Archive for the ‘2008 | 01 | January-February’ Category

January 2008 cover

Columns
Ask Rhee Gold
2 Tips for Teachers
On My Mind

Departments
Thinking Out Loud
Mail
Teacher in the Spotlight | Michelle Adams-Meeker

Feature Articles
Ballet Scene | Tutus and Tiaras by Susan Yung
Higher-Ed Voice | Empty Words or Loaded Messages by Tom Ralabate
Dancing on the Edge by Nancy Wozny
Great Expectations by Diane Gudat
Sharing Cultures in the Colorado Valley by Lisa Traiger
Finding the Sacred Forrest by Michael Wade Simpson
Taking Care of Business by Shevon McBride
Carol Walker: Ambassador for Dance by Rachel Straus
Not Mommy and Me by Stephanie Steinmeyer
Common Ground | Dancing Behind the Scenes by Lea Marshall
Business Best Practices by Rhee Gold
Common Ground | No Competition by Debbie Werbrouck
Having a Fling with Highland Dance by Darrah Carr
Summertime Samplers by Tracy Bauer-Durso

Dear Rhee,
My school has been open for 14 years and for the most part we have been extremely successful. We always stay on top at the competitions and usually go home with the high-score cash awards. Over the past few years I have added several teachers to my staff, especially those who are good with the competition program. They are all fine teachers, but most of them don’t like to teach the untalented students, or as you call them, the recreational students. I understand because I don’t like to teach the beginners or the babies, either.

Like most teachers, we all complain or make fun of the recreational students because we know that they’ll never be as good as our competition kids. But I try to explain to my teachers that they need to fake having a good time when they are teaching the beginners because that’s where their paycheck is coming from.

To date we have lost more than 40 beginners and babies in the first three months of the season. Obviously I am not saying the right thing to my teachers to make them understand that we can’t keep losing these students, but it just doesn’t seem to sink in. Do you have any advice? —Nancy

Dear Nancy,
From my perspective, you are the root of your problem. Your faculty will not change their attitude until you change yours. If you don’t like to teach the recreational students and you freely share those feelings with your faculty, why should they want to teach them either? When you suggest to your faculty that they should fake enjoying these students, you set an example that I wouldn’t encourage any school owner to do. Your students and their parents can see through your façade and that’s why they’re dropping in such large numbers.

You wrote that all teachers complain about or make fun of the recreational kids because they are not as good as the competition kids. In my opinion you are completely off base with that statement. Teaching a beginner student who masters a chassé or a simple shuffle should be as rewarding to the teacher as any student who wins a trophy. And “recreational” is not a synonym for “untalented.” There are plenty of talented kids who do not aspire to a career in dance or even want to make dance the focus of their lives. Their interest in other activities or academics may limit their participation, but it doesn’t mean that they have no talent.

It is time to stop adding faculty to your competition program and start hiring teachers who actually like to teach dance to all students, regardless of their skill level. If you don’t like to teach the babies and neither does your faculty, your school probably doesn’t have much of a future. Those babies are your future.

The best advice that I can offer you is to get off your high horse and stop judging your students by whether they win awards. Then maybe your attitude will trickle down to your faculty. Until then, I have a feeling that you will continue to lose students. Ultimately you may find yourself with all the trophies but no school to display them in.

I apologize if this response seems harsh, but if you read this magazine on a regular basis you would know that you are writing to a person who believes that every child should experience the wonderful world of dance. And I don’t care if they can do multiple pirouettes or simply clap to the music. —Rhee

Dear Rhee,
I am strictly a ballet teacher employed at a professional school in the Midwest. I teach both the company dancers as well as many classes in the children’s program. Although I love working with the company, there is something uniquely rewarding about working with children. Many students at the school will never be ballet dancers but might become strong dancers in another style of dance. I think some of them should be taking jazz or modern classes along with their ballet, and I have told several of them to look for a school that offers those styles. I also tell them to continue taking their ballet classes for a strong foundation.

Last week I was called into the school director’s office, where he scolded me for suggesting that my students should be taking anything other than ballet. He explained that jazz and modern are not recommended by the school and that we can’t afford to send our students to other places. When I told him that we have many students who would never become ballet dancers but who could have a future in another form of dance, he responded that it isn’t our place to tell them that. When I suggested that we add jazz and modern to our curriculum, he wouldn’t hear of it, telling me that we are a “pure” ballet school.

My daughter started taking ballet at this school, but she also took jazz and tap at a local school. Today she is a professional Broadway dancer who would never have found her place in the dance world if we had not been open to all forms of dance.

I called in sick this week because I don’t know if I can continue to teach the children. If I am a real teacher, I should be able to point my students in the direction that best suits their needs. If I don’t, my conscience tells me I am cheating them. Please help me decide what to do. —Michelle

Hello Michelle,
First, thank you so much for writing. I have enormous respect for ballet teachers who appreciate and understand that all dance is created equal.

If it makes you feel better, there are many schools that have strong jazz, modern, or tap programs with children who should be training as serious ballet dancers, but their teachers don’t want to send them to a professional ballet school, either. It seems that guiding a student to another school or certain style of dance that better suits their capabilities is often taboo in our field. That goes across the board with the private sector, professional schools, and even some higher-ed programs. Too bad for all those dancers (especially the children) who never had a chance to discover the form of dance that they are best suited for.

I feel uncomfortable advising you on whether or not you should remain at this school without knowing your financial status or what the potential is to find another teaching position in your area. However, I recommend not making a drastic move until you know where you are going next. Consider remaining at your current school while you send your resume to other schools in your area. You may find that many school owners would love to have a strong ballet teacher who has as much respect for all forms of dance as you do. Or you might want to consider continuing to work with the company dancers while teaching children at another school whose owner appreciates your integrity. It is teachers like you who inspire me to do what I do.—Rhee

Dear Rhee,
I am one of the lucky dance teachers with a husband who supports what I do. He has dinner waiting on the table when I come home and he takes on as much responsibility with our three children as I do. For years he has been encouraging me to buy a building for my school because he calls the rent that I pay “highway robbery.” Together we have been saving for three years to come up with a down payment for a piece of land that we know is a fantastic location for the dance school of our dreams. We are ready with a down payment, building plans, and the financing to make it a reality.

The problem is that I am not sure that I want to continue teaching dance. After having my school for 11 years, I feel burned out. I’m scared that if I build this building, I may never be able to get out. This doesn’t mean that I would stop teaching now, but paying rent makes me feel that I have an out when I’m ready. I really don’t see myself doing this for another 10 years. Probably I would teach for someone else, and then later I would like to go back to school.

The problem is that my husband is so obsessed with this building that I am nervous about telling him that I don’t think this is what I want to do. I am confused because this is what I wanted when I married my husband, but my priorities have changed. I’m afraid my husband is going to be disappointed or not support my wish to continue paying rent. What would you do? —Elaine

Hello Elaine,
Right about now we have many readers who are thinking, “I will take her husband and the chance to build my own building any day!” But the reality is that you can’t move forward on building this school if you are feeling burned out before you ever lay the foundation.

I am a big one for going with your instinct, especially when you have to make a life decision like this. I’m sensing that yours is telling you that this is not the right move at this point in your life. If your husband has dinner waiting on the table and is so supportive of what you do, then I have a feeling that he will also support your decision not to move forward on this project.

Maybe it’s time for the two of you to decide whether there might be another business that you could go into together. Or maybe your burnout will not last and five years from now you’ll decide that building your school is something you want to do. Whatever the next chapter is, it sounds like you are very levelheaded and that you are extremely lucky to have the husband that you do. Go with your instinct and don’t be afraid to share your feelings with your husband. All the best to you. —Rhee

By Mignon Furman

Tip #1

In a class of 3- to 5-year-olds, it is a good idea to vary the format of the class. One way to do that is to place hula hoops on the floor and tell the children that each one’s place is in a particular hoop. (They become very territorial!) It makes for a fun class and teaches discipline as well.

Tip #2

If you observe that your dancers are developing strange habits, such as affectations involving the hands or shoulders, look at yourself in the mirror to see if perhaps you have developed some odd traits that you don’t want them to mimic. Children pick up bad habits much more quickly than good ones!

By Rhee Gold

“You’re an artistic genius! How do you come up with an idea like that?” “Motivated to be different” is the motto of the teacher who choreographed the piece that everyone is raving about. She’s the one who doesn’t want to be like anyone else or follow the current trends in choreography. Tricks like grabbing a leg and yanking it behind the head (often, unfortunately, with a turned-in supporting leg) are nowhere to be found in her art. The even bigger feats like fouetté turns or multiple jumps are not in her choreographic vocabulary. Yet she continues to awe audiences, judges, and even the choreographers who pepper their dance numbers with tricks.

So how does she do it? It’s this teacher’s personal rule not to use music she has heard before or a concept that she has seen onstage. Throughout the creative process she often stops herself because her mind flashes a “too typical” sign; her reaction is to go to a new artistic place. She just can’t stop herself.

This dance teacher is the same one who invents new curriculum ideas to continually attract fresh faces to her classrooms. Her goal is to constantly place herself in the category of “unique” in the pool of dance schools in her area. She knows that being different is her way of staying on top, and her enrollment numbers reflect her philosophy.

Each time she creates a new program concept, the majority of dance schools in her area follow suit by imitating her offerings. Yet those concepts usually don’t work for the other schools because they don’t have the same philosophy, personality, or clientele that this creative dance teacher does. Simply put, the competition thinks that they can re-create someone else’s success by doing what they do. But it doesn’t work that way. Instead, they need to think creatively and establish programs that are unique to the characteristics of their school. That’s how to become a leader rather than a follower.

The simple message here is to do what you do best and forget about what anyone else is up to. But keep your eyes, ears, and mind open to what you see around you—take all that sensory and mental input and craft from it something distinctive. The world is your inspiration, and the diversity of that world is what we bring to you with this issue. Our focus on dance of various cultures is proof positive that there is more than one way to see the miraculous accomplishments that make up human life—and many ways to interpret them.

I believe that each of us follows a life path that is a personal journey, with the route embedded in our instinct. Having the ability to tap into that instinct can be the difference between success and failure. As you head into the New Year, know that you are a unique individual with something special to offer this world, both in dance and in life.

By Cheryl Ossola

Thanks to Igor Stravinsky, I have a fresh perspective on learning. I’ve read a lot about learning styles and teaching methods, but none of it touched on the relationship between learning and receptivity that a fascinating show called “Sound as Touch” did. A Radio Lab show, it was broadcast by WNYC, New York Public Radio, in April 2006. (Listen to it at www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2006/04/21/segments/58280.) The show made me think, but it wasn’t until San Francisco Ballet’s repertory season last spring that I saw firsthand how our ability to embrace the unfamiliar depends on biological, and thus emotional, readiness.

What does a show called “Sound as Touch” have to do with learning? The answer is that it explores how sound, specifically music, generates emotion, and emotion has a lot to do with being able to learn. That might seem obvious, but what isn’t so apparent is the fact that those emotions are governed by biochemistry. The neuroscientists on the show go into detail about sound perception at the cellular level, but they illustrated the concept with a fascinating story about the premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

You might know that at the work’s premiere in Paris (as the score for Nijinsky’s ballet of the same name for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes), on May 29, 1913, the audience rioted. Little old ladies were beating each other with canes, and Stravinsky had to take refuge backstage. Simply put, they couldn’t make sense of what they were hearing. (Nijinsky’s unconventional choreography and the ballet’s shocking story line might have had something to do with it, too.) Listeners were accustomed to the familiar patterns and consonant sounds of Baroque and classical music, which their brains had no trouble decoding. Sound enters our ears as little pulses of electricity; when they have an even, regular rhythm, we perceive them as pleasing. But when they are irregular and unpredictable we usually interpret them as sounds that we don’t like.

Stravinsky’s music was different, rhythmically complex and full of dissonant sounds like minor seconds. And all those new sounds made the audience literally go a little crazy. (You’d have to listen to the part about dopamine release and schizophrenia, which I won’t go into here.) But less than a year later, when Rite of Spring was again performed in Paris (without the ballet), the audience loved it and Stravinsky was hailed as a hero. And 26 years later, the same music that had caused blood to be shed at its first hearing was deemed suitable for children and included on the soundtrack for Disney’s Fantasia.

Stravinsky’s music was different, rhythmically complex and full of dissonant sounds. And all those new sounds made the audience literally go crazy.

