dance studio, but once upon a time, it was seething with dragons. Yes, children, dragons! Right here in our own dance studio! Now, they don’t often come out anymore—because everyone knows dragons aren’t real—except if somebody steps on these rugs. If someone steps on them, it opens the gate for them! And they sometimes poke their heads out and breathe fire—yes, they breathe fire! So, children, I want you to run as fast as you can, and when you get close to the rug, jump as high as you can over it. Yes, you can do it. Don’t step on that rug! Don’t let that dragon out! He might blow fire at your ankle!”

Have some of your helpers keep the girls and boys lined up and ready to go on one side of the room and another helper on the other side to start a new line. Have the children run and jump over the rugs one at a time. Once all of them have done so, they can run and jump from the other side too. You can play this game many times. After each child jumps over, ask, “Did you see the dragon? Are you all right?” And if a child accidentally steps on the rug, be dramatic and say, “Oh! Sara! Are you all right? Did the dragon breathe his hot, hot fire at you?”

This game lets the children blow off some steam. Next, it’s time to settle down and concentrate on lots of fun prince and princess dancing as you read the fairy tale you’ve chosen.

Story/dancing time
Get out the costumes and let the children choose what they’d like to put on. Tell them how beautiful or handsome they look and instruct them to sit at your feet while you read the story. Let’s use “The Sleeping Beauty” as an example.

After reading about the party for Princess Aurora’s 16th birthday, pause and have the children do the first dance (princesses and princes at the ball). Have one of your dancer helpers be the leader for the children to follow if they wish. (You could let the birthday child lead the dances some of the time.) There is no wrong way to dance like a prince or princess! After three minutes, ask the children to sit down again and then read another part of the book, describing how Princess Aurora arrives at the party. Stop reading and let the children dance again. Continue alternating reading and dancing until you finish the story.

You may need to explain what’s happening for each dance, for example, “Children, here we’re pretending to be the lovely princesses and handsome princes who are at the ball,” or “Now we’re the beautiful Princess Aurora’s fabulous friends.”

Refreshments
After the dancing is over and the costumes are off, serve the pizza, cake, and ice cream and let the birthday child open the presents. Then do the craft activity (and have an extra game ready in case the activities end before the two hours are up). When it’s time to go home, the children will be talking about how this was the best fairy tale princess party ever!

Fairy Tale Readings
You can market your school by doing fairy tale readings at your local public library and bookstores. Call them and offer to read to the children as your schedule allows—twice a month or even twice a week. (Barnes & Noble stores usually offer story times three to five times weekly, as do many libraries.)

Specify that you would like to do the story times for 3- and 4-year-olds and 5- and 6-year-olds; they are your target markets. Try to read on a few different days of the week (for example, Tuesday and Saturday mornings), so that many parents will see you. Read a fairy tale story like “Cinderella” or “The Sleeping Beauty.” Choreograph some simple, short dances for very young children and bring music and something to play it on with you. Have a student helper demonstrate the dances (home-schooled students can often help out with weekday readings), and then have the children dance with her. Both boys and girls enjoy the movement and dancing.

Prepare inexpensive goody bags for the children with a ballet notepad and pencil, information about your studio, and a magnet with your studio’s information on it.

Fairy tale themes are so successful because children and parents know and love them. They’re a great way to draw young children to your school.

How to make dance history matter to your students

By Lauren Shapiro

To your students, the roots and evolution of dance might seem academic and unrelated to performance. But understanding how various dance forms developed and how they are related to performance visibly informs a dancer’s way of moving and performing.

According to Lisa Jo Sagolla, Ed.D., who teaches dance history at Dance Theatre of Harlem, “You can always tell a dancer who has a sense of the history, of the style, of where the choreographer came from. It makes a difference in their style; it makes a difference in their ability to get a job. If they audition for Miami City Ballet and they know something about Edward Villella, you see it in their style. It’s something that permeates their dancing in a way that’s obvious. It’s obvious when it’s not there.”

Make it relevant
Sagolla, who also teaches ballet to adult students in Columbia University’s Voluntary Physical Education program, as well as the Senior Seminar at Marymount Manhattan College’s dance department, says that turning students’ attention away from physical movement to dance history requires creativity.

Her history class is required for the students in Dance Theatre of Harlem’s certificate program. “There are always one or two who are real buffs and want to know all this, but I wouldn’t say it’s a top priority for the majority of the students,” says Sagolla. “Some students are not at all interested in dance history, but they’re very interested in their future careers and what is going on today in the ballet world. So I use current events as jumping-off points.”

For example, in previous years she has used the anniversaries of San Francisco Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and Lar Lubovitch Dance Company to frame classes, discussing the various celebration events in the context of those companies’ histories. “I really try to find some news,” emphasizes Sagolla. “When Lar did a new version of Othello, I talked about the previous versions of Othello. And whenever a famous dancer dies, I bring in the obituaries. It’s an excuse to go back in history.”

Make a connection
No matter how intense the students are, children’s dance classes are still part of an overall general education. “If I were working with kids in a studio situation over time,” says Sagolla, “I would try to make connections between what they’re doing in dance and their education at large, be it history, anatomy, or science. I think it’s important for kids to understand that what they’re doing in dance class is part of a larger legacy. There are many ways to do that. You can take a particular step you’re working on and find a variation on it. For example, when students do brisé, it’s an opportunity to talk about Cecchetti, who first danced the role of the Blue Bird.”

Sagolla says that students think it’s fun to connect Cecchetti’s name with something besides his technique, and that connection extends to an interest in the Blue Bird variation. Likewise, you can talk about the origins of the five positions and some of the petit allegro steps in Renaissance court dances.

“Some students are not at all interested in dance history, but they’re very interested in their future careers and what is going on today in the ballet world. So I use current events as jumping-off points.” —Lisa Jo Sagolla, Ed.D.

Providing information that’s up close and personal also gets students’ attention. “If you talk about Isadora Duncan’s life, people become more interested,” Sagolla says. “It generates students’ interest in the larger picture and why it’s important for them to do those steps in a particular way.”

One-shot deals
Even a one-time dance history lecture can be a motivational tool. “It’s always interesting to bring someone in from the outside,” says Sagolla. “If the guest teacher can provide an example that students find interesting, they will often seek out the information for themselves or from their regular dance teacher.”

As a lecturer, you can tell you’re succeeding when a student asks a question. “Then you’re golden, because you know they’re interested. What’s hard is finding out what’s going to interest the students.” Sagolla says. The more awareness you have of pop culture—the music, movies, performers that young people are interested in—the better you will be at making connections between students’ interests and the material you’re presenting.

Movie magic
Not everyone is in a position to bring in guest lecturers. In that case, Sagolla has found that “films work very well. Students today respond very well to DVDs, even documentaries. They’re used to that. I was teaching a unit on Giselle and I had this very old, stodgy film of interviews with dancers who had played Giselle and I thought I’d play just a little bit of it for the DTH ensemble.” To her great surprise, “they loved it; they wanted to see the whole thing.”

Drive-by dance history
If you’re barely able to get through class on time as it is, Sagolla offers a solution: Show 5 minutes of a film and tell the kids how they can find the DVD. Many dance videos and DVDs are available for purchase, rental, or library loan. Since students typically want instruction only on what they’re doing and will tune out what they perceive to be extraneous—and being mindful that the class has to keep a certain pace—Sagolla suggests playing the video at the beginning or end of class or during the middle break (if there is one).

These teasers may not be thorough, but “they can’t hurt,” Sagolla says. “Maybe you’ll hit one kid at one point with something.” And creating that spark of interest could lead students to a lifelong interest in dance history that will make them more informed—and therefore more interesting—dancers.

Kid-Friendly Dance Books

Teachers who use books enhance dance studio life by infusing it with, well, life. Storytime circles or book-talk interludes engender an esprit de corps, connecting hearts and minds to the steps—and isn’t that the goal?

Dance (DK Eyewitness Books) by Andree Grau
A cross between a college textbook and a coffee-table book, it covers everything from court dances and costumes to dance crazes and makeup. Because it is so comprehensive, yet so succinct and pictorial, it is the ideal book to keep in the studio for reference. For example, if it is time to discuss communicating “joy” in dance, you can read two sentences on the joy of dance (hint: Gene Kelly). If the term “whirling dervishes” should come to mind, you can turn that into a teachable moment

DK Read & Listen: Illustrated Book of Ballet Stories by Barbara Newman, illustrated by Gill Tomblin, introduced and read by Darcey Bussell, former principal dancer with The Royal Ballet
Though intended for ages 9 to 12, between the exquisite illustrations and photographs, the fairy tale and intelligent commentaries, this book has something for everyone. After two pages of “ballet basics,” the book presents the stories of Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker, Giselle, and Coppélia. For example, a discussion of the Blue Bird variation could be supplemented by this book’s notes on the Sleeping Beauty wedding, titled “Brilliant Bluebird!” which explains why it one of the most difficult male solos and illustrates the brisés with a photo of Tetsuya Kumakawa in midair. The glossary runs from Adam, Adolphe to Wolf, The.

José! Born to Dance: The Story of José Limón by Susanna Reich; illustrated by Raúl Colón
This book for grades 2 to 4 won a host of awards: Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award, International Latino Book Award, Booklist Top Ten Arts Books for Youth, New York Public Library 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing, and the Bank Street College of Education Best Books of the Year. Most reviews were enthusiastic, particularly about the artwork; however School Library Journal Reviews found the story line lacking.

Alvin Ailey by Andrea Davis Pinkney; illustrated by Brian Pinkney
This book for kindergarten through grade 3 received good reviews. It covers Ailey’s life from his Texas childhood through his production of Revelations.

The Barefoot Book of Ballet Stories by Jane Yolen and Heidi E. Y. Stemple, illustrated by Rebecca Guay-Mitchell
At press time, a new edition of this book for grades 3 through 7 was slated for release in November 2009. The 2004 edition includes chapters on the history and chronology of classical ballet, Coppélia: The Girl With the Enamel Eyes, Swan Lake, Cinderella, The Nutcracker, Shim Chung: The Blind Man’s Daughter, The Sleeping Beauty, and Daphnis and Chloë, plus a bibliography.

A Child’s Introduction to Ballet: The Stories, Music, and Magic of Classical Dance (book and CD) by Laura Lee, illustrations by Meredith Hamilton
This book for ages 4 through 8 has an over-the-top style, which is not wholly incompatible with a history of ballet. Besides, it covers 25 ballets and includes a CD of relevant ballet music excerpts, thus according the music a life of its own.

How to find music that’s kid-friendly but still fun

By Julie Holt Lucia

It is the ever-present challenge for all dance teachers, a singular topic gnawing at you when you’re brushing your teeth and when you’re grocery shopping, when you’re in the car and when you (finally) go to sleep at night: How do we find music suitable for classes and performances that a) won’t have bad words, b) won’t have tactless innuendos, and c) won’t bore my students? Where is the music that is fun and choreograph-able and, quite important, appropriate?

It’s out there. Sometimes you have to hunt for it, rummage around, and get exasperated. Sometimes you know right away that you like it; sometimes you have to do a little editing or mixing. You have to be willing to go back into the music vaults, maybe touch on some classics, and explore the newest releases. But this music is just waiting to be danced. And we’re going to help you find some of it.

First off, how do you decide—or define—what’s appropriate? It seems easy at the outset, but music has seemingly endless gray areas. Obviously foul words and sexual innuendos are out. But are abstract, hard-to-understand lyrics acceptable? What about the words “God” or “Jesus” or other religious terms? Are songs about breakups and dating all right for certain age groups, or is that crossing a line no matter what? Is it OK to use an artist or band whose other songs are not suitable for young ears? What about someone who might not be a superior role model?

Only you can answer these types of questions for your studio. But they’re worth asking, not only for your own music search but as part of your general music policy. It’s much easier to explain to parents what’s acceptable and what’s not if you’ve already made it clear for yourself and your staff: Here’s the line; we don’t cross it.

The search

Keyword searches
On to the search. One foolproof (although time-consuming) method is to search a term related to a theme or subject of interest in iTunes (let’s say “puppy”) and see what comes up. Then you can pick through songs by their 30-second snippets, and search for the lyrics if the song seems promising. (We’ve all been there: You think you’ve found a great song, only to purchase it and discover something upsetting smack in the middle of the second verse.) From the snippet and lyric search, you can decide whether to purchase the song.

Sort by genre
When searching terms in iTunes, it helps to sort the songs by genre. In this example, many country and pop variations of Dolly Parton’s “Puppy Love” will appear, as well as music from the Imagination Movers and The Baby Einstein Music Box Orchestra. With “puppy,” the search results show music genres that vary from alternative to children’s and soundtrack to world. But regardless of genre, you can avoid a surprise later by researching the lyrics before purchasing the song.

Unknown songs by bands you know
Another method is to leave a theme or topic out of the equation and start somewhere else. Maybe there’s a band you like that you wouldn’t typically think of as kid friendly; you could search its albums anyway and look up songs you’re less familiar with. The Barenaked Ladies, for example, have a kids’ album that includes a melodious and easy-to-count song called “Humungous Tree,” suitable for younger or older dancers. (I call this band “BNL” when my school uses its songs.) The Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” is an ’80s staple, and fun for warming up in jazz class. Even Vampire Weekend’s “A-Punk” makes a lively combo for teens. You never know what you’re going to find or rediscover when you start with what you like to listen to.

Stores
Dance teachers aren’t usually bursting with spare time, but another, more leisurely, way to search for music is to visit your favorite hand-me-down, independent music store, if you’re lucky enough to have one nearby (otherwise a Borders or Barnes & Noble will do). Peruse record albums as well as cassettes and CDs, not necessarily for purchase but for ideas and inspiration. You might find a cracked Lionel Richie album that motivates you to look up “Dancing on the Ceiling” and “Ballerina Girl.” Or maybe you’ve never heard the full soundtrack to Shrek and you discover how dance-able The Proclaimers’ “I’m on My Way” is.

Maybe there’s a band you like that you wouldn’t typically think of as kid friendly; you could search its albums anyway and look up songs you’re less familiar with.

In fact, many soundtracks can present interesting choices, from historical to unusual: Planet of the Apes, Cirque du Soleil shows, Memoirs of a Geisha, West Side Story. Jot down anything that grabs your attention. Eventually you’ll end up with stacks of notes—your own personal resource when you need a music overhaul.

Ideas to get you out of your rut
Maybe you’re still stuck. Maybe something’s not clicking, or you feel like you’re in a rut. In that case, here are some song suggestions for you—freshly plucked from music stores, collections, and libraries. Use them yourself, or use them to spark your imagination. Whatever you do, follow the standards you’ve established. Your customers will respect you for it.

For the little ones
You can’t escape Disney music, which we all have to admit can be fun—and it’s always recognizable and safe. Using different versions of Disney songs can help alleviate your mouse-weariness (one favorite: Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films, available through amazon.com). But even with Disney’s near-monopoly on kids’ music, your littlest dancers deserve exposure to many other artists and music styles.

• Greg & Steve: “Bop ’Til You Drop,” “Animal Action” (I and II), “The Movement Medley,” “The Mack Chicken Dance,” “Get Ready Get Set Let’s Dance!”
  We introduce these songs as dance “games” with specific instructions, so that the class is still structured and the dancing doesn’t become a complete free-for-all. The kids love them, so we use these songs as incentives; they can earn the chance to do one of these songs. It’s a fun way to kick off a shy class or end a class when the kids need something extra to look forward to.
• Kathy Williams: “Never Smile at a Crocodil
  Perfect for a young students’ tap routine.
• Lisa Loeb: “Love Is a Rose”
  Easy to count, with simple lyrics.
• Slim Gaillard: “Potato Chips”
  Old-fashioned and silly; good for a laugh.
• Baha Men: “Best Years of Our Lives”
  Makes a lively tap warm-up.
• Kenny Loggins: “Rainbow Connection
  A sweet version of the Muppets’ famous tune.
• The Bacon Brothers and Mickey Hart: “Pots and Pans”
  Rhythmic and quick, even suitable for older dancers.
• Saint-Saëns: Carnival of the Animals: No. 7 “Aquarium,” No. 12 “Fossils” (any recording)
  Great for exploring interpretive movement or linking basic ballet steps.