What happened? The audience could respond favorably the second time because the music was no longer so grossly unfamiliar. Their brains could break it down into patterns and translate it into something recognizable. And that’s where the connection to learning comes in. To learn something, we must be able to receive and interpret the information.

Here’s what made this concept hit home for me. In 2006 San Francisco Ballet performed William Forsythe’s Artifact Suite, in which the fire curtain slams down five times, a lone woman directs the ensemble with semaphoric arm movements, and the stage lights shine into the audience’s eyes. Quite a few people walked out mid-performance. Two people I know said they hated it; one claimed it gave her a headache. Then, in 2007, SFB again performed Artifact Suite, and the difference in audience response was remarkable. Few if any people left, and the two people who had said they hated it were raving about how much they loved it. Not only that, audiences also responded positively to another extremely edgy ballet that season, Wayne McGregor’s Eden/Eden, which I don’t believe would have happened had Artifact Suite not paved the way. I couldn’t help but think about Rite of Spring and the power of familiarity to change people’s attitudes toward something they had previously rejected.

What does this have to do with teaching dance? Understanding that humans are hard-wired to search for patterns, to translate the unfamiliar into the familiar, might help teachers accept the need to repeat new material, perhaps more often than they’d like. So be patient the next time you present something new and are met with stony expressions and cries of “I hate this!” It might take more than one encounter before students can receive, interpret, and respond to it. So chalk it up to biochemistry, listen to Rite of Spring, and give silent thanks to Stravinsky. And remember that what was a disaster in 1913 was considered a masterpiece a year later, and still is today.

Words from our readers

Great article by Nancy Wozny [“Two Worlds, One Dance Planet,” Dance Studio Life, October 2007]. I don’t think I would have my job if we did not have forward thinkers like [Houston Ballet artistic director] Stanton Welch. I came from a studio background and now run one of the largest schools in the U.S. The lines are definitely blurred as we evolve and mesh the best of both worlds, commercial and not-for-profit, as well as university life. As a leader in the field and one who has seen thousands of dancers as I recruit, I am amazed at how versatile students are now, and that is due to teachers in both studio schools and professional schools acknowledging the value of one another.

I am also proud to say that I feel I am from the generation that has recognized the change, accepted both genres, and is now responsible for teaching the next generation how to plan for a career that has many options. Dance is growing and the jobs are limited. Students, as well as leaders in the field, must think about that. Students/dancers must be open to all the options available.

Perhaps you could do an article about the value of a dance degree. Parents think (and I admit that I have thought this in the past) that there is nowhere to go with a dance degree. I met with Robert Cohen (he danced with Martha Graham) this summer and he changed my thinking. He said that a dance degree is a liberal arts degree, a way to get to know oneself, and it is no different than another liberal arts degree. I changed my thinking from that moment on.

Keep up the great work, Nancy. The dance world applauds you and we love you for it.
Shelly Power
Associate Director, Houston Ballet’s Ben Stevenson Academy
Houston, TX

I finally got the chance to read the September issue of Dance Studio Life. It just keeps on getting better! Loved so much of the information and articles—“Ancient Dancers,” “Bringing in the Boys,” “Zeroing In on the Zeitgeist,” just to mention a few. Especially loved “1,000 Words.” Congratulations!
Mike Robertson
Costume Gallery

I want to thank you for giving the dance teacher world such a worthwhile and meaningful publication to educate us on all aspects of our job. Most of all I appreciate the tasteful front covers of Dance Studio Life. Last month, when I received two other dance-related magazines, I was appalled at the covers. Quite frankly, I didn’t even want to leave them lying out for anyone to see because I thought they were indecent. Today, as we are all battling over inappropriate costuming and dances at competitions, it seems a shame that now we have to see it on covers of magazines designed for the dance world. I appreciate the fact that I don’t have to worry about that with your magazine. Keep up the great work!
Beverly Smithey
Stage I Dance Academy, Greenwood, IN

The magazine is looking great; very impressive this month [Dance Studio Life, October 2007]. Excellent job with the layout on the “Ballroom Blitz” story!

The faculty at University at Buffalo have made complimentary comments about the new look and even my partner, Thomas (a college academic VP), sees a difference in its value for dance educators. Congratulations.
Tom Ralabate
Associate Professor of Dance, University at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY

Owner/director/instructor, Broadway South Dance Studio, Mobile, AL

Ages taught: 7 to adult. Our studio offers classes for children ages 2 to adult. One of our most popular programs is our adult curriculum.

Genres taught: Broadway theater dance, jazz (traditional, contemporary, lyrical), tap

Teaching dance for: 8 years, but I assisted teachers in New York City for more than 10 years.

Why she teaches: I always knew I wanted to teach. It was a natural progression for me after dancing professionally in New York City. Once I started my family, I knew this was the route I wanted to pursue since my passion is dance. I am so thrilled to be able to pass on the wonderful things I have learned from some of the country’s best dance teachers. They have made me the dancer and teacher I am today.

Greatest inspiration: Adrian Rosario, an incredible dancer/teacher whom I assisted in New York. I was a freshman dance major at New York University and he took me under his wing and made me blossom. He taught me the most important thing about dance—to dance from the heart! That is what I pass on to my kids. Also, Bob Fosse is a huge inspiration—I love his style.

Michelle Adams-Meeker (left) brings her experience as a dancer in New York to a Broadway theater dance class. (Photo by Becky Welch)

Philosophy of teaching: I have a very positive approach to teaching. I believe in correcting dancers in a positive, consistent way. Some students have been taught improper technique and are frustrated without immediate results. I tell them that is what class is for—to get better. Once they grasp this concept, it is so nice to watch them reap the results. Technique taught the right way is what my style revolves around.

What makes her a good teacher: I am compassionate and positive. I do not make my students feel bad about not being able to accomplish something. I know what it is like to be a dancer and therefore I know how to get through to all students. I also have adapted my teaching style to reflect that of my wonderful mentors.

Fondest teaching memory: Watching our first recital from the wings. Seeing those kids get out there and know their routines, and scope out their parents in the audience and wave, was priceless. I felt such pride at how much these children learned in their first nine months at our studio.

Best piece of advice for teachers: Remember that you will touch these dancers’ lives, maybe without realizing it. The lessons you teach will be with them for a lifetime. Pass on something wonderful you have learned from your mentors and create your own teaching legacy.

What she would do if she couldn’t teach dance: Most likely I would continue with my job of being “Mom, the taxi driver.” I am sure I would find some way to be involved in the arts.

More thoughts on dance and teaching: I have the best job in the world. I try not to spread myself too thin, so I have a wonderful staff teaching with me. Make time for yourself so you can be more creative and inspiring as a teacher. If you take time for you, it will come through in class!

Roxey Ballet’s program for young children boosts awareness for audiences and dancers

By Susan Yung

The vivid imaginative power of children is plainly visible when they dress up as fairies, monsters, or ballerinas. Yet among these fantasies, the dream of being a ballerina has the potential to become a reality. Roxey Ballet’s Tutus and Tiaras program aims to introduce children to storytelling and ballet, revealing some of the magic behind the curtain. It helps children to understand that the incredibly graceful dancer under that beautiful or fanciful costume is a real person. And it helps the dancers continue their professional development.

At Tutus and Tiaras: An Introduction to Dance Through Storytelling, young children watch a ballet class, and then several of Roxey Ballet’s dancers don costumes from a ballet in the company’s repertory. They demonstrate basics such as dancing on pointe and how a lift is done and let the children see up close the pointe shoes and elaborate costumes. They also engage the children in a physical activity that they can then relate to the ballet—perhaps teaching a step from the dance, or simply allowing them to move around the space with the dancers.

Tutus and Tiaras helps young children understand that a real person (here, Aya Watanabe in Graduation Ball) is inside those fanciful costumes they see onstage. (Photo by Brenda Paulicelli)

Mark Roxey, the Lambertville, NJ, company’s founder and director, geared the program to children ages 3 to 7. He says, “In order to develop your audiences, one of the most valuable things you can do is address future audiences. And that starts with the lovely little children who naturally love dance, whether they’re boys or girls. When they’re little, they all love dance.” Tutus and Tiaras harnesses that enthusiasm and breaks the grand illusion of ballet into morsels that young minds can comprehend.

The inaugural program last September featured Peter and the Wolf. Roxey Ballet dancer Evalina Wallis Cain describes how it began. “We smiled and demonstrated our love of movement and focused attitudes during class. Next, some of the dancers [answered] questions about ballet and showed the children how to stand at the barre for warm-up.” After Beth Olanoff, the marketing director for Roxey Ballet and the presenter for the day, read the story of “Peter and the Wolf” and explained what the children would see, Cain and two other dancers, Aya Watanabe and Melissa Kanavel, entered the room, costumed as animals. “We danced excerpts of the ballet and stayed in character while Beth asked the children about what they had seen,” says Cain.

One of the key goals of the program, according to Cain, is for the children to identify with the people behind the masks, and in the process feel that they might be able to do the same thing one day. “After the performance, the children were asked if we were animals or people, and they claimed that we were animals,” she says. “I was excited to have created a convincing fantasy for them, but we told them our real names anyway. I think sometimes children imagine dancers as magical people who aren’t like everyone else. It is exciting for them to see that we are real, just like them.”

At the program’s first showing, everyone—children and dancers—had a good time. Cain describes the children as “very enthusiastic—they were all too eager to pet our fur and feathers, give us hugs, tap on our pointe shoes, and have their pictures taken with us.” And she says that the dancers enjoyed giving them a taste of the studio environment.

‘If [dancers are] given the tools to interact and work with people in their community, they understand how to reach them and relate to them—and if you don’t do that, your audiences disappear.’ —Mark Roxey

Cheryl Flavin, describing her 3-year-old daughter Talia’s reaction, says, “It was her very first introduction to ballet. She really enjoyed the program and paid very close attention—she was very focused on the dancers and liked the different aspects of it.” An additional six programs are on this season’s schedule, including Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet, and Cinderella. “[Talia] wants to go back; there are some princess-oriented ones that she wanted to see and she’s been asking about taking classes,” adds Flavin.

Mark Roxey developed the program from a promotional effort the company presented last year at a local elementary school. The casual and interactive atmosphere encourages children (and parents) to appreciate the movement, music, and costumes from a personal standpoint. As Cain notes, “Hopefully, the children and adults who attend Tutus and Tiaras will be in those bigger audiences as a result of the positive experience they have in the studio.”

Roxey emphasizes the importance of the program not only for the children but for the professional development of his dancers as well. “A big component as professional dancers is to be role models, to sit with the kids and read a story to them—and perform excerpts from The Nutcracker, as an example, or Le Corsaire, or Peter and the Wolf—only classic ballets. And they do some activities with the kids, which helps them as professionals to connect with the community in which they live. And that’s one of the most valuable things a company can do—serve its community first.”

Through Tutus and Tiaras, Roxey recognizes the importance of integrating parents into their children’s exposure to dance. The series encourages a basic level of understanding for adults who might not be familiar with ballet otherwise. Roxey is focused on attracting fresh viewers with other programs geared toward young and more mature adults as well, such as Brown Bag and the Ballet (open rehearsals to which audiences can bring lunch) and Beer and Ballet (a relaxed forum mixing dance with drinks). Notes Roxey, “We’ve got to reach out and spend our valuable time and resources to find [viewers] and bring them to the art form in ways that are relevant and accessible for them, not just for us as artists.” He takes the long view. “Hopefully dance will be around for another 500 years, and somebody’s got to come up with a better idea—it can’t just be The Nutcracker.

“Unless you’re in New York or one of the larger cities where there’s a built-in audience—primarily of dancers—that come to see dance, the ballet is losing the connection to the community,” Roxey continues. “It’s losing its voice, its validity—because of technology and many reasons. It doesn’t have to—but in many pockets, it is.”

Roxey says that the true value of artists “goes way beyond the traditional dance class and performance. That’s key for me and for what I do for my artists.” He wants them to be not only dancers but advocates for the art form. “If they’re given the tools to interact and work with people in their community, they understand how to reach them and relate to them—and if you don’t do that, your audiences disappear.”