For older kids (up to ’tweens)
Usually Disney-spun artists and bands, à la the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus, dominate this age group’s music. There’s nothing wrong with them, but their songs can wear on you (and sometimes your dancers have heard them enough too, believe it or not). Older elementary school kids and younger middle schoolers are starting to pay attention to the music—and some of them are really starting to care about their dancing. Give them some tunes that are more mature than what they’re used to but still easy enough to listen to and count.

• Jordan Pruitt: “No Ordinary Girl,” “Jump to the Rhythm,” “I Wanna Go Back”
  This girl can sing, and her songs make an enjoyable jazz warm-up.
• Alison Krauss: “Evermore”
  Makes a sweet, lullaby-like ballet routine.
• Jackson 5: “Little Bitty Pretty One,” “Rockin’ Robin”
  Quick-paced Motown favorites, great for tap or jazz.
• Strings for Kids: Acordes Para Hormiguitas y Menudas Criaturas: “Ruta de las Hormigas,” “Canto de Ballenas”
  Beautiful string instrumentals for ballet or lyrical jazz.
• Nat King Cole: “Orange Colored Sky”
  Another old-school hit; could be used for anything from lyrical to tap.
• Moloko: “Sing It Back,” “Indigo”
  Upbeat, easy-to-count electronic songs, perfect for across-the-floor combos.
• Aretha Franklin: “Respect”
  Let your chatty ’tween jazz class show off its attitude with this classic.
• Henry Mancini: “Pink Panther Theme”
  Go stylized and educate your dancers about this sneaky cartoon character.

For teens
Teens can be finicky about their music, but the right song can get them motivated, both in class and onstage. The challenge is to keep things interesting while not limiting choices to current artists and trends. Part of your job—if you think of it this way—is to help them appreciate music from a variety of decades and experiment with styles within specific dance genres. They’ll be better, more well-rounded dancers because of it.

• Coldplay: “Strawberry Swing,” “Life in Technicolor”
  Perfect for swinging movements or stretching in jazz or modern.
• Grace Jones: “I’ve Seen That Face Before”
  Great for a combo or pirouettes in jazz.
• Harry Connick Jr.: “With Imagination,” “We Are in Love”
  Two lesser-known, upbeat songs well suited for tap interpretation.
• Augustana: “Boston”
  A clear waltz, great for challenging ballet kids to think outside of classical music.
• Psapp: “Rear Moth,” “Tiger, My Friend”
  Quirky, offbeat tunes for a modern combo or across the floor.
• Joshua Sitron: Peter and the Wolf (Prokofiev)
  An almost haunting, otherworldly music-box sound.
• The Contours: “Do You Love Me”
  The ’60s and Motown: the mashed potato, the twist, maybe the pony too?
• Thievery Corporation: “The Shining Path,” “Omid (Hope),” “The Supreme Illusion”
  Eclectic and different, but they lend themselves easily to movement.
• Carly Simon: “You Are My Sunshine”
  Parents will tear up with this tender version of the childhood favorite.

Hip-hop only
Possibly the biggest music challenge of them all—clean, exciting, dance-able hip-hop music. Besides bad language, many hip-hop songs are full of underlying meanings and inappropriate innuendos. And you can’t just edit them out when it’s obvious what was there in the first place. Parents usually aren’t in favor of their kids slappin’ their booties like Flo Rida says, or shakin’ their milkshakes to bring the boys to the yard, like Kelis claims. But Raven-Symoné songs can only take you so far, right? So seek out instrumentals that will show off your choreography and let you tell a story if you choose. Find artists who consistently offer good choices, and then look for similar ones in iTunes. (The “Listeners Also Bought” section and iMixes are great resources.) You should even be able to take non-hip-hop songs and put your own creative twist on them, either with music editing software or with your choreography.

• Keke Palmer: “Footwurkin’,” “It’s My Turn Now,” “Jumpin’ ”
  Disney bred, these songs have positive lyrics and are different in a good way.
• T-Squad: “Flip,” “Believe,” “Parents Just Don’t Understand”
  Also from Disney, this group is rap-lite.
• Will Smith: Men in Black, Will 2K
  Throwback to the ’90s with Will Smith’s songs, many of which are appropriate.
• Gnarls Barkley: “Going On,” “Feng Shui”
  Rap-alternative songs with backbeats that make you want to dance. These lyrics fly by but are not a problem.
• Fatboy Slim: “Love Island,” “Psyché Rock,” “E.V.A.,” “Renegade Master”
  Mostly instrumental, these songs are good choices among many others not suitable for young ears.
• DJ Shadow: “This Time (I’m Gonna Try It My Way),” “Fixed Income,” “You Can’t Go Home Again”
  Again, mostly instrumental since not all DJ Shadow songs are appropriate. These songs are a bit more unusual but offer inspiration for different styles of hip-hop.
• The Ting Tings: “We Walk,” “Fruit Machine”
  Quirky and alternative, with an ’80s feel.

When it comes to finding great music, there’s really no one-size-fits-all answer. Every school has its own expectations, from class to performance and from tots to teens. The key is to keep an open mind and never stop searching; find what works for you and keep spinning off your web of music selections from there. Don’t be afraid to try something new, or to go back to a time that’s new for your dancers. Having so many music choices is both a blessing and a curse—a dance teacher’s never-ending saga. Although you have to admit: Finding great music is a fantastic treat, worth every second, and just the beginning of your choreographic journey.

There’s no size that doesn’t fit Big Moves

By Karen White

Leyna McKenney loved to dance, but she quit when the awkward feeling of being the largest, tallest girl in the studio became too much to bear. Ten years later, preparing for an audition, she was shocked to realize that she didn’t even own a pair of dance shoes anymore.

“Once I started moving it was, ‘Hey, I remember this,’ ” McKenney says of her audition with Big Moves, a company that provides performance opportunities for plus-sized dancers. “I woke up the next morning so sore I couldn’t move. I just wanted to do it again.”

Other Big Moves dancers tell a similar tale. Loved to dance, loved to perform, yet in dance class or theater productions their size always seemed to overshadow their enthusiasm. Told they needed to “lose 30 pounds to get better roles” or to “suck in your butt” in ballet class. Cast as the mother or the funny friend—or a man. Ignored. Each had given up dance until Big Moves got them back onstage in a big way.

“This is a great vessel for proving what you can do, and doing what you want to do,” Michelle Keating of Somerville, Massachusetts, says. “It’s not just fat chicks dancing.”

Big Moves is often perceived as a novelty act, but dancers (left to right) Alanna Kelly, Jessica Judd, Matilda St. John, and Cindy Cutts win audiences over by time the curtain falls. (Photo by Luiza Silva)

Last spring, the 12 members of Big Moves Boston were preparing their spring show for two weekends of performances in Cambridge and one in Philadelphia. A musical theater original created by Big Moves founder Marina Wolf Ahmad, Fat Camp tells of a young camper expecting to attend one of those “lose weight quick” camps, but instead, learns the joys of “loving the skin you’re in.”

The mood was festive during an April dress rehearsal, held in an unglamorous exercise room of an assisted-living center in Jamaica Plain, a suburb of Boston. Troupe members—sizes 6 to 28—passed around Girl Scout cookies and finished up prop pieces while four dancers drilled a hip-hop number to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies.” The cast then launched into the show, singing and dancing, cracking jokes and “fat” puns, whipping through split-second costume changes, celebrating their size with panache.