Roxey, who danced with The Joffrey Ballet and Dayton Ballet, is aware of the hurdles that professional dancers face, be they injuries, the lack of financial reward, and numerous other factors. “But if they have these communicative skills, and they develop them,” says Roxey, “then it’s possible to think that as an industry, we’ll be able to keep more artists that have attained tremendous skill and knowledge in the field. That to me is critical. We lose so many talented artists, and Tutus and Tiaras helps them to discover that—the artists too, not only the audience.”

The program can also be a reality check for the dancers, who relish Tutus and Tiaras for the chance to brush up on roles or performing them even more convincingly. Cain says, “When you perform for children, it can be a sobering experience in that they don’t fake anything. Their emotions and responses are always genuine.”

Not all forms of praise are created equal—here’s how to tell the difference

By Tom Ralabate

How effective are statements of praise in learning situations? In a dance class, students learn by doing, creating, designing, solving, and sharing. In higher-education settings and (perhaps to a lesser extent) in private studios, the majority of dance students are excited about learning and exploring the creative process. But in all sectors of dance education, some students expect instructors to motivate and inspire them through the learning process. At times teachers can feel like cheerleaders, giving praise to students with hopes of motivating them to achieve desired tasks: “Matt, you are the best student here.” “Jennifer, your choreographic project was excellent.” “Meghan, those are crystal-clear tap sounds.” But are those effective forms of praise?

The multifaceted question of how to praise—what kind, how much, and when—is a hot topic for dance educators, who must find a delicate balance in giving effective praise that will produce stellar artistic results. Researchers and other professionals often use the terms “effective praise” and “encouragement” to describe the act of making a judgment. However, I use the word “praise” as an expression of encouragement and positive acknowledgement of effort and work. In teaching the practical aspects of dance, identifying the praiseworthy action is easy. It is best to identify the action rather than make a judgment about a dancer’s ability or target weaknesses.

Examples of effective praise
The following examples were adapted from Praise vs. Encouragement, Gratitude by social psychologist Rudolph Dreikurs; and How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk and How to Talk So Kids Can Learn by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish.

Judgmental:   You’re the best turner in the class.

Encouraging: Your turns are consistently controlled.

Judgmental: You scored the highest on the jazz practical.  

Encouraging: Your jazz practical displayed fine work.

Judgmental: That was an excellent développé to second position.  

Encouraging: I can see a fluid quality to your développé.

Judgmental: Excellent performance! Yours was the best.   

Encouraging: I can tell you have a passion for performing.

Focusing on weakness: You finally understand how to execute the leap.  
Focusing on strength: I like your sense of air design when doing the leap.

Focusing on weakness: I never thought you could keep up with this class.            
Focusing on strength: You held your own in this class.

Focusing on weakness: Good! But you need to carry through to the end.
Focusing on strength: Your endurance is getting stronger.

In general, dance students will do their best when an incentive to learn is connected to the pleasure of achieving their personal motives in studying dance. Perfecting skills to achieve proficiency and artistry in performance is high on the list of needs shared by serious dance students. But as teachers, we must remember that even the not-so-serious dance student needs to build self-esteem, become competent, and succeed in this artistic experience.

In September 2007 I asked 20 private-sector teachers in a workshop class to respond in writing to questions concerning praise in the classroom. The first three questions solicited “yes,” “no,” or “sometimes” responses.

1. Do you use praise in the classroom?
2. Do you use praise for the purpose of motivating students?
3. Do you ever give praise that is not honest?

Questions 1 and 2 received a unanimous response of “yes.” Question 3 had a mixed response: “yes” (4), “no” (5), and “sometimes” (11).

The next two questions required written responses.

1. When is praise appropriate?
2. What role should praise play in the classroom?

For question 4, the majority of respondents stated that using praise is appropriate during or at the conclusion of a given task and is an affirmation of a student who is doing well. Responses to question 5 included “self-esteem,” “motivation,” “confidence,” “achievement,” “appreciation,” “willingness,” and “rewarding.” Teacher and director Sherry Martin of Sherry Martin School of Dance in Williamsville, NY, stated in response to question 5, “Praise is sweet nectar to anyone’s ear and any dance class without it is sterile. [People don’t] believe in themselves until someone else believes in them first. Every time we give praise we plant a seed, and that seed grows confidence. And that confidence eventually spills over into all areas of life, making better people as well as great dancers. Positive praise truly fuels the dancer’s pathway. It revs them up, gets the wheels turning, the heart pumping, and the eyes gleaming.”

Paying the price for unearned praise
In recent years much research has examined the use of praise in teaching situations. Dance educators agree that students need to be in supportive, healthy, and artistic environments. However, ongoing research points out that some teaching methods that use praise to establish a supportive environment can be counterproductive in the classroom. In his article “How Praise Can Motivate—or Stifle,” published on www.aft.org and in American Educator, Winter 05/06, psychologist Daniel T. Willingham says that teachers need to avoid praise that is not truthful, is used to control behavior, or has not been earned.

As dance teachers we should understand the power of words; most students can discern the sincerity of a comment. If we fail to constructively criticize below-average work—for example, an off-center pirouette—and instead sugarcoat its execution with praise, we send a mixed message that tells the student that we do not believe they are capable of doing a centered pirouette. Sometimes we need to pay the price of being less popular by not offering praise, especially when it has not been earned.

In addition, when praise is used as a motivational tool, it’s important to remember that not all students are motivated by the same values or needs. My years of experience have revealed that some students look for approval from their family, teachers, and peers, while others are self-motivated and relish tackling and overcoming a challenge.

To encourage motivation and build self-esteem, try the following strategies to find a balance in giving praise in dance class.

• Give feedback early in the process and repeat it frequently in creative ways, using supportive language. Make sure that it supports the goals of the student and class and is distributed through the various levels of students within the class.
• Begin each part of the class (barre, center, across the floor) with exercises or movements that are neither too easy nor too difficult. Allow everyone to look brilliant the first time they move across the floor in small groups. You may want to distribute the praise you give throughout each section of the class.
• Allow students to have a voice within the classroom. This will create an open and shared atmosphere where they will feel valued in an artistic setting. This approach guides students in how to give constructive criticism and share effective praise with one another.
• Encourage students to fall in love with the process of dance. For example, students are very competitive when it comes to technical skills like leg extensions, turns, and leaps. Comment on the improvement and effort in executing a grand battement as opposed to the grand battement itself. Find personal meaning and value beyond dance technique and aesthetics.

Long-term costs of giving praise
In some respects, modern-day praise has been watered down and sugarcoated. Many parents believe their children are special and reward and praise them for following simple, expected rules. Some schools give students merit certificates merely for showing up. In the dance competition world we witness the dilemma created by offering praise through special awards and ensuring that each competitor receives a medal. The cost of these behaviors, in terms of teaching situations, is that students do not connect their goals to their efforts. They fail to understand the importance of hard work in achieving success.

I cannot imagine a world without praise, but perhaps as educators we ask too little. With every action of praise we give, we reveal our identity and integrity as educators. Let us be effective and sincere when giving praise to our students.

In Israel, neither life nor dance is for the faint of heart

By Nancy Wozny

A dancer stands still onstage. In a blink of an eye, with what looks like no preparation whatsoever, he catapults himself forward at an angle nearly parallel to the floor. As if that alone were not daring enough, the floor is some three feet below him, making the move look even more impossible. That daredevil is Saar Harari of LeeSaar The Company, who recently moved to New York from Israel with his wife, actress and writer Lee Sher, to start a dance company. His story is one of many that reflect the unique history and circumstances under which dance in Israel has blossomed beyond its traditional origins.

Gastana Danco, Hatzerim Dance Studio’s student company, in performance. (Photo by Yossi Elbas)

Although people in the Middle East have been dancing since ancient times (evidence of folk dances can be found in the Bible), the history of Western dance in Israel goes back only approximately 80 years. Russian ballerina Rina Nikova, who went to the region in the 1920s, is credited with introducing Western dance to Israeli culture and instigating its unique blend of ethnic and modern dance. Later, in 1950, Sara Levi-Tanai created Inbal Dance Theatre (now Inbal Ethnic Dance Centre) using Yemenite folk dances. Inbal came to represent the face of Israeli dance so much that world-renowned choreographers Jerome Robbins and Anna Sokolow went to Israel to teach with the company.

In the 1950s and 1960s modern dance came into full force with the arrival of Baroness Batsheva (Bethsabée) de Rothschild, a close colleague of Martha Graham, in 1958. She founded Batsheva Dance Company (originally Graham based) and assisted in the creation of The Bat-Dor Dance Company. Batsheva, now an internationally respected company, is one of many companies and educational events based at the hub of Israeli dance, Suzanne Dellal Centre for Dance and Theatre in Tel Aviv. And although modern dance could be called the foundation for concert dance in Israel, ballet is alive and well too. The Israeli Ballet Center, founded in 1970 by Berta Yampolsky and Hillel Markman, opened its new center and school in Tel Aviv in 2004.

Because of Israel’s mandatory military service policy for both men and women, the nation’s dance studio culture has to accommodate a lack of 18- to 21-year-olds. (Men are required to serve in the army for three years, women for two.) It’s possible for dancers in the military to get an assignment that allows them to continue their training, but in Harari’s case, that was not his choice. “Sure, you can find something easy to do,” he says. “I wanted to be a combat soldier. I felt obliged to give back to my country. I was young, stupid, and full of faith.” He spent six years in a special combat unit, which may account, at least in part, for the power and intensity in his dancing. The way he talks about his military service hints at the force behind his dancing. “There is something very physical about being in the army, and it definitely shaped who I am as a dancer. You have to mature very fast [when] you are playing with life and death all the time,” he says. When he went full force back into dancing, he noticed that something in his body had changed; a kind of animal instinct had sharpened.

Harari’s dancing shares the same raw physicality that is so apparent in the works of Batsheva’s director, maverick Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin, who also founded Gaga, a mind–body training method. A Hebrew word, gaga translates into English as “hit,” but Naharin’s technique focuses on unblocking the body, thereby teaching dancers to move with control and more efficiency.

‘Our constant war situation creates chaos; we use the dancing as a way to survive.’ —Diana Eidelsztein

Today Harari continues to train in Gaga, which he began studying seven years ago and now integrates into work with his company. But his early education story is a familiar one: He started dancing at his mother’s studio in a farming village near Tel Aviv. Delia Harari started Delia’s School 28 years ago, when she was 25 and still coaching the Israeli gymnastics team. “It was the right time for me to start teaching the next generation,” says Delia via email (translated courtesy of her son). “Gymnastics is about technique and timing; it is very cold and clean. Dance is deeper for me; I was able to express my real self.” Today the school is a full-service performing arts academy that includes drama, martial arts, modern dance, ballet, jazz, Pilates, The Feldenkrais Method®, and Gaga workshops. Surrounded by flowers and orchards, it serves approximately 600 students ages 3 to 70.

 The missing 18- to 21-year-olds don’t trouble Delia Harari; it’s expected that most students will not continue to train during those years. “Maybe they should have a dance company in the army,” she comments. “I hope for the best. This is the cycle of life in Israel.” She feels that her students need to be free of some of the political turmoil that surrounds them, and dance is especially equipped to help them do that. “Children are very stressed because of the problems in Israel. Dance helps them express themselves,” she says. “We have an armed guard in front of the studio, but again—this is life in Israel.”

Another glimpse of Israel comes in the form of four charming, talented young dancers who competed in the Maccabi Games in Houston last summer. The Games, offered nationwide through the Partnership 2000 program, pair various U.S. delegations with sister regions in Israel. Lihi Sela of Kibbutz Adamie and Gal Chen of the Moshau Regba region were traveling with the Omaha, NE, delegation; Noa Bluemenstick and Zohar Kantor, both from the Matte Asher region, teamed up with the Birmingham, AL, delegation. The teenage girls, who study modern, ballet, and hip-hop at different studios (three of them also trained in Gaga), quickly became friends and were eager to talk about dance life in Israel. They nearly cheered at the mention of Naharin’s name; he’s a national dance hero to them. Of the various genres, Sela prefers modern dance. “It has more soul,” she says, clutching her fist to her heart.

In performance, Chen and Bluemenstick projected some of the same kind of intensity as Saar Harari. Both possessed a mature determination for their age. All four girls hope to become professional dancers—and perhaps also learn something else. “I want to dance and be a lawyer,” says Bluemenstick. They seemed surprised by the casual demeanor of other performers at the Maccabi Games and puzzled by the notion of recreational dance. The mention of dance competitions yielded an equally uncomprehending response. “Dance is an art form, not a sport,” stated Chen with considerable definitiveness.

When asked whether Israel’s political situation impacts their lives, the response was a firm, unison no. But in the next breath Bleumenstick said she was worried about her brother, a soldier, during the Hamas conflict last summer. Still, the girls appear enthused to serve their upcoming army service. “The army is so flexible now,” says Esti Waismen, a teacher and chaperon for Sela and Chen. “It’s possible now to continue your [dance] training.”

The girls are serious, intense, and passionate about dance and their country. “Israeli dance is so much more than folk dancing,” says Bleumenstick, raising and lowering her arms “Hava Nagila” style.

Saar Harari says that no discussion on the current state of Israeli dance education is complete without mentioning Yehudit Arnon, a Holocaust survivor and founding member of Kibbutz Ga’aton, near the city of Nahariya. She founded Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company (KCDC) and school. According to Eytan Pe’er, KCDC’s associate general manager, it is “one of the only dance companies in the world that rehearses, trains, and lives in the same place. All of our dancers, who come from all around Israel and foreign countries, live in the Kibbutz. [And] Ga’aton has a studio with many students from the north of Israel and another studio for schoolchildren that has hundreds of students for classic and contemporary dance.”

In Negev, a rural area in the southern desert of Israel, Diana Eidelsztein runs the Hatzerim Dance Studio at Kibbutz Hatzerim, offering classes for ages 4 to adult in ballet, tap, hip-hop, and Feldenkrais. Eidelsztein worked with Estela Maris in Argentina and trained with modern-dance pioneer Anna Sokolow at Jerusalem’s Rubin Academy of Music and Dance. “Anna directly inspired my approach to dance,” she says. “Anna taught at our studio as a gift.”

Eidelsztein says that the political situation in Israel has taken its toll. Her school’s facilities are far from ideal; classes take place in a small music room and in a converted underground bomb shelter that lacks light and adequate ventilation. A recent fund-raising effort built the Oasis, an outdoor studio space. “We raised enough money to build a floor, but no walls,” says Eidelsztein. “When we had the Gulf War, we had to cover all the entrances. So that’s how we danced in this bomb shelter—no air, no air conditioning, and so much stress. Our constant war situation creates chaos; we use the dancing as a way to survive.”

Watching Saar Harari fly across the stage is enough to convince anyone that something profound is going on in dance in Israel, a nation that produces performers who dance as if their life is on the line. It’s a testament to the resilience and vitality of the Israeli people that despite trying political circumstances, the dancing continues.

Getting the most from your performance group means expecting the best from yourself

By Diane Gudat

All dance teachers want to bring out the best in their performing groups. Although many factors are involved, the most important one is to create a nurturing, stimulating working environment. Ideally, you want to establish a family feeling that encourages the dancers to work together toward a common goal. To ensure that, no dancer should be made to feel more important than another. Performance groups that consistently feature one or two dancers or showcase male dancers excessively run the risk of making the others feel less important.

As the artistic director, you determine the flavor of the group. In order for the dancers to work toward your goals and expectations, you must decide what you want the group to achieve. Before you hold your first audition, develop a mission statement that defines the group’s purpose, focus, and goals. Give it to your staff and, later, to the dancers and their parents. Make sure that everyone who works with the dancers understands your goals and priorities.

With mission statement in hand, you’re ready for the next step: choosing the dancers.

Dancer selection
Schedule auditions at the same time every year, and announce the dates and expectations early. Choose an audition panel of judges composed of friends or colleagues who do not work with the dancers on a regular basis. Make the requirements for membership in a performance group clear. Will the dancers need to demonstrate a certain level of flexibility or be able to do a double pirouette or strong grand jeté?

Provide the dancers with a critique of their audition. Point out strengths and weaknesses and offer suggestions to improve their performance. Ask them to write a short letter in response to the critique that states what they believe they can and should work on. Ask those who are selected to describe the personal strengths (like leadership, spirit, organizational qualities, promptness, friendliness, or a good memory) they will bring to the performance “family.” In strong families, each member feels needed and understands their role and what they contribute to the group.

Parent/student responsibilities
Provide those who audition with participation guidelines, including required dance classes; rules about attendance; when, where, and how often rehearsals will be held; and fund-raising responsibilities. Require that the students who are selected for the group (and their parents) read and sign the guidelines; keep copies of the signed documents on file. Make it clear that all members must adhere to the guidelines and will face consequences if they do not. Special treatment can cause a breakdown in the group’s structure.

Many performance companies have a parent booster club that supports the group through fund-raising. Make sure that the parents understand that they have no say in decisions about activities or artistic elements; their purpose is simply to support the director’s goals for the benefit of the group. Have the parents form committees that utilize their personal talents or interests, such as making travel arrangements, raising funds, maintaining costumes, organizing transportation, and providing snacks.

Communication
Good communication with the dancers and their parents is all-important. Decide well in advance when and where rehearsals, workshops, competitions, and performances will be held. Parent meetings should be regularly scheduled events and attendance should be required. Send out newsletters frequently and post information at the studio on a designated performance company bulletin board.

Keep a professional distance from the dancers and their parents. Familiarity makes it difficult for you to be objective and consistent when problems arise, and when you do enforce rules, students and parents may feel that their friendship has been betrayed. Those who are not in the circle of friends might feel slighted and accuse you of favoritism.

Tell your students to leave the drama at the door. Do not allow them to discuss personal problems, boyfriends or girlfriends, or bodily functions during class or rehearsals unless they relate to the work at hand. Students must understand the effect their mind-sets and attitudes have on the group. Attitude is extremely contagious, whether it is positive or negative.

Nip problems in the bud when necessary, but do not resolve conflicts between students unless they are major or affect performances. Teach students to mediate and be responsible for their interpersonal relationships. Older students can show leadership and guidance in mediating problems.

Behavior
Make sure that the teaching staff, demonstrators, and older dancers set good examples in terms of energy, enthusiasm, expectations, and professionalism. If you see apathy, rude or abusive behavior, or lateness among the role models, you can expect to see it in the dancers. The same is true for positive or inspirational attitudes and behaviors.

Identify leaders for each part of the routine (the dancer in the center front or someone who cannot see anyone else in the choreography) and make them feel important and responsible. Learning to work as a team is an important life lesson, and it will make the group look polished. Even though there is a leader, all dancers must accept personal responsibility for learning steps and staying in formation. We use the mantra “You are the boss of you.”

Reward leadership and other positive behaviors with praise. Catch your dancers doing something right instead of looking for what is wrong. Give small awards to those who display the most energy, best memory, best turn, or most improvement during the rehearsal. Award the MVP (Most Valuable Player) award after a competition or convention to one dancer from each group who showed the most improvement, leadership, kindness, or spirit.

Classes and rehearsals
Decide what to focus on in each class or rehearsal, and highlight any skills that need improvement. Create incentives for success, such as charts and small rewards for goal achievement.

Teach the dancers to rehearse with the energy and expressiveness they will use onstage. Encourage natural smiles and caution them not to exaggerate their facial expressions. As an exercise, have the dancers face the mirror and listen to the music without moving, responding only with facial expressions. Give them key words to describe what you want them to show: “happy,” “surprised,” “angry,” “confused,” “frightened,” and so on. Start these exercises with young students to allow them to gain confidence as they grow. Older students might be self-conscious and need time to become comfortable with the exercises.

Set realistic goals for the group and reevaluate them each season. Expect personal excellence from each dancer. We use the phrase (borrowed from Oprah!) “Let no one outwork you today.” Their work ethics are their personal investment toward excellence. If everyone works as hard as they can, the entire company will move forward.

Hold company class before rehearsals to work on some of the challenges in the choreography and strengthen the group. All levels should take this class together to reinforce the group’s family feeling.

Choreograph at the dancers’ level with a few small challenges for growth, and don’t hesitate to make changes when necessary. Stay positive! The process of learning must be made to appear more important than the end product. The success is in the lessons learned and the positive experiences in the studio along the way.

Emphasize the dancers’ need to keep their eyes forward and be aware of those around them. Periodically rehearse while facing away from the mirror to limit dependency on visual cues for correctness.

Invite other dance professionals to critique your work, and listen to their comments. Allow others to teach or choreograph so that you can objectively observe the dancers in class or rehearsal. (Insist that they comply with your standards for music and movement.)

Performances
Choose competitions, performances, and workshops carefully. Do your research (including asking other teachers for their opinions about various events) and consider the following questions.

• What will it cost and how will it be paid for? Constant bills or fund-raising can exhaust a parent’s initial enthusiasm for your goals.
• How will it enhance your dancers’ education and help them improve?
• What are the qualifications of the faculty? Will they be a positive influence on your dancers?
• Is it a win–win or win–lose situation? Are the dancers mature enough to accept a judge’s decision? Are the parents prepared to handle the situation?

Listen to the judges’ comment tapes and watch videos of rehearsals and performances. It is never easy to receive criticism or relive an imperfect performance, but doing so will help target strengths and identify flaws. Be willing to grow with each experience and keep your sense of humor. Getting more from our students often means expecting and getting more from ourselves.

Choreography tips

Choose music and choreography that will best display each group. Remove all questionable lyrics and keep the music short. Short routines allow the students to work on clarity and performance quality rather than memorization and stamina. Keep unison dancing to a minimum, particularly in complicated turn sections. The following choreographic elements will enhance your work.

• Utilize a variety of floor patterns.

1. Keep groups moving through each other.
2. Use formations such as circles, lines, triangles, and columns.
3. Choreograph entrances and exits during the piece.

• Include interaction between the dancers.

1. Teach the students to establish eye contact with and react to each other onstage.
2. Use partnering and weight sharing.

• Create layers of choreography.

1. Use canons or have dancers do different steps to the same portion of music.
2. Use a variety of tempos. 

• Create levels within the choreography.

1. Utilize different planes with floor work, leaps, and centered movement.
2. Add variety with benches, stairs, and chairs.
3. Include simple lifts and body stacking.

Aspen Santa Fe Ballet’s Folklorico Mexicano program

By Lisa Traiger

Alexandra loves the chance to travel and see new places. Iris loves to meet new friends from other towns. Sisters Solana and Tavia love to wear the wide-flounced skirts and make a statement, loud and clear, with their feet.

As members of Folklorico Mexicano, a dance program for kindergarteners through high schoolers sponsored by Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, these children are being taught more than traditional dance steps. Ask Francisco Nevarez, the program’s director in the Aspen area. They’re learning about culture and history, about perseverance and hard work, about friendship and sharing. Folklorico Mexicano is more than an after-school dance class. It’s a life class. But don’t tell the kids, up to 130 of them in the Roaring Fork Valley of Colorado, home to Aspen and Snowmass, playgrounds for the rich and famous.

In the valley, in towns surrounding these wintertime resorts, resides an increasing population of Hispanic workers who have joined the service economy as construction workers, gardeners, and housekeepers to the rich and pampered. They commute from Carbondale, Basalt, and Glenwood Springs. But who’s watching the kids while their parents are pulling 10- or 12-hour shifts?

Nevarez by day serves as community liaison to the Hispanic community at Basalt Middle School. At 3:30 p.m. he changes his shoes and becomes a teacher, instructing his willing charges in the traditional dances he learned as a child growing up in northern Mexico. At 14 he danced with a professional folkloric company in his home state of Chihuahua. After coming to the United States 17 years ago, he founded a company, Mexico: Images and Traditions Folkloric Group, in New York, which was made up of adults and children from the community.

In 2002, when Nevarez arrived in Aspen, the snowy mountains and vast valley reminded him of his home terrain in Chihuahua. That first year he taught after-school classes in Mexican dance to about 25 or 30 kids; the next year, 70. In 2006, under Nevarez’s direction, the troupe traveled to the third Las Vegas International Folk Dance Festival, where it received four first-place awards for best group, best production, duo, and trio. Last season Nevarez had about 130 children under his tutelage. In fall 2007 he started with 80 and expected that number to grow. They dance a minimum of six hours weekly and perform in local festivals, at church and community events, and in theaters a dozen times a season.         