“As a dance teacher, I feel strongly about the wonderful powers of dance,” says Ahmad, who started Big Moves in 2000 for plus-size women, then expanded its focus to include dancers of all sizes. “In the dance world, people make projections and assumptions based on size. We want to show through our dancers and our performances what’s possible.”

It was Ahmad’s experience in a junior college dance teacher certificate program that led to Big Moves. At age 28, older and larger than her classmates, Ahmad felt that her teachers neglected to give her feedback or comments that would help her improve her technique. She loved hip-hop, but in class she felt isolated, pushed aside and ignored, by both the teachers and the other students.

Online conversations with other plus-size dance students led her to put together a dance workshop, “A Day of Dance,” at a women’s health club in Redwood City, California. Thirty women studied hip-hop, samba, belly dance, and contact improvisation “in a nonjudgmental environment where they could feel safe,” she says.

During the next decade, Ahmad produced dance concerts, organized more workshops, taught hip-hop, and brought in choreographers to work with her company of large modern-dance and hip-hop–trained dancers. When Ahmad moved to Boston, she left a Big Moves chapter and eight-member company called the Phat Fly Girls running strong in San Francisco.

“Our mission is to make dance for everyone again,” Matilda St. John, a Phat Fly Girl since 2002 and co-director with Jessica Judd, says. “Dance is such a joyful experience. You don’t have to look a certain way to have access to that.”

St. John and Judd have moved the Phat Fly Girls away from hip-hop and into jazz/lyrical/contemporary dance, which they showcase in an annual concert-length show, at fund-raisers and community festivals, and in performance with West Coast bands or other dance groups. Each April brings their annual “Day of Dance,” free and open to the public, which this spring combined classes in ballet, lyrical jazz, and Bollywood with lectures on “how to love the body you have” and Phat Fly Girl demonstrations.

One of those who suffered through a weight-loss camp as a youngster, St. John recalls feeling excluded in dance class, urged to take jazz because “you can’t be serious about ballet with that body.” Big Moves, she says, is changing people’s perspectives of what larger-sized dancers can do.

“The public really hasn’t been given images of athletic fat dancers. In our lyrical pieces, there is always some concern when a fat girl goes to the floor,” she says. “People are surprised that we can do so much more than they thought.”

And it’s not about making the audience “forget” the dancers are large, St. John says, but embracing their size—just as the Phat Fly Girls themselves have done. “One of the biggest things I learned with Big Moves is that I have this body—use it. See my talent; see my size. We want the audience to celebrate how big and fierce we can be.”

In Boston, Big Moves performers include a professional opera singer, two belly dance specialists, dancers with pre-professional training, and musical theater performers, all strutting their stuff in burlesque shows and musical theater, in church halls and bars, on college campuses and at neighborhood festivals.

Sometimes it’s a tough sell. Ahmad knows Big Moves is often perceived as a novelty act. The troupe has to work against misconceptions of what larger dancers can and cannot do, she says, as well as social and traditional pressures that dancers must be a certain size. By the time the curtain falls, though, the audience has been won over.

“We’d like to encourage others to broaden their vision,” Ahmad says. “If you’re only working with thin dancers, it’s like a composer who only writes for the flute. We want access to the full orchestra—or, we say, at least consider it!”

Her dancers agree. McKenney, a resident of Brighton, Massachusetts, has been told “she’s inspiring” or she’s “brave.” She’d rather be told she’s a great dancer. Courtney Stanton of Somerville is waiting for the first review that “does not make some allusions that it’s near miraculous to get someone our size to have good leg extensions.”

“There is such a positive influence here—it’s so good to be around people who embrace everything about you. We bring just what any dancer wants to bring to an audience—grace and excitement and movement and joy.” —Erin Ayers

But on this dress rehearsal day, with a weekend performance in Cambridge on tap, there’s little griping. The performers, who have arrived in a cold, driving rain after a long day as administrative assistants, speech therapists, office workers, law assistants, or music teachers, are thankful for Big Moves and the opportunities it presents.

 “There is such a positive influence here—it’s so good to be around people who embrace everything about you,” says Erin Ayers of Jamaica Plain, who had given up on dance and theater in college after a lifetime of training. “Our audiences are entertained and possibly educated. We bring just what any dancer wants to bring to an audience—grace and excitement and movement and joy.”

Jordan Crouser of Medfield, Massachusetts, Big Moves’ set designer, grew up thin in a plus-size family. After a lifetime of defending his family, he’s letting go of that past with Big Moves’ help. “Here we’re part of a group that’s positive—people reinforce that you look great,” he said. “You realize you have a choice. You don’t have to subscribe to what society says.”

Ahmad sees Big Moves on the brink of breaking out. Three years it performed at the Montreal Fringe Festival, winning the 2007 Spirit of the Fringe Award for its original show Lard (Like “Grease,” but Thicker). It’s a lot of work, admits Ahmad, who writes her shows, creates the choreography, markets and books the group, and even “shamelessly” stands outside other theatrical and dance events to hand out flyers. “There is not a built-in market for size-diverse dance,” she says. She receives encouraging emails from across the country and is looking for someone willing to resurrect Big Moves’ New York chapter, which is in a reorganizing stage.

The social climate is tough, too, Ahmad says, with so much emphasis on losing weight. Schools want to measure students’ body mass index and send reports home to parents. Dancers talk about being bumped from flights because of size, not being able to find clothing that fits, or hearing comments like, “Oh, that must be great exercise,” when they talk about upcoming Big Moves performances.

Big Moves will keep pushing for visibility, Ahmad says, creating opportunities for all dancers and bringing up the issue of size diversity in dance and theater. “It can be infuriating, pushing, pushing to do all this work,” she says. “People say, ‘They do so many shows, they must be a big [organization],’ but we are all volunteers. We get some donations and small grants, plus ticket sales, but mostly it’s just us, fueled by the fires of belief.”

Belief in dance, and belief in themselves. Big Moves has pushed its dancers to step out of their comfort zones, to try a solo, to dance sexy, or just to be onstage doing what they had always loved—and thought they had lost.

“People ask me what I do in my spare time,” McKenney says. “I used to say, ‘I’m in a dance troupe.’ Now I say I’m a dancer.”

For calendar listings, visit www.bigmoves.org.

Blog: bigmovesboston.wordpress.com

The beloved ballerina mouse gets a makeover for TV

By David Favrot

Angelina, the ballet-loving mouse, is poised to capture the hearts of a new generation of ballet-loving youngsters as the star of an animated cartoon series that premiered on PBS stations in September.

If you—or your children—grew up with Angelina, much of what you see in the half-hour episodes of Angelina Ballerina: The Next Steps will be familiar from the children’s books by Katharine Holabird and illustrator Helen Craig. Angelina (“She’s a dancing star; she loves to twirl all day,” the show’s pop-rock theme assures us) is 8 years old now, but she still lives in Chipping Cheddar, England, with her parents, Maurice and Matilda Mouseling, and her 4-year-old sister, Polly.

(Photo courtesy HIT Entertainment)

She has moved on from Miss Lilly’s ballet school to the new Camembert Academy for the Performing Arts across town, where she studies ballet under the firm hand of Ms. Mimi. Each episode tells two separate stories, separated by a live-action scene that uses young dancers to demonstrate hip-hop, folk, and other varieties of dance.

HIT Entertainment is overseeing the series, targeted at 4- to 7-year-olds, in collaboration with WNET public television in New York and SD Entertainment, which produces the animation. An earlier animated version of the Angelina books was broadcast on PBS in 2002 and 2003.

The creators of the new Angelina Ballerina had several goals for her latest incarnation: They wanted to remain broadly faithful to the style of the books; expand the focus to dance styles beyond ballet; present the dancing as realistically as possible; introduce ethnic diversity in its characters; and make the stories interesting to boys as well as girls.