Aspen Santa Fe Ballet director Jean-Philippe Malaty took a break after a rehearsal in Santa Fe, where the 10-member troupe is based, to explain the company’s commitment to the Folklorico Mexicano program. “We are a ballet company, but we are also an organization rooted in our community. We looked at our community and decided it was time to break down the barriers.” A former dancer who had had his fill of ballet company lecture/demonstrations in school gymnasiums, he expresses disdain for the typical arts-in-education assembly: “Too many times a company tries to push its product on the children with little or no success. A lecture/demonstration at 8:00 in the morning is not going to develop dancers or even audience members. A lot of organizations develop in-school programming simply to get the funding.”

Malaty worked backwards: “We have a large Hispanic community and we looked at what they needed.” He’s not worried about serving the ballet company’s artistic goals. Aspen Santa Fe Ballet—which emerged in 1996 from the Aspen Ballet Company and School, founded six years earlier by Bebe Schweppe—is unique among arts organizations for sharing its resources among two communities that are a six-hour car drive away from each other—on a good day, when mountain passes are cleared of snow. Malaty isn’t looking to develop future ballet dancers from the Folklorico Mexicano program. That’s beside the point. “We’re trying to teach these children their culture, develop pride in their background. While many of these children were born here, their parents are from Mexico. We try to teach them that Mexico is a very rich culture with European and Native American influences; every region of the country has a beautiful costume and a story.” Maybe, Malaty continues, some will grow up to attend ballet concerts, or send their own children to dance classes. But more important and more immediate, he wants to instill pride in children and teach them about their cultural heritage.         

As members of Folklorico Mexicano, these children are being taught more than traditional dance steps. They’re learning about culture and history, about perseverance and hard work, about friendship and sharing.

Equally significant is sharing this rich culture with the Anglo population. Karla Teitler’s two daughters are huge fans. The girls, Solana and Tavia, tried ballet classes when they were younger, but they weren’t all that interested or impressed. When they saw the colors and swirls of the skirts and heard the rhythms of Folklorico Mexicano, they were hooked. “My children go to a school where they are a minority,” notes Teitler, a pre-kindergarten teacher at Crystal River Elementary, which her girls attend. “This program allows them to see other children’s culture and background, and it helps us as parents break down cultural barriers and interact with other parents.”

Nevarez also appreciates the mix of Hispanic and Anglo students he teaches. Though Anglos number only about 10 percent in the program, he is adamant about including anyone who desires to dance. When he instructs, he teaches dances using both Spanish and English, which is perfect for the Teitlers, who are being raised in a bilingual household. It’s also great for Ivan Loya, 11, a sixth-grader who also plays soccer. Loya enjoys the exercise and friends he has made in Folklorico Mexicano. He also gets to reinforce his Spanish, which he speaks at home, while practicing English in a non-academic setting. It’s equally effective for children of Spanish-speaking immigrants, who hear their mother tongue and English side by side. Anglos, too, pick up Spanish words—derecho, izquierda, vuelta en circulo—right, left, turn in a circle.           

While parents pay only a $25 annual registration fee for their children and shoes and costumes are provided on loan from the company, they and the children must commit to attending rehearsals and performances. But that’s not all; parents are expected to help in some other way, with costumes, driving, concessions, fund-raising, or as extra hands backstage. And the children, too, must make a commitment to maintaining good grades. The program costs the ballet $140,000 annually, according to Malaty, much of it for costumes and transportation. But with funding initially from the Colorado Trust Foundation and now from a consortium of Aspen-area funders, Folklorico Mexicano continues to grow. A sister program six hours away in Santa Fe has just begun its second year.

Christian Kingsbury, Basalt Middle School’s principal, loves the program and the work Nevarez does, during school and after. “Folklorico Mexicano really gets kids hooked into the school, working hard, being part of a team,” Kingsbury says. “These are elements that help kids succeed in school and later on succeed in life. They show up and they work hard.”

Nevarez, or Paco, his nickname among the children, is a tough taskmaster. The children rehearse from 3:30 to 7:00 p.m. twice weekly and meet on Saturdays when a performance nears. The day report cards arrive, the students must line up to show Paco their grades. And if he’s not happy, they don’t dance again until their grades come up. He’s been known, he admits, to call a teacher to get the full report on a slacking student.

Iris Flores, 12, is in her fifth year with Folklorico Mexicano. A seventh-grader born in Veracruz, Mexico, but living in Aspen, she relishes the time spent dancing with friends. “It keeps me connected to my culture,” she says. “I want to keeping dancing at least until I finish high school.”

Tivo Loya, from Carbondale, has two children in the program, Andy and Ivan. “I think it’s a really good program for kids to do after school,” he says. “It keeps them away from the video games.” As a youth Loya too was a dancer in a folkloric company back in his native Mexico. Today he drives his kids 15 miles, some days across snowy passes, for rehearsals. A painter, he pointed to a recent graduate of the Aspen Santa Fe program who used his experience performing with the award-winning dance troupe to enhance his college application. It’s something he hopes will help his children one day as well.

Malaty is proud of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet’s growing prominence and increasing critical acclaim on stages across the country, but he believes in his heart that Folklorico Mexicano may ultimately be his company’s most important contribution. “We have zero crossover in our folklorico program and our ballet program,” he notes, “which shows us we were right in our approach.” Folklorico Mexicano wasn’t intended to create ballet dancers, and since its founding in 2000 it hasn’t.

Nevarez appreciates the way the children from different towns across the valley and different cultures across the border can dance so easily together in school cafeterias and gymnasiums and onstage. “When we have a performance,” he says, “I tell them, ‘You’re not from Basalt; you’re not from Carbondale; you’re not from Aspen. You’re not Americans; you’re not Mexicans; you’re not Salvadorans. You’re all Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Folklorico Mexicano.” And they are.

African dance as a rite of passage

By Michael Wade Simpson

Where does hip-hop come from? Pose that question to a roomful of fourth-graders and you might get a big laugh. “Does hip-hop come from somewhere else?” “Hip-hop comes from MTV, the street, a dance club.” “How about Africa?” “No way. That’s goofy. Hip-hop from Africa? No.” Now get out the drums, bring out the dancers, and teach the kids a couple of movements from Guinea, West Africa. “Hey, that’s the Chicken Soup!”

African dance for kids is a powerful way to make connections. As community-based dance programs across America have shown over the last 40 years (sometimes blending African classes with ballet, tap, jazz, and modern), teaching youngsters a traditional ethnic dance form like West African opens up worlds.

In the case of three leading African dance artists and educators—Deborah Vaughan of Dimensions Dance Theater in Oakland, CA; Karen L. Love of Umoja Dance Company in Montclair, NJ; and Chuck Davis, founder of the Durham, NC–based African American Dance Ensemble—getting kids involved in dance becomes a powerful social structure and a rite of passage, as songs, dances, rhythms and stories from West African traditions become life-shaping lessons.

“The role of the arts is to prepare the young ones for the future,” says Davis. “In the old African traditional initiation rites, young people from 9 to 14 are taken from their villages and placed in the care of elders.” The place of elders, according to Davis, was called “the Sacred Forest,” where “you [would] learn what your role is, what is expected once you pass into adulthood.” And, he goes on to explain, “in the old days all the proverbs and teaching were done through dance.”

Davis, a commanding presence at 6′ 5″, turned 71 on January 1 of this year. He has spent a lifetime traveling to West Africa, popularizing these dance forms and music across the United States and, always, teaching. (“Did you know there are 300 ethnic groups in Nigeria?”) “All children should seek their heritage,” Davis says. “Who am I? Where did I come from?” When asked if that includes kids from other ethnic groups, he replies, “Learning about the traditions in African dance can teach non-Africans what they should seek.”

Here in the United States, can a dance studio serve as the initiation zone for young people? Undoubtedly yes, according to these three dance visionaries. To be more specific, it is a dance company that serves as the initiation vehicle. In the African dance model developed by all three groups, younger dancers are always included, performing side by side, or in place of, adult dancers in a professional dance company. It is within this junior company, where younger dancers apprentice, interact with their elders, and get their first opportunity to travel and perform, that they find their “sacred forest.”

Vaughan, who founded Dimensions Dance Theater with two other women with whom she began taking dance classes as a 6-year-old, has been involved with the company for 35 years, and she still believes in the power of dance as a social force. “We started in the Oakland Park and Rec creative movement program; then as teens we found Dunham technique and African-Haitian classes, which were being taught by Ruth Beckford, one of Katherine [Dunham]’s original dancers. I am connected to that legacy,” she says. Learning the history, traditions, and customs from Beckford put her on a “path of enlightenment,” she says. That segued into learning about the entire African diaspora. (The historical rise of the African slave trade spread not only the African population but also its culture, music, religions, and dance throughout North and South America.) She studied the dances of Cuba and Brazil as well as those of West Africa and Congo.

‘African [dance] requires a different level of coordination. The feet do one thing, the arms another, and the rhythms have a lot going on—it’s never a steady 8-count. You have to relax and be free.’ —Karen L. Love

Vaughan’s own Rites of Passage Arts Academy program for young dancers was born “as a way to give back to the community,” she says. “I realized from the beginning this was something powerful.” She started with an apprentice program for 17- to 18-year-olds to expose them to the art, train with the adult dance company, take a lot of classes, and receive coaching from company members. Soon she asked herself, “Why not formalize this?” She explains, “Through the pursuit of a culture, you cause young dancers to develop their own interests out in the world, and to begin their own path.”

With help from the city of Oakland, which decided to create an arts center that would house local organizations, Dimensions finally moved out of the church basements and borrowed studio it had been using and into a home of its own. That was in 1993. “What we offer young people is a place to learn and express themselves, to work with others collectively toward a final product. We build self-esteem, and the kids have a blast,” Vaughan says.

In addition to dance, the Rites of Passage program brings in volunteers to teach life skills workshops on subjects such as nutrition, hygiene, conflict resolution, finances, and body image. And the kids, early on, learn the value of community outreach; they not only dance but also help out at churches, shelters, and charity benefits.

What about African dance itself—the movement, the precursor of hip-hop? What do kids like about that, and what is the value of learning such a technique in addition to traditional forms such as ballet, tap, and jazz? Karen L. Love, whose New Jersey–based company, Umoja (which means “unity” in Ki-Swahili), travels to schools with drummers and brightly costumed dancers, always gives the kids a chance to get up and try it. “They can’t stay in their seats—the kids are in awe of everything; they’re ecstatic,” Love says. In her lecture-demonstrations she gathers the children into a circle, space permitting, and teaches them four movements. Then, for those who want to come into the center, she offers a chance to improvise and perform. “African requires a different level of coordination,” she says—isolations, undulations, syncopated rhythms. “The feet do one thing, the arms another, and the rhythms have a lot going on—it’s never a steady 8-count. You have to relax and be free.”

“The dance is organic,” says Vaughan, practically purring as she pronounces the word. “You’re so rooted; it’s what bodies are created to do. You can go above and beyond in a theatrical setting, but it’s all basic human movement. Learning isolations helps kids get in touch and understand that their bodies have parts. It’s thrilling to me when I see the kids take on body awareness and see what’s possible.” Vaughan talks about the kind of energy the dance form offers participants: “A feeling of wellness and being, a higher level of awareness, a different state of consciousness.”

Which brings us back to hip-hop, the dominating (and most feared) musical force today, with its often scandalous movements and obscene lyrics, with its intent to shock and disturb. “It’s just another social dance,” says Vaughan.

How to Add Cultural Dance Into the Studio Mix

• Find ethnic and social groups in your community and ask who knows the dances. Invite them to offer a master class at your school.
• Work with local ethnic dance companies. Dancers often make the best teachers.
• Using live drummers for African dance and other forms adds excitement and draws new students—using CDs is not the same thing.
• Look for martial-arts tie-ins. Forms like Brazilian capoeira are dancelike but attract boys because of the element of ritualized combat.

Changing dance education—and lives—at Purchase College and beyond

By Rachel Straus

If she hadn’t fallen madly in love with dance in high school, Carol Walker says she might have followed a career in international relations. But as a performer, teacher, and choreographer for 27 years, and then a college dance dean with connections to companies and schools worldwide for the next 23, her life’s trajectory shares the same variety and scope as that of a career diplomat’s. Walker’s tenacity, negotiating skills, and charisma are those of a first-rate ambassador whose success involves focusing on the big picture. “I love dance because it’s about music and people,” she says. “I loving seeing all the elements come together.”

Walker’s wardrobe is colorful and she laughs a lot. Her words, however, never mince. “I’ve been so bloody lucky,” she says about being on a first-name basis with Mark Morris and Merce Cunningham and about coming of age during the U.S. dance boom. “I had wonderful mentors. I was in places where I could grow and go.” Walker grew up in Highland Park, IL, the only child of Madeline and Charles Kluss. Belonging to the third wave of American modern dancers that developed—many outside of big cities—Walker and her peers followed in the wake of groundbreakers like Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Hanya Holm.

Though Holm provided her with her “first taste of professionalism,” says Walker, referring to the two summers she spent studying with the German expressionist at Colorado College, it was the lesser-known dance artist Phyllis Sabold who introduced Walker to dance. Sabold gave the teenager the first of many classes, opening her to the art’s innumerable expressive possibilities. When Sabold developed cancer, Walker—age 20 and recently married to Peter Walker—began filling in for her mentor at her studio in Highland Park, IL.

“I remember Phyllis saying, ‘You can’t consider yourself a good teacher until you can teach 5-year-olds and until you can build a technique in someone,’ ” says Walker. Consequently the budding young teacher taught all age groups while dancing for Sabold and in summer tent show performances of The King and I and Brigadoon. She also raised, with Peter, two daughters, Kim and Kathleen. Then, after the death of Sabold and with the prompting of a “lady of the community,” Carol Eisenschiml, Walker opened her own studio in 1971. “I learned a lot by doing and by seeing what the results were,” says Walker of her development as a teacher. The results of merging elements of Graham, Humphrey, and ballet techniques were good: Her studio became a financial and artistic success; her students went on to professional dance careers.

“I felt like Carol could run the world,” says dancer Janie Brendel, who started studying with Walker in grade school and whom New York Times dance critic Jennifer Dunning described as “claim[ing] the stage with formidable delicacy” in 2000.

Another former Walker student, Liz Frankel, a ballet teacher at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, says, “Carol created a magnificent freedom in her studio.” That freedom included improvisational studies as a finale to technique class, something rarely done even today.

In 1969 Walker had inherited Sabold’s teaching job at Barat College, where no dance department existed. Seizing on a rare opportunity, Walker slowly cajoled and convinced wary college administrators to fund a new program devoted to dance education, performance, and choreography. By the time she left her position at Barat in 1984, she had become the director of the theater and dance department. She had also earned a BA from the college.

“There was always something perking me along,” says Walker, “keeping my perspective fresh.” In the beginning it was performing, but as her teaching responsibilities grew and keeping in shape became more difficult, her focus changed. First she choreographed for Barat Repertory Dance Group and presented lecture-demonstrations with her studio dancers at public schools. Then she went to New York City to study with Alwin Nikolais, Cunningham, and Graham. She also received National Endowment for the Arts grants to bring modern dance companies and master teachers to Barat and her studio. With increased government funding for the arts, Walker didn’t just ride the dance boom, she grabbed its opportunities with both fists.

This dance dynamo describes teaching 18 classes, raising a family, choreographing, and developing and running a college dance program without self-congratulatory fanfare. “Because of the position of modern dance at the time,” she says, “you had to be a leader. You rose to the occasion.” By 1983 Walker, age 46, could have begun resting on her laurels. Instead she took up another challenge, applying twice to become dean of dance at Purchase College, State University of New York. In her second try for the position, Walker wrote in a cover letter, “I do not have an internationally marketable reputation. I do know something about dance administration. You may want to keep reading.” Painfully aware that in the dance department’s 12-year history 8 deans (all former performing stars) had come and gone, the search committee read on and, in 1984, hired Walker. The newly appointed dean closed her studio and embarked on the next phase of her career.

With increased government funding for the arts, Walker didn’t just ride the dance boom, she grabbed its opportunities with both fists.

Being the ninth dean of the Conservatory of Dance ushered in high-stake challenges and possibilities of professional prominence. “Change never freaks me out,” Walker says. But a less stalwart person would have trembled upon arriving at Purchase. Some dance faculty members, who came from pinnacles of the dance world, doubted her abilities. Rather than keep her head down, Walker instituted weekly faculty meetings that focused on students’ needs. She reached out to incoming freshman with a semester-long seminar devoted to teaching them about the prestigious faculty they were learning from (and to let them know they could always come to her office.)

Then three years into her deanship, Walker took a student group to Hong Kong’s international dance festival. As the sole U.S. representative, the Purchase Dance Corps impressed, and it soon embarked on 11 more international touring opportunities for the faculty and students.

Walker’s determination to put Purchase College on the international dance map continued. She developed exchange programs with dance schools abroad; now there are five. She fund-raised for tours and scholarships and for the reconstruction and presentation of works by Bill T. Jones, Paul Taylor, and George Balanchine, along with those of emerging, cutting-edge choreographers. Young dancers from all over the world began coming to Purchase for their dance education. In 1998 Walker created a MFA program with faculty member Kazuko Hirabayashi. Walker became dean of the School of the Arts, a new position responsible for overseeing all art departments, and won handfuls of awards from the dance community, the college, and New York State.

“One of the things I am most proud of is how the faculty works as a team,” said Walker when she retired as dance dean last summer. For a diplomat like her, that remark sends the right message: She acknowledges those who she works with immediately. Her habit of putting others forward is not lost on those around her. “Carol is a mother first,” says professor Larry Clark, who was given his first teaching opportunity at Walker’s studio. “She was like a fertilizer for a lot of us.”

Although Walker stopped teaching dance technique when she became dean, her interest in students remained passionate and strategic. Atlanta Ballet dancer Peng-Yu Chen remembers how Walker traveled to Philadelphia to see her perform with her Taiwanese high school. Walker personally handed Chen her visa papers so that she could matriculate at Purchase. “She believed in me from day one,” says Chen, who continues to seek Walker’s advice.

Mexican-born choreographer Ofelia Loret de Mola will never forget Walker’s commitment to help her at Purchase. When de Mola could no longer afford tuition, she says, “Carol got on the phone, made three phone calls and told me I was staying.”

For Jonathan Riedel, a former Limón dancer and a Purchase graduate who is now artistic director of the fledging Riedel Dance Theater, Walker is a role model for networking in the arts and business world. “Watching Carol work,” says Riedel, “is almost overwhelming.”

At age 70, Walker’s verve and chutzpah continues to move her life forward full throttle. Since retiring as dance dean she has traveled to Singapore and Taiwan to address dance organizations and to Australia to judge a dance competition. And Purchase’s president, Thomas J. Schwarz, who did not want to see Walker leave, says that he and the new dean have roles in mind for Walker in the future, besides her post as co-chair of Friends of Dance, the supporting organization of the Conservatory of Dance.

“It’s a wonderful life,” says Walker about her myriad connections to the dance world. At dance performances at The Joyce Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and City Center, she is flooded with familiar faces in the audience, onstage, and in the wings. She underlines the fact that her life couldn’t have happened as it did without her husband’s support. When Peter proposed, he promised his future mother-in-law that he would “never take dance away from Carol.” Peter, who is the dance department’s director of operations, kept his word and then some. His 50-year-long backing of his wife is remarkable.

“I lived in an era when women were not trained for or considered to have careers,” says Walker. “We were supposed to be housewives. I’m so lucky because my husband and my parents were very cool about me working.” Walker’s encouragement from her loved ones allowed her to develop from a “jock” dancing in gym shorts to a dance professional, addressing an international consortium on its pedagogical future. Walker isn’t only a groundbreaker for women who are determined to have both family and meaningful work; she is a model for anyone interested in becoming a leader in her field. Her combination of stamina, savvy, and confidence makes her uniquely powerful. Otherwise she couldn’t have, as she says, “made my own resume.”

Walker began her life journey as a dance-struck teen who discovered music and movement. Today she is a terpsichorean diplomat, working in all walks of the dancing life.

A school owner’s guide to smart financial practices

By Shevon McBride

Teaching, planning, choreographing, directing—with so much to do, who has time to think about the business side of owning a studio? All of these tasks can be overwhelming and consuming, but studio owners should—and must—ensure that the business aspects of running a school are given the same attention as the creative or artistic elements.

If you are to be successful in the dance studio world, the business and artistic sides of your school must go hand in hand. Choreographing the perfect performance piece, purchasing that new stereo system, and making sure the books are in balance are all part of making your business run smoothly. As the studio owner, it is your responsibility to be aware of the transactions that take place on a daily basis. You should be the one who oversees the checks and balances that result in a smoothly functioning business—one that operates without any surprises.

Essential practices
Several important business practices need to be given top priority in your studio: cash, receivables, payables, and payroll. Without consideration and some knowledge of these practices, you could be putting yourself and your business at risk. You can hire the right people to perform these activities; however, you must be informed enough to be able to put checks and balances into action. Like fine-tuning a performance piece, it takes a keen eye. Just like you make and adjust the technique and the choreography for a dance, you must be able to make and keep the studio’s behind-the-scenes practices running smoothly as well. If one component is out of balance, over time it can put the rest of the business into a slow downward spiral. It only makes sense to protect the one thing you have worked so hard to build.

In order to establish good business practices and be compatible with today’s technology, a computer with adequate software that is designed for the dance studio is a must. This software is the soul of the studio’s database. It holds all the information about the students, staff, recitals, costumes, music, reports, charges, income, and sales. It needs to be compatible with small-business financial software, such as QuickBooks. These two programs establish a good base for the checks-and-balances system that keeps your business running smoothly. Using an old-fashioned pen, paper, and ledger system is still a workable plan, too. Whether you use cutting-edge technology or yesteryear’s tools, any system will work as long as you, not only your employees, are monitoring it for accuracy and accountability.

The three Cs
The “three Cs”—meaning cash, checks, and credit cards pertaining to balances, receipts, and disbursements—are some of the most important elements of the financial stability of a business. The business practice objective is to safeguard and properly account for the receipt, holding, and disbursement of the three Cs; therefore, you should set up a specific, accurate system to monitor all those transactions.

First, establish a written internal controls system that ensures that cash receipts and disbursements are conducted with appropriate procedures. For example, a three-copy receipt book would be used for cash income. The top copy would go to the customer, the second would be attached to the cash on hand (if it is not posted immediately), and the third would remain in the receipt book as a backup and final balance system.

Being accurate, consistent, and timely with your accounts payable helps all the pieces of the puzzle fit in place for the success of your studio.

Second, signature authority should be adopted and reviewed annually for check writing. You should authorize one person to sign checks (in addition to yourself, of course). This person will then be able to handle bill payments or other disbursements of funds. Once you have decided who will have this responsibility (usually the office manager or secretary), you need to put into practice a review of any signed checks before they are disbursed. This enables you to know, at all times, where the funds are going with your approval. This also keeps your employees honest with their procedures.

And the third C: credit cards. You need a credit card system that is user friendly and compatible with all of your software systems. It should be a consistent and secure system that works easily with all of your financial components with a daily management review. With the three Cs in working order, your studio will be a successful business that will support your artistic endeavors.

Accounts receivable
In most businesses, the money going out sometimes seems to move faster than the money coming in, which means that it is essential that money be received in a timely fashion. The money coming in is called “accounts receivable.” The accounts receivable must be properly recorded and promptly collected. Establish a written system to invoice customers promptly, in a consistent manner, while being diligent in following up and collecting past due accounts.

Parents need to be aware of their financial commitments before signing up their children for classes, so there must be no surprises regarding the cost of tuition, costumes, pictures, recital fees, and so on. They also need to be aware of your policies on how they can make payments on these various financial obligations for the entire year. The policies should include how much is to be paid, and when, throughout the year. With the policies and information in hand from the start, parents can put a budget plan into action and you can establish a studio budget that reflects how funds are coming in as well as being disbursed. The policies also decrease the number of past-due accounts, because the parents have firsthand information.

There will always be some parents who will consistently be late or will not hold up their financial commitment to your studio. This is where you once again have to keep the checks and balances going to make sure that the receivables come in as anticipated; without them the studio can’t sustain itself financially. The timely, consistent review and reconciliation of receivables is of utmost importance to your school’s financial health. By taking the time to review the receivables you will see clearly whether funds are coming in as they should and how much money is readily available for disbursement toward bills, expansions, travel, mortgage, rent, or any other financial obligations.

Accounts payable
The flip side of accounts receivable is the accounts payable component of your business, which includes utilities, mortgages, rent, and other expenses. Without the accounts receivable in balance, you cannot make payments to your financial obligations and have a successful business. A segregation of duties should be established in a written control system that provides payments and disbursements within a dollar amount. In other words, you need to develop a budget in accordance with the amount of money you receive monthly. This eliminates any unwanted surprises and also allows you to plan for that long-wanted purchase. A money cushion should also be readily available for emergencies; you never can anticipate when repairs will be needed.