HIT was well aware of the perils of appearing to tinker with a beloved children’s story, says Karen Barnes, the series’ executive producer and HIT’s senior vice president for development and production. For example, the creative team “had a lot of discussion about changing the locale” of the action from England to the United States to make it more accessible to American kids, Barnes says. “But there were a lot of little girls out there who loved Angelina, and keeping [the characters’] accents was a way of not changing the books too much.”

Holabird and Craig “consulted with us on the design and the characters, and they gave us notes on the scripts,” says Barnes. “We didn’t want to lose what was essential about the characters.”

At the same time, in order to broaden the show’s appeal, “we have two male characters who joined the cast, Marco and A.Z.,” Barnes says. Marco is a student from tropical “Costa Mousa” who loves soccer and playing the conga drums, while A.Z. is a recent arrival from a big city who lives for hip-hop and adopts a cool-guy attitude. “The idea was to make Camembert more of an international school.”

Each episode tells two separate stories, separated by a live-action scene that uses young dancers to demonstrate hip-hop, folk, and other varieties of dance.

The live-action sequences in each show also provide ethnic diversity. In one, Kenichi Ebina, a Japanese student, demonstrates hip-hop moves and talks about his interest in the genre.

The producers’ commitment to dance realism made other innovations necessary. For one thing, Angelina herself got a makeover: In order to allow the realistic depiction of ballet steps, her legs have been made longer and more like a human’s, and her tummy is smaller. She doesn’t go on pointe, though—she’s too young. And she still has a mouse tail.

Though the Angelina episodes are pure computer-generated animation, “all the dances you’ll see in the show were originally live dances, done by dance students,” says Barnes, who studied dance as a child and took ballet and modern dance in college.

To ensure that musical details are accurate, scripts are sent to consultant Wendy Sims, a professor of music education at the University of Missouri. Sims suggests appropriate music for various styles of dance and checks such details as how a character is holding a bass fiddle and whether the fingering of an animated pianist matches the music on the soundtrack. In one episode, she says, a pianist supposedly playing a classical score looked like somebody banging out ragtime. She spoke up, and the animation was adjusted.

Beth Bogush is one of the show’s dance consultants. She’s a former teacher at Boston Ballet School and former co-director of the junior division of the Ailey School in New York who now runs a nonprofit with her husband that provides dance entertainment to military families at bases around the country.

Bogush’s resume includes choreographing for the Nick Jr. animated children’s series The Backyardigans. “My job was to research the dance that would be appropriate, given the characters’ size and proportions,” she says. “I went back to the Ailey School, and the dancers we used in The Backyardigans were all from the school. We had one dancer for each character.” She has drawn on that experience since Barnes approached her to consult for Angelina Ballerina, she says. (“Yes, I loved the book series,” Bogush says. “I read them with my daughter when she was young, and I incorporated [the books] into my curriculum at Boston Ballet and at Ailey.”)

“I kind of have a sense of what works and what doesn’t” in animated dance, says Bogush. Among the things that don’t work: Having a character turn her back to the camera; having the camera move around a character in a circle; and some ballet steps, like bouréeing in place, with small, rapid changes of weight that would be hard to animate and hard to follow on a home television’s shrunken scale. “One limitation is the size of the characters’ bodies—that’s a real challenge sometimes,” she says. Her role has grown beyond dance consulting: “Now I am starting to choreograph specific dances, and I’ve been reviewing the music,” she says.

Bogush feels strongly that the animated Angelina Ballerina won’t be a for-girls-only show. “One of my main concerns as a dance educator for 25 years has been to get boys interested in dance. I think we’ve expanded [the show’s appeal] with such great stories. It’s a chance for kids of every ethnicity to see someone like themselves,” she says, noting the addition of Marco and A.Z. “There’s athleticism in it. There’s power and confidence. I really feel like it’s something that brothers and sisters could sit down and enjoy together.”

 That may well happen. But a representative episode holds far more appeal for girls: Angelina has her friends Vici and Gracie stay for a sleepover, during which the girls make glittery hats for the Silly Hat Carnival but get into trouble because they stay up too late.

Consultant Nicole Hill, an expert in hip-hop, jazz, and lyrical dance, contributes choreography and checks that the dance movements in Angelina Ballerina are age-appropriate for the characters. She teaches at the Dallas Power House of Dance and has provided choreography for Barney and Friends and the dance squad of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team. Hill, 28, is a big fan of the Angelina book series: “I feel like it’s the ballerina’s favorite gift to get,” she says.

Storyboards or early versions of animated sequences are sent to Hill’s home computer, and she checks the dance details. (There’s a running time count on the screen so she can specify where changes are needed.) One challenge, she says, is that technical dance terms would be lost on the animators, so “I definitely have to describe what I want” in everyday language. The episodic work takes about four hours of her day, she says.

On one sequence she reviewed, “it was a hip-hop scene and it didn’t look hip-hop. The costumes and everything else were fine; it was just the steps. If you wouldn’t do it as a real dancer, you can’t do it in animation,” she says.

For more information, visit angelinaballerina.com. Check local listings for broadcast times.

How to choreograph school musicals with dance-challenged kids

By Larry Sousa

Character-driven upper-body movements draw the audience away from the feet to the faces of Alex Norton (Mark) and Katie Writer (Joanne). (Photo by George Lucozzi/ASA Photographic)

“I can’t dance.”

I get that disclaimer all the time, from nervous actors and singers trying their best to discourage me from putting them into dance sequences. It is, itself, a little dance. I enjoy it, but it doesn’t work on me. They’ll be dancing soon.

I direct and choreograph musicals of all kinds, on every level from professional to college to high school, and even children’s theater. When I’m working with students, I usually end up with very few (if any) trained dancers in the cast. Nevertheless, I’m determined to stage professional-quality production numbers, somehow. To me (a colossal musical-theater geek), it’s All Broadway, All the Time.

As a dance teacher, you know that most of your students would eagerly perform a 20-minute contemporary solo to a packed house but are scared to death of singing a note in public. It goes both ways: The theater is full of actors and singers who’d rather pull out their own toenails than dance. If you’ve been hired to choreograph a school musical, I bet you’ve already learned that—the hard way. Gone is your studio full of fearless, trained dancers who can read your mind. Now you have a stage full of actors sweating before the rehearsal even starts.

And you may get that in even the most ideal environment. One of my favorite places to work is at Westford Academy in Westford, Massachusetts, where I directed and choreographed the musical Rent in May 2008. The drama students there are talented and well-trained actor/singers. Yet most have no experience with dance, and their fears indeed bubble up. “Dancing makes me extremely nervous because I am not naturally graceful or, frankly, all that coordinated,” says Alex Norton, who played Mark in Rent. “I have no formal dance training.”

But what Alex and his cast-mates do have is a willingness to set aside their fears and try anything. That attitude is crucial to the success of the choreography, and it’s not automatic—it takes work to cultivate. As the choreographer, it’s you who has to create it. If you do, you’ll have a better chance to make better dances. Here are some approaches that help my performers and me get there. Hopefully they can inspire you too.

Forget what you know
Somebody decided that you should stage the local musical because you have years of experience as a dance educator. Huzzah! Now, throw most of that experience out. You are not setting choreography on trained dancers (for the most part). You’re not even there to teach technique (though if that occurs, kudos). You are there to create stories that will entertain the audience and help the musical make sense.

Dance scares actors. You need to make them feel comfortable with it. So don’t alienate them by spouting off coupé jeté en tournant and battement sur le cou-de-pied, or your cast might chaîné right out the door. Choose your words carefully. Of course, the issue is bigger than words.

Focus on character
A chorus stands frozen and sings. Then a line of dancers comes out and does some moves. And then you have actors seemingly caught in their own world, trying to shove the story forward with little help. The three groups seem to have no connection with each other. The result: The audience is confused and the story has come to a grinding halt. Sound familiar?