If your studio handles merchandise such as leotards, tights, and shoes, an accurate and consistent system of ensuring that all merchandise is properly inspected and recorded should also be put in place. Payments to the vendors you purchase your merchandise from should be made in a timely manner under the terms of the transaction. Being accurate, consistent, and timely with your accounts payable helps all the pieces of the puzzle fit in place for the success of your studio. It also establishes good credit ratings and business standings for you with all the companies you deal with in your workplace.

Payroll: no more headaches
Payroll can be one of the biggest expenses and headaches for some studio owners. A good business practice objective is to conduct payroll operations accurately and in compliance with state and federal laws. Establish a written controls system that separates payroll preparation from the general ledger function and other payroll functions, such as hiring, timekeeping, and distribution of checks. Financial software is helpful in maintaining accurate, up-to-date payroll records. It also offers a system that ensures the accurate and timely collection of payroll information such as timecards, attendance records, and funding sources.

A distribution of pay should be established that ensures proper payment of employees, through direct deposit or by check, based on submitted documentation. To keep everyone happy—your employees, your accountant, and the federal government—you must make certain that all regulatory requirements and other employer responsibilities are met. Establish a written system that enables proper collection and timely remittance of payroll taxes and other withholdings for retirement and insurance programs, as well as all federal and state reporting requirements. Being aware of your obligations, even if you do not fully understand them, can ultimately save your business from unwanted fines and fees.

Checks and balances are the key to a successful and profitable studio. You might not know everything there is to know about the business of running a studio (and if you do, it’s a definite bonus), but you should know enough about the basics to keep informed and on top of your business. Become acquainted with all policies, procedures, reports, and passwords so that you can monitor all the business-related activities that take place in your studio. Remember, no one will take care of the day-to-day activities with the same concern that you will—or consider them as important as you do. Make it your business to take care of your business.

Preteen buddies make great partners for preschoolers

By Stephanie Steinmeyer

About seven years ago I began to offer a Mommy and Me class at my studio, Hawthorn Dance and Gymnastics in Versailles, MO, after hearing of the success of this kind of class in other places with similar programs. Ours was primarily a gymnastics class. The parents would come with their 2- and 3-year-olds and spend half an hour assisting them with stretches, basic tumbling, and large motor skills. The children hung on the bars and walked on the low beam. I thought the class was great—until my own darling boy was ready to join.

In the Tumble Tots program at Hawthorn Dance and Gymnastics, fifth- to seventh-grade girls, including Emily Dills and Savannah Williamson-Field, pair up with preschoolers to coach them through class activities. (Photos Courtesy Stephanie Steinmeyer)

I had thought it would be so fun to just be a parent in class with my son, but I quickly realized that there was a lot more going on in there than I’d thought. There were children who didn’t want to do anything. There were parents who were perfectly happy to let their children do things that might be dangerous. There were grandparents or pregnant mothers who couldn’t keep up with the excited youngsters. There were older siblings offered as substitutes for mom or dad. (I didn’t feel comfortable with that for safety reasons.) Then there were the moms who couldn’t understand why Katie couldn’t skip. Surely she was intelligent enough. “C’mon, Katie, try harder,” they would say, watching other children skipping with agility and wondering why their child was failing. (I’m sorry to say I fell into that category.) Of course, there were also many parents who seemed to enjoy the time with their children and did not leave feeling frazzled and disappointed. But I wasn’t one of them. Instead, I pulled my son out of the class until he was old enough to attend without my assistance. I just couldn’t take it anymore.

Over the next few years I overheard parents discussing how relieved they were when their child graduated to a class where the parents could sit and watch through a window. After a while I dropped the entire program.

Skip ahead until my next child was 18 months old, when the Tumble Tots program was born. It came into existence through some coincidences. First, I had an 18-month-old son who I just knew was going to be the next dance prodigy—only my studio didn’t offer any classes for kids under 3. Also, it seemed like there was a baby boom at the studio. A lot of students had 1 ½- to 3-year-old siblings waiting around in the lobby with all kinds of energy. It was natural to think that I could do something with that. From a business standpoint, I reasoned, I had people who were already interested in the arts for their children, who knew our school, and who might like a little time to sit without any children. And then there was the group of fifth- to seventh-grade girls who were asking me when they could help teach classes. (I usually employ reliable high school girls to assist with some classes.) I had never before considered allowing someone that young to help in the classroom, but these girls had been with me since they were very little, and they were responsible and serious for their age. Still, I would never turn them loose on a class of older children without knowing what they were capable of or how dedicated they would be. But how would they do with younger children?

That’s when it hit me—Tumble Tots! Here’s how it works: I handpick the preteens based on their performance in their classes and how long they have taken classes from me. Each big kid buddies with a little one. I had special staff T-shirts made for them so that they appear more professional and are easily recognized as student assistants.

The little ones are assigned to a preteen buddy who works with them for the duration of the class. The head teacher (my mother) oversees everything. We set out lots of colorful items in the dance room—big balls, tunnels, mats, cones, hoops, and so on. The girls are taught various ways to engage the children, so you might see Emmy, Bethany, Emily, and Savannah helping their buddies learn to weave in and out of cones, kick a ball, do a plié, or hop through hoops.

There’s a big chart so that the older girls can keep track of what they’ve worked on and how well their little friend did. The head teacher selects which activities will be available and changes things up each week to keep the class interesting.

Unlike in our other classes, the children in the Tumble Tots program are started on a trial basis. We bill by the month, so parents pay the registration fee and one month’s tuition. You never know how a child will handle the class, so if doesn’t work for a child after three weeks, I refund whatever I think is fair, depending on how much class they actually got. If the parents re-register their children within 12 months, they don’t have to pay the registration fee again.

Through trial and error we have established some main rules for the class: Every task must be educational and should relate to dance or gymnastics; and every girl must always be within touching distance of her little charge.

The goals for the class, as we explain to the parents, are modest.

1. We want the children to stay in the room for the entire half-hour. (If a child wants Mommy and can’t be distracted, her buddy takes her out into the hall to show her that her mother is there, and then tries to entice her back into the room.)

2. We want them to learn to wait to take a turn, even if it’s behind only one other person. That’s when things like the tunnel come in handy.

3. We want them to understand that they are to follow the main teacher’s directions. My mother will stand in front of the little ones and their buddies and play “copycat,” which is where everyone has to do what she does as it gets sillier and sillier. The little ones see the bigger girls setting the example, and that helps them follow the directions.

4. We want them to participate in group activities like holding hands and making a “snake.”

The children actually do learn things in the class; it’s not just play. My son knows how to do a plié, an arabesque (granted, it’s not beautiful), and tendu. He can squat down, do a little mule kick, and gallop. He can weave between the cones by himself and jump over things with two feet as well as one at a time (like a leap). He’s 2 years old.

We have had some snags. Some parents don’t understand the goals of the class, even though I explain them ahead of time. They say, “My daughter can do all of that already. We have that stuff at home.” But the object is to get her to do them for us, when we ask her to do them, not when she wants to do them, and for her to not have to check on her mother three or four times during class.

As for the assistants, it’s hard for them to accept that being silly is OK. It’s not about being cool. I’ve also had to help them understand that they can’t bodily pick the children up (in the classroom or outside of it) and teach them how to maneuver a child without being too rough. And sometimes they forget that the students are there to learn. They should be counting the carpet squares as the child jumps on them and use color and shape words. Things like that are hard for the preteens to remember at first. They also tend to get a little bored, so you’ve got to keep changing things for them as well as for the toddlers.

Graduating out of Tumble Tots doesn’t happen according to age, though the children do have to be potty trained and able to understand verbal commands. But mostly they are deemed ready to move on when they are able to stay in the room, follow directions, do what we want them to do, wait a turn and follow in line, learn skills and retain them for the next week, and expect what’s next in simple combinations.

Some of our Tumble Tots students were in the recital this year. They performed a maypole dance to classical music. We taped ribbons to a big cardboard tube and stood it on a base. Some of the children held the ribbons and circled the pole until the ribbons were wound up, then reversed direction. The children who couldn’t quite get that stood onstage next to their buddies and waved loose ribbons. It was very low-key and went very well.

With this class I have accomplished several goals that were intentional. I now have a way to get a jump on training the girls who might be helping with more difficult classes in the future. I know their attendance habits and I get a glimpse of their attitudes when they’re not in class. They get to experience how I run my ship (which is pretty tightly) and what is expected of them. They learn how to work with children in a very supervised setting. Plus, the little ones are getting a class and their moms are getting a break. The children who graduate from Tumble Tots already understand how a dance class is run, and none of them ask to see their mothers or act up in class. They already know what’s expected of them.

I also have accomplished some things I didn’t intend. The little ones, as it turns out, now have a buddy for life! Whenever they see their old buddy, they get a hug. The preteens occasionally check up on a class that one of their previous students has been moved to. The young children have been given someone positive to look up to, and the older girls realize this responsibility and work hard to live up to those expectations. They have really formed a bond, and that in turn strengthens the ideals that I have for my studio.

Performing not in your blood? Check out career options that will keep you in dance and offstage.

By Lea Marshall

“The course of true love never did run smooth.” Shakespeare’s famous line from A Midsummer Night’s Dream applies easily to those of us whose true love is dance. Though you may begin your study of dance at age 5 with visions of the Sugar Plum Fairy dancing in your head, you may discover, at 20, that ballet is no longer your thing and you’ve fallen in love with lighting design. Many paths wind through the dance world that do not involve choreographing or performing dance. Weighing in on these “alternative” dance careers are several experts who tell us how they got started, what they like most and least, and what to keep in mind if your own path points in one of these directions.

Lighting design: Sculpting with light and color
Mark Stanley, the resident lighting designer at New York City Ballet, was an undergraduate theater studies major at the College of William and Mary in Virginia in the late 1970s when Nikolais Dance Theatre performed there. Stanley had already jumped in as a lighting designer for the college’s student dance company, Orchesis, during his first year. But his experience with the Nikolais company opened his eyes to a larger world. “I’d never seen anything like it, and I was immediately hooked.”

Set and costume designer Sandra Woodall loves developing a visual concept. Here, Titania (Alison Roper) and Oberon (Ronnie Underwood), surrounded by their fairy minions, in Woodall’s designs for A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Oregon Ballet Theatre. (Photo by Blaine Truitt Covert)

Stanley completed his MFA in lighting design at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and then worked for the New York City Opera for six years. Though he had no dance background, he had always loved dance and its “ability to tell stories or convey emotion without words,” he says. When the job at NYCB came up, he jumped at it. “I was doing small dance companies in and around New York at the time, so I found a great home at New York City Ballet, and it’s been 20 years.”

Lighting design has its challenges. “There’s no time,” Stanley says. “[With] most dance companies, regional or touring, you load in on a Monday and open on a Wednesday. That’s frustrating, because I like to explore and make choices and throw them out and see something different. There’s also the fact that you’re creating your work in the space, right in front of everybody. There’s a side of this business that has to do with dealing with people, and having tough skin when there’s a row of people behind you commenting on your work while you’re doing it.”

But Stanley delights in contributing to the creation of new work. He enjoys the close collaboration with choreographers and the prominent role that lighting design plays in dance. “In theater and opera, lighting takes somewhat of a back seat to the other design elements. And in dance it’s all about the light that creates the environment. That’s very exciting for me.”

His advice for young designers? “See as much dance as you possibly can.” Take classes. Many universities across the country offer classes or degree programs in design. Observe other designers at work. “Lighting designers are for the most part very generous with their time and allowing people who are interested to observe,” he says. “If nothing else, it inspires you to go out and do it yourself.”

Costume and set design: Building a world
“I said when I was young that if all I had to do all day long was make beautiful dresses, that would be my dream job,” says Tamara Cobus, who runs the costume shop at Richmond Ballet in Virginia.

Cobus danced and choreographed in high school, but an interest in architecture shaped her undergraduate beginnings at the University of Utah. A work–study job in the university’s costume shop, however, threw her right back into the dance world. “I wasn’t choreographing or dancing, I was making dancers look beautiful,” she says. Gradually that work eclipsed her pursuit of architecture, although, she says, “it was the same as architecture for me, in a way—it was building things. But it was on a much smaller scale, and it was instantly gratifying.”