Yep, that’s your average school musical. But a big discussion about character can fix all of that. Be sure the entire cast knows that they’re all in one big sandbox. Avoid compartmentalizing the performers as actors, singers, or dancers. When they’re all “character performers,” everyone is essential to the story.

You need them to come together as one, and you need energetic movement from all of them. So create basic-but-unique steps that aren’t likely to show up in your normal technique class—also known as “character movement.”

“Character” is a magic word. It is often the key that unlocks a world of movement for the non-dancer. “I feel confident pulling off a dance-heavy role once I’ve gained a command of the character I’m playing,” says Kim Sollows, who played Mimi in Rent. “I have no dance training, but there are people who’ve told me they don’t believe that. Ha!”

Create vivid movements to draw the eye away from the feet. Your actors might not have a lot of experience with dance, but they can certainly pose and gesture.

Keep in mind that you, like the director and the authors, are an important member of the storytelling team. So once you’ve begun the conversation about character, don’t stop; your performers need constant reminders of who they are and what motivates them. You’ll find that many of them will agree with Katie Wright (Joanne in Rent), who says, “As I continue to develop my character work, the dancing becomes more and more natural. Gaining ownership of my character’s personality helps me figure out how and why she would dance.”

Breaking free with new inspirations
If you’re finding it hard to break out of your usual dance vocabulary, break out the DVDs. Movie musicals are a great source of inspiration because they’re filled with interesting characters doing interesting things—and much of the movement is simple, technically speaking. That’s the key.

In particular, study social dance, like in Hairspray and Footloose. Lots of the choreography is fairly pedestrian (in a good way), based on the kinds of moves you’d see on a dance floor, not a dance class. That’s good for the untrained dancer.

But pick your inspiration carefully. We are all easily intoxicated by the dancing in West Side Story and A Chorus Line, but most of it is based on advanced ballet and jazz technique. That’s what you’re trying to get away from, because your cast doesn’t possess that level of experience.

Forget the feet
If your choreography isn’t working, maybe it’s the feet’s fault. Many dance numbers in school musicals flop due to overly ambitious footwork. It’s probably fair to say that untrained dancers struggle the most with controlling their feet. So why would you give the hardest task to those who are least equipped to execute it? A big part of the job is to feature your performers’ strengths and hide their weaknesses.

Intricate footwork tends to send actors into a panic. “It’s nerve-wracking. It takes me much longer to learn those steps than people who’ve had dance training,” says John Manning (Benny in Rent). “That makes me regret not taking dance when I was younger.”

In my experience, musical-theater audiences don’t generally spend lots of time looking at feet. So given the circumstances, creating two hours’ worth of complicated footwork is time not-so-well spent. It’s a musical—the audience is looking for story, which is found most often in faces and upper bodies.

So with that in mind, create vivid, character-driven upper-body and arm movements to draw the eye away from the feet. Your actors might not have a lot of experience with dance, but they can certainly pose and gesture. Lots of good choreography can happen with the upper body. And you don’t have to do it all yourself.

Ask for input
Like most of the school musicals I stage, Rent had one choreographer and about 50 assistants—the performers, who always have great ideas. They love taking a bit of direction and developing it into something bigger and more wonderful than I could think of. With their contributions, we always end up with a show that overflows with interesting layers and details.

Dig for sections in your production numbers that don’t require strict unison movement. Then give your actors some room to create and some clear, story-based direction (as opposed to choreography). If you edit their contributions well, they’ll make you look pretty darn clever.

Freezing up
Every once in a while, I find myself standing in front of my cast with a blank page and no steps in my head. Not one. It’s a scary moment. All I want to do is panic and begin teaching choreography from my last jazz class. Big mistake.

Remember the golden rule: Musicals are about storytelling; the story and lyrics can always get you out of jams. Go back to the text. You’ll be much more likely to avoid arbitrary dancing that has nothing to do with the drama at hand.

Also, this is a good time to remember that you’re in a room full of eager assistants who have all read the script (and might know it even better than you do).

Say yes to clumps
For some mysterious reason, a clump equals instant choreography. Clumps can be very flattering to non-dancers, so look for opportunities to organize your performers into groups onstage. Add levels, shapes, and unique movements that match and don’t match.

You can travel a clump tightly in lockstep, let it explode all over the stage, then make it come back together again. You can rotate it, freeze it, and reveal a hidden actor from within it. You’re only limited by your imagination. Hey, clumps worked for Fosse—they can work for you too.

Limit the lectures
Sometimes it’s best to shut your trap. I was reminded of that the hard way during rehearsals for Rent. In “La Vie Boheme,” the Act 1 finale, I had the cast doing a kind of stylized march: legs and arms bent to an extreme with loud stepping to the beat (basically walking, but cooler). Everyone got it on the first try. Bliss.

But then I got the dreaded question that always comes when the choreography is based on walking: “Which arm goes with which foot?” I should have kept my mouth shut. Instead I launched into a speech about opposition arms. Oops. About half of the performers went into panic/fix-it mode, and who could blame them? From then on, I had lots of same-arm/same-leg marching, which is always very hard to undo. So when you talk, remember who’s listening.

Boost their confidence
One of your biggest goals is to make all the performers understand that they can indeed dance and deserve to be doing so. With that in mind, avoid constantly singling out your only two advanced dancers with comments like “I want it just like that!” You could inadvertently alienate them while intimidating everyone else. And just like that, everyone is scared again.

Whenever it’s appropriate, find the person who’d never expect to be complimented on his dancing—the kid who has probably never been singled out as an example of what’s right—and say “I want it just like that.” I bet you’ll raise the confidence level, and the spirits, of your entire company.

Razzle-dazzle ’em
If there’s a moment in your show that can support a kick line, do it! It’s a guaranteed crowd pleaser. Even if it doesn’t go perfectly, technical mishaps tend to be forgiven and forgotten instantly. And a simple kick is one of the easiest things to make happen.

Of course you should strive for good technique and precision, but forgive yourself when some of those basketball players in your cast have floppy feet. Hey, you got them up there doing a kick line!

What non-dancers may lack in dance technique and training, they more than make up for in enthusiasm, personality, and creativity. Invite them into your process, let them thrive, and don’t forget to have fun along the way. After all, it’s called a “play” for a reason.

What you should know about the dangers of “study drugs”

By Brian McCormick

The misuse of drugs with a goal of enhancing performance has been common practice for decades. Among dancers, amphetamines used to be a problem because they were commonly used in diet pills. Dangerous quick-fix approaches—instead of regimen and nutrition—intersected with misguided body imagery and produced a perfect storm. We’ve learned a lot since the heyday of Dexatrim, but new threats to our health continue to crop up, often touted as a safe and simple way to ensure a competitive edge.

The truth, of course, is far more alarming. The latest drug family to fall into abuse, most commonly by college students, is neuroenhancers—drugs like Adderall, Ritalin, and Provigil. Non-medical terms like “brain boosters,” “study drugs,” “smart drugs,” and “cognitive enhancers” are used to market “off-label” (i.e., non-medical) usage of these prescription drugs. But they are extremely potent and potentially deadly medications, especially if used without a prescription or psychiatric guidance. And they’re alarmingly easy to obtain.

Although neuroenhancers don’t seem to be turning up frequently in dance studios (they’re most often used for pulling all-nighters), it’s important for school owners and dance teachers to be aware of this trend and able to recognize the behaviors and physical symptoms that could indicate abuse among their students.

Adderall and its use
Adderall is a central nervous system stimulant composed of mixed amphetamine salts used to treat narcolepsy and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. ADHD is the most common diagnosis in child psychiatry (Psychiatric Times, September 1, 2008); an estimated 8 to 12 percent of children are affected worldwide (American Journal of Medical Genetics, January 7, 2009), and over a 10-year period, the number of preschoolers being prescribed the drugs tripled (Learning, November 20, 2004).

Misuse of “study drugs”
In recent years, Adderall, Ritalin, Pyritinol, Piracetam, Deprenyl (aka Juprenil), Modafinil (aka Provigil), Adrafinil, ephedrine, and other related stimulants have been widely adopted as self-prescribed study aids. College students in particular have taken to using these so-called neuroenhancers, not for recreational purposes but to help them stay up all night so they can write a paper or cram for a test. On some college campuses, Adderall is the third-easiest drug to get after alcohol and marijuana.

Many students think these drugs are harmless because they know someone who has taken the drug since childhood for ADHD. The University of Michigan Substance Abuse Research Center reported that in 2004, more than 4 percent of American undergraduates took prescription stimulants like Adderall for off-label purposes. According to an article in The New Yorker (“Brain Gain” by Margaret Talbot, April 27, 2009), other research has found rates as high as 35 percent: A 2002 study at a small college found that more than 35 percent of the students had used prescription stimulants nonmedically in the previous year.

A 2005 report from Partnership for a Drug Free America found that 1 in 10 teenagers had tried stimulants without a doctor’s prescription. While the role of rogue online pharmacies is hard to quantify, Joseph Califano, president of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, says they are a “significant” part of the problem. In a 2008 article in the Wall Street Journal, he says that’s in part because college students can get online orders sent to their mailboxes without parents’ knowledge. He adds that teenagers also get drugs out of their parents’ medicine cabinets.

Legal concerns
The terms “off-label” or “non-medical” use refer to uses of a drug that do not have the approval of either the drug’s manufacturer or the Food and Drug Administration. Cephalon, the maker of Provigil, was fined $40 million in 2008 for promoting off-label use of Provigil for non-sleep–disorder problems. Although the practice is not illegal, some doctors prescribe Adderall as a treatment for childhood obesity, even though no studies have been done for this off-label use.

Most students who report off-label use get the drugs from a friend who has a prescription. The pills are given away or sold for as little as $2 each. They are also easy to buy online: Adderall is one of the top-selling drugs on the Internet to people without a valid prescription. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says that a relatively small percentage of people get controlled drugs illegally over the Internet, but that they frequently get them in large quantities—100 to 120 pills at a time, compared to a handful from friends or pilfered from pill bottles at home. The DEA also believes these pharmacies are an “upstream” source of the drugs, meaning they sell them to individuals who then deal them to others.

Under federal law, it is illegal to possess a Schedule II drug without a prescription. The DEA classifies Adderall as a Substance II controlled substance—the same legal category as cocaine and heroin. But on dissidentvoice.org, writer Evelyn J. Pringle said that even certain medications not approved for use in the United States could be obtained online and shipped from overseas without intervention from customs.

The FDA warning on Adderall’s label notes that “amphetamines have a high potential for abuse” and can lead to dependence. No such warning comes with individual dosages purchased through gray markets.

How they work
Drugs like Adderall and Ritalin work, in part, by elevating the amount of dopamine in the brain, which helps to control hyperactivity and impulsive behavior and has been shown to be effective in the treatment of ADHD. Dopamine, however, has many functions in the brain, including important roles in behavior and cognition, voluntary movement, motivation and reward, sleep, mood, attention, and learning. The side effects make these kinds of drugs particularly dangerous if used without a prescription or psychiatric consultation.

Side effects
Drugs like Adderall can cause nervousness, headaches, sleeplessness, and decreased appetite (anorexia). Other common side effects can include weight loss, mood swings, nausea, dizziness, weakness, increased heart rate, confusion; chest pain, shortness of breath, depression, more outgoing or aggressive behavior than normal, agitation or restlessness, fainting, seizures, and uncontrolled movements of the head, neck, mouth, arms, or legs (tics).

After prolonged use, some people have shown a decreased ability to learn that takes a significant period of non-use to recover from.

Overdose symptoms
Overdose symptoms can include heightened reflexes, aggressiveness, high fever, irregular heartbeat, nausea, panic, rapid breathing, restlessness, convulsions, and vomiting. If you suspect an overdose, seek emergency treatment immediately.

Adderall has also been linked to death and cases of serious heart problems, including heart attack and stroke, as well as deaths by suicide, intentional overdose, drowning, heat stroke, and underlying disease.

The future
While a debate goes on about the inevitability of adopting such mental enhancements in an age of cosmetic surgery and bio-technological advancement, the drug pushers (the drug companies and some doctors) continue to sell only what they see as the upside to their product—euphoria, alertness, acuity. But every drug has an A effect and a B effect, which is the inverse of “the high.” Euphemistically referred to as “coming down” a more apt label, particularly in the case of Adderall, would be “the fall.”

According to the New Yorker article “Brain Gain,” although “study drugs” might increase productivity, they appear to stifle creativity—a good reason why they might not be popular among dancers. But awareness of common student behaviors is a good thing. Knowing what teens and college-age dancers might be using to boost their academic performance, and how to watch for symptoms, are two more ways teachers can act in their students’ best interests.

You may have leverage with your landlord—so use it

By Dale Willerton

Many dance studio owners who are leasing commercial space are struggling. Business expenses are rising, and the high cost of leasing space is closing in on tenants. Some of them desperately need a rent reduction—right now. If you lease your studio space, rent is one of your biggest monthly expenses, and reducing it could be a lifesaver for your business. As an expert on commercial leasing, I’ve got good news: Even if you’re midway through a multi-year lease, there’s hope for a rent reduction. Here’s why your landlord just might be willing to give you a break.

• To avoid taking the space back: Replacing a tenant can be very time consuming and expensive for a landlord. There are real estate commissions to pay, possible demolition of the existing premises, and, if the space sits vacant, months of lost revenue. In addition, a new tenant will probably get a tenant allowance (money given by a landlord to assist with completing leasehold improvements or renovations) and free rent to boot. A landlord might have to take quite a few financial steps backward to replace your studio business tenancy, if he can at all.
• Other existing or pending vacancies: If the landlord already has vacant units within the same property, odds are greater he won’t want another vacancy. Even if the plaza appears to be fully occupied by other tenants, many of your neighbors could be behind in their rent or planning to close out entirely. If existing tenants are not planning to renew their leases, the landlord knows that more space will be coming available in that property soon. These are all good reasons for your landlord to keep your tenancy, even at a lower rental rate.
• A downward shift in market rents: If market rents (defined as the rent a tenant has agreed to pay) have fallen and the landlord is leasing space to new tenants at a lower rental rate than you are currently paying, then replacing you with another tenant is less desirable. Not only have you proven yourself as an established tenant, but the new tenant would be paying the new, lower market rental rate, making the landlord ultimately no better off.
• Competitor closures: If other dance studios in your area have closed, your landlord will be more motivated to keep yours open. When any tenant closes out, the landlord or his agent tends to look for a similar-use replacement tenant. If no dance studios or other tenants want to take over your location, the landlord is better off keeping you open, even at a lower rental rate.

Recently I was a guest speaker at a large business expo where a struggling business owner told me she had discovered that 30 percent of her co-tenants had been paying little or no rent for the past few months due to the recession. Could this be true, she asked, and how could she pay less rent? In commercial real estate, it’s every tenant for herself. No two landlords are the same, but they all want and need cash flow from rent-paying tenants. Chances are you won’t be the first (or last) tenant to approach the landlord for a rent break—so why not do it now?

Tips for Getting a Rent Reduction

• Be prepared to ask, ask, and ask again. Make your request to the landlord or property manager verbally and in writing.
• Keep a paper trail of all correspondence.
• Do your homework by determining if market rents have declined, and find out what other tenants are doing. If a landlord has to choose between seeing your business close down or giving you a rent break, it might be easier and cheaper for him to reduce your rent right now, mid-term.
• If you want professional help, don’t turn to an attorney. (Landlords hate getting letters from lawyers about rent reductions.) You need a professional lease consultant who can do a market analysis and who will speak to your landlord at a real estate level, not from a legal perspective.

How to let little dancers shine at your recital

By Melissa Hoffman

For many teachers, the thought of choreographing for preschoolers—whom I define as children ages 2 to 5—is frightening. After all, how much can you expect them to do? The truth is that if you approach them in the right manner, preschoolers can do more than you might think. Recital is a special day for young dancers, and showing them at their best should always be your goal.

As in choreographing for any age or level, it is important that dances for preschoolers not include anything that’s new to them. Whatever steps or combinations you put into their choreography should be ones they have seen and practiced during class. Therefore, you need to think ahead. If you want a 4-year-old group to change lines during their dance, changing lines should be a part of their class.

Creating order and consistency
The best thing I ever did at my school to help produce a clean recital (as well as an organized classroom) was to put permanent numbers on the floors. I laid out three rows of numbers from 0 to 16, with 8 at the center. These same three rows are also on the stage when the dancers arrive for dress rehearsal.

After a circle warm-up, the dancers find a number; depending on class size, it might be only the front row. In this way the children get used to working in and maintaining a straight line, and the numbers can be used with any staging. For recital routines, the children are assigned a number that is “theirs”; they stand on it to begin the routine and sometimes to end it as well.

For consistency, we choreograph all of our dances with entrances from stage right and exits on stage left. Because of that, we generally start across-the-floor movements in class from stage right.

Calming little nerves
Stages and audiences can be intimidating sights for preschoolers, and nervous tears are normal, especially at dress rehearsal. (It’s a good idea to reassure parents that though they might see some tears at dress rehearsal, it doesn’t mean they will see them at the show.)

So how best to help calm these little dancers? Preparation is so important. First, walk the children onto the stage, with the lights on, before they begin dancing. Let them look at the lights and backdrops and then show them their numbers on the stage. Have them mark through the entire dance before playing the music.

Second, make the dancers feel comfortable by showing them they’re not alone. At our recitals, what helps boost the little ones’ confidence the most is having the instructors stand in the front where they can see them. Surprisingly, it does not distract the audience. At our last recital I asked the people seated in the first five rows of the audience what they thought of the practice. It turns out that no one noticed the teachers because they were focused on their children. (Some teachers prefer to stand in the wings, but the problem with that is that the dancers’ focus is to the side and not to the audience.)

For another confidence booster, I put two young assistants onstage with the 2-year-olds as well as any classes of 3-year-olds that need a helping hand. The assistants are like bookends at either end of the line of children. They stand about six inches forward so that the dancers can see them. Again, I asked parents if the assistants’ presence concerned or distracted them, and they said no, and that their children loved them.

Since taking these steps 10 years ago, I can count on one hand the number of preschool-age dancers who have cried during a performance.

Adding variety
Because my school has many preschool dancers (about 120 children) and because their abilities are limited, the biggest challenge has been figuring out how to make the dances different enough that the show is varied and entertaining. We sometimes have as many as eight preschool dances in a show, so over the years I have come up with a “recipe” of movements for each age level.

Parent/tot classes (2-year-olds)
Parents are part of this class until December; as of January we try to remove them. How long this process takes determines whether the class will be in the recital. Generally, each year we have at least one class in this age group that’s ready for the challenge.

• Choose a song that involves some singing for this level. Remember, lyrics need to be straightforward and easy to understand. My longtime favorite is “Beautiful Doll.”
• Children at this level typically will remain in a straight line for most of their dance (no longer than 2 minutes).
• Incorporate steps like plié and échappé. (Our 2-year-olds know échappé as “jump open, jump closed.”)
• Include partner steps. Holding hands with a partner, the children chassé upstage to the next row of numbers, stop, and return to their numbers.
• With the assistants leading the way, the children do a “happy hand gallop circle.” They gallop one time around in a big circle with the assistants leading the way, and then return to their number or form a “train” at a gym mat, where they do a forward roll, blow a kiss to the audience, and chassé offstage.

With this age group, anything can happen, so be sure to record your music a couple of times through. That way you can be sure that if something goes wrong, the music won’t stop while the children are still dancing.

Preschool I (3-year-olds)
In my school, the 3-year-olds, who are introduced to tap midyear, do a “ballet based” recital routine. Because there is always more than one group, we vary the music. For example, at our last recital one class danced to “Welcome to the World,” which is a slow song, and the other did “Rubber Ducky” (singing the first part).

Preparation is so important. First, walk the children onto the stage, with the lights on, before they begin dancing. Let them look at the lights and backdrops and then show them their numbers on the stage.

Another way to vary the show is in how these young dancers appear onstage. Some ideas include using flowerpots (either cutouts big enough for kids to hide behind, or actual pots) and having an assistant water each “flower” so that the dancers pop up and run to their numbers to begin their dance. Or consider having a large nest onstage that the “baby chicks” come out of. A large shoe, à la “Old Lady in the Shoe,” is another thought. You could have several classes enter through the shoe.

• With 3-year-olds we are still limited, but along with plié and échappé we can add passé, tendu, heel step, and side together plié, doing both sides.
• Start to teach music counting skills with movements like hitting the knees 2 times, clapping 2 times, rolling hands 2 counts, and pushing hands straight forward (stop) 2 counts.
• Incorporate some levels by pairing off the children and having one partner kneel while the other marches around and then back to his or her number; then reverse roles and repeat. Or have the children lie on their bellies and do flutter kicks. “Flashbacks” are another way to vary levels: Reach up, sit down, slide both legs out, pull the legs in, and jump up.
• During a partner chassé, add a “merry-go-round” step: The dancers hold hands and tiptoe around in a circle or hold hands and do arabesque before they chassé back to their numbers.
• Do a gallop circle that ends in a “train” in which they slide into straddle splits. Then each child pops up and blows a kiss (their moment in the limelight). Or they could bourrée and curtsy.

Listen to your music and take chances. Try things, and if they don’t work, don’t do them. The key is to try them early enough in the classroom so that you are not stressing about completing a dance, nor are you starting the dance in November.

Preschool II (4-year-olds) and Kindercombo (5-year-olds)
I refer to 4- and 5-year-olds as “sponges.” Their gross motor skills are developing like crazy, as is their ability to learn more quickly. Both of these classes at my school perform tap. In choosing the music, make sure it has an easily countable, consistent rhythm.

Typically, these classes are large enough that they will form two lines. Right away we start to work on line changes by having them march forward or back to change lines between exercises. We name the lines “apples” and “oranges”; telling the apples to change places with the oranges makes the idea stick in their minds.

As tap warm-ups progress throughout the year, the teachers start grouping together steps that are part of the warm-up routine and will end up in their dance.

The best part about this age is the ability to have them move around the stage. Aside from line changes, they can do several other formations.

• March to a large circle, then hold hands. Chassé in one direction for 8 counts, then the other for 8 counts. One dancer releases one hand and chassés to one side so that the group forms one straight line, still holding hands. They could do a step still holding hands, then drop hands to march forward to their original lines and numbers.
• Try having them form two circles, one stage right and one stage left, and circle toward the outside. Choose one child from each circle to lead the children into two straight vertical lines in the center; again, use the numbers so they know where to end. (Sometimes this is too much for 4-year-olds, but some can do it.)
• “Boats and Bridges”: Working in two lines, have each front-line child partner with a back-line child so that you have a horizontal line of partners holding hands. (The front dancers will have their backs to the audience.) The children on stage right raise their arms to form the bridges. The stage left children are the boats, with their arms extended to second position. The boats chassé sideways to pass under the bridges, then go back the other way. Then they change roles, so that everyone gets to be a bridge and a boat. This is fun to do across the floor during class.
• In partner work you can vary the staging and levels by having one child be up and one be down.
• At times we have been able to get these age groups into a clump formation and back to their numbers with ease.
• Incorporate a useable prop into the 5-year-olds’ dance; for example, shopping carts (for “Shopping A-Z”) or baby dolls (for “Baby Love”). Using props is a great way to make the routine interesting and fun.

No matter what these young dancers do, they are always the hit of my school’s shows. By giving them a shot at doing their best, you’ll guarantee fun for everyone.