In 1991 Cobus left school and opened a storefront in downtown Salt Lake City, where she worked on projects in fashion, performance, bridal, and photo styling. In 2003 a phone call came out of the blue from Richmond Ballet, offering her a job running the costume shop. “They basically said, ‘It’s a broken shop; it’s not functioning, and it’s your baby if you want it. You can turn it into the shop that you want it to be,’ ” says Cobus. “That was very appealing.” So she closed up her own shop and moved to Virginia.

For Cobus, making a costume begins with her first conversation with the choreographer and continues all the way to opening night. “It’s hard to say what I like the best,” she says. “I love taking an idea and making it happen in reality. I love the process of fitting. I love to have a little secret in the design, a low back that you wouldn’t expect. Or making people wonder, ‘How does that stay on?’ ”

Her challenges involve coordinating the costuming needs of all parts of the Richmond Ballet organization—company, school, and outreach programs. And, she says, “I have a bigger staff than I’ve ever had, so sometimes it’s a little difficult for me to stay those steps ahead of them.” She’s had to learn to delegate and, she says, “that’s hard, because I had my own business for 15 years. But it’s becoming easier and easier for me to give it up and share the art, share the creativity.”

Cobus has honest advice for aspiring costume designers: “Expect long, hard hours. It is not a glamorous profession. I think at every opening I’ve ever gone to here at the Ballet, my hands have been dyed in whatever color they’re wearing onstage. You just have to be tough. You’re hunched over sewing machines; you’re figuring out problems; you have unreasonable deadlines. You have to be committed to creating something from nothing every day.” But, she adds, “if it’s your passion, absolutely do it. You owe it to the world to share that part of yourself.”

Freelance designer Sandra Woodall creates both costume and set designs for companies across the country. She studied fine arts and had wanted to become a painter, but a job she took after graduating from college altered her course. Her sewing skills gave her the chance to work in the wardrobe department at the San Francisco Opera House. Her work there followed an organic progression, she says. “Initially I got into the business in a very technical way, working on costumes, then building costumes, then eventually sort of shyly exposing the fact that I would be interested in designing costumes.”

An established freelancer whose work is in high demand—when we spoke she was running between a new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Oregon Ballet Theatre and Othello for Alberta Ballet—Woodall says, “I love collaborating with the choreographer and developing a whole visual concept, which includes the costumes and the scenery.” She unites her approach to costume and scenic design through her early training as a visual artist. “All these fields, in terms of the arts, are just shades of aesthetic thinking. I don’t feel like someone should think, ‘I can’t be a costume designer because I wasn’t trained; I don’t have the theater background.’ I think you develop a point of view that translates.”

Stage managing: Wear a watch
Josh Morales comes from a family of musicians and singers and has a background in event management. After running his own event management and booking agency, Morales answered an advertisement on CraigsList.com for a stage manager for the dance competition company StarQuest.

“I had no idea what it really was,” Morales says. “I knew it was stage managing a show, but I wasn’t really sure what a dance competition was.” He got the job and, he says, “it all worked out. I stage managed last year, the whole season, and now I’m on the staff here permanently.” During the competition season (roughly January through July), he stage manages competition performances. Off-season, he works as a booking manager for StarQuest, hunting up competition venues around the country.

“My passion is putting something together and seeing it come to fruition,” says Morales. During competition performances, he says, “I love working with the dancers backstage, making sure that they’re on time, that they’re in their places, that the lighting is correct for them, that they can hear the music well. And that the audience gets a smooth show.”

As a booking manager, he says, “you’re on the phone talking to people across the country about their facility, their stage size, their lighting, where we’re going to bring our equipment through, where we’re going to find dressing room space. It’s a challenge. But again, when I’m on the site and I see it come to fruition, then it’s worth it.”

Producing: Learn to juggle
My own love of dance blossomed late, when I was taking ballet classes as an English major at the University of Virginia. Three years later, having landed a role as a Kit Kat Girl in a local production of Cabaret, I fell in love with the choreographer, Rob Petres, and ran off to Richmond with him in 2000 to help start Ground Zero Dance Company. Five years after that, the skills I had developed producing dance concerts in the wild landed me a job in academia as producer for the Department of Dance & Choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University.

For both Ground Zero and VCU, producing encompasses a broad range of tasks. For a small modern dance company with limited resources and personnel, it can include everything it takes to get a concert onto the stage with an audience there to see it: writing grant proposals, developing and implementing a budget, recruiting technical expertise, doing marketing and publicity, setting schedules, arranging travel, creating a program, recruiting volunteer help. If the volunteers can’t be found, sometimes it can mean changing gels, baking brownies, or mopping the stage. At the university the responsibilities are similar, but it’s easier to find help in the form of students whose grades depend on working backstage, distributing posters, or creating programs.

Prerequisites for producing are willingness, versatility, commitment, patience, and excellent communication skills—written and oral. During a performance week, your phone will ring much more often and your email inbox will fill up quickly. You must be able to see the big picture and hold the entire time line in your head. You must deal gracefully with wildly different personalities. Ultimately, you find ways to provide artists with what they need to make their work.

The rewards of these careers can be as rich and satisfying as the most triumphant moment in the spotlight. After all, it’s only in the combination of on- and offstage artists that dance reaches its full potential as a performing art. As Morales says, “I love being able to see it all come together at the end.”

Boost your ‘business karma’ with customer service and communication

By Rhee Gold

Last fall I was on the road presenting Project Motivate seminars to dance teachers and school owners across the country. The attendees always bring up interesting topics, but this time, in every city, topics arose that were related to best practices in the dance school business.

School owners often find themselves torn between commitment to the classroom and to running a business. Things like focusing on customer service or simply finding the patience to deal with a novice parent’s inquiries about dance lessons can drop to the bottom of the priority list. But good customer service and communication are essential to the success of any business. Let’s take a look at some of the hot topics from Project Motivate and the DanceLife Teacher Conference, along with some solutions and suggestions to help you and your business.

The Dreaded Question
Don’t you hate it when the first question you’re asked by an inquiring mom is “How much are your dance lessons?” You might feel insulted and wonder why she doesn’t ask about your credentials or the kind of programs you offer. But that kind of reaction to what is a legitimate question could be unjustified. Think about it—is that mom going to ask you about your credentials when she doesn’t know that they exist for dance teachers? Is she going to inquire about the techniques you teach when she has no idea what technique is? No, she’s going to ask the dreaded question because she doesn’t know enough about dance to ask anything else.

Most nondancing parents’ perception of dance classes is a once-a-week lesson for their child, with a tutu and a recital at the end of the year—that’s it. You might wish that parents were more educated, but it’s time to face the fact that they aren’t. Instead of feeling resentful at the question, try looking at it as an opportunity to educate yet another parent. Your response should be an enthusiastic “I’d be happy to tell you what we can offer, but first tell me about your child.” Parents love talking about their children, and they appreciate a teacher who expresses interest in them. Once you know something about the child, you will also know what the appropriate program is for them. That’s the time to tell the parent about the program, your qualifications, and the benefits of dance training. Follow that conversation with information about tuition and other costs.

I like to share this analogy with school owners regarding this topic. If your son came home and told you he wanted to take fencing classes, your first question would probably be “How much do they cost?”

A Professional Image
Let’s say that the ad for your school uses the word “professional” three times. And let’s say that a mom sees the ad and decides to call your school to inquire about classes for her daughter. The call is answered with an abrupt hello from a giggling, 13-year-old student who happened to be near the phone. The teenager is confronted with a series of questions that she can’t answer, and she’s not mature enough to express her predicament in a professional way. The inquiring mom hangs up thinking that the call was the most unprofessional experience of her day and that there’s no way she would take her child to that dance school. She made that decision without having the chance to see the quality of your training, simply because the customer service was dreadful. Here was a potential client who needed a little of that professionalism that you advertised, and she didn’t get it.

Don’t you hate it when the first question you’re asked by an inquiring mom is “How much are your dance lessons?”

How often do you call a business only to be greeted by a 13-year-old answering the phone? I would dare to say not very often. As a business owner, I would opt to have the answering machine pick up the call rather than have a teenager offer a potential client the first impression of my school. However, the ideal situation would be to have the person who answers the phone be a mature adult who can accurately and enthusiastically answer any questions.

Another quick tip: If you can’t have an adult at the phone, be sure that the answering machine refers the caller to your website. That way they can start to gather the information that they require, even before you quickly return their call.

No Refunds?
As most Dance Studio Life readers know, I am an advocate for dance teachers sticking to their polices, especially those that relate to commitments from your students and their parents. However, there are times when I would make exceptions for the sake of my business and the positive word of mouth I know they would help to generate.

Here’s such a scenario: Susie is a 4-year-old who is taking her first dance class ever at your school. Her mom has paid a registration fee and the first month’s tuition. Not only is Susie scared, but this is the first time in her life that her mom or dad aren’t in sight. She starts to sob because she’s overwhelmed and spends the entire class sitting on the floor, crying. The teacher and Susie’s mom decide that she should try the class again the following week, but the same scenario plays out. Susie just isn’t ready. When the mom asks for a refund, you explain that your school policy states that there are no refunds for tuition or registration fees and that you can’t make exceptions.

Not only does the mom leave the school with the disappointment that her child isn’t ready for class like all the other kids appear to be, she’s also resentful that you wouldn’t refund her money, even though her child didn’t really take a class. Add to that the fact that the mom bought the required shoes, tights, and leotard (which the child will soon grow out of) and she will probably never again consider dance training for her child.

From a business perspective, offering the refund along with the comment “I look forward to seeing Susie try dance class again next year” is the way to go in this situation. This approach practically guarantees that you will see the child (or her little sibling) again. Plus, if the mom is pleased with your customer service, she will probably provide your school with positive word of mouth. That’s well worth the cost of the refund.

Scrimping on Preschool Classes
When given the option of employing an adult preschool teacher who has experience working with toddlers at a rate of $25 per hour or hiring one of your advanced students at $15 per hour, what would you do? School owners who are barely able to keep up with expenses might go for the less expensive option. But are they really saving money?

Let’s say that each student in the preschool class is paying $10 per class, which also happens to be the cost difference between the experienced adult and the teenage teacher. At the very moment that the inexperienced teacher loses her first student, you are at the same cost for that teacher as you would have been if you paid her $25. If the inexperienced teacher loses three or four students because of her lack of experience, then you continue to lose money. On the other hand, if the more expensive teacher hangs on to the majority of her students, you will actually make more income even though you are paying the more expensive rate. So goes the old cliché: “It takes money to make money.”

Let’s explore this topic a little further—many school owners pay $50 (or more) per hour for a professional ballet teacher for the advanced dancers. Some pay thousands for a good competition routine, which is paid for from the tuition income from the remarkably discounted lessons offered to most advanced students. Yet the tendency is to try to save money on the preschool teacher, when she is the one who works with the students who pay a premium price for their lessons. That’s like telling customers that they pay more for less!

I am not suggesting that you shouldn’t hire an excellent ballet teacher for the advanced kids. But investing in a strong faculty for the preschool students is one way to afford the best teachers for the advanced students. How? If the preschool kids and their parents are happy at your school, they will be with you for years. And they will provide the financial means for you to afford teaching those discounted advanced students.

Chances are you want your school to be number one, the best in your area. You’ll be well on your way to achieving that if you take a close look at your practices and policies regarding customer service. So brush up your communication skills and put yourself in your clients’ shoes—and start treating your customers like they are number one. It’s just good business.

Get the pros of competing without the cons with these alternative activities

By Debbie Werbrouck

Take a look at any magazine on dance, and judging by the number of ads for competitions, you would think that every school attends them. Many do, but there are also plenty that do not. Each side of the discussion has points of merit, and of course there are extremes on both sides.

School owners who do send their students to competitions cite reasons that range from “It keeps students motivated,” and “My students and parents really want to do them,” to “It helps me to see how my dancers compare to dancers from other schools.” The reasons school owners give for not competing are equally varied and valid: “Dance is an art form and should be cooperative, not competitive”; “I would rather have students spend their money on more classes than costumes, entry fees, and travel”; “We’ve seen dancers win who perform their dance well, but that’s all they know—that one dance”; “I don’t like the behavior and examples that I see at some competitions.”

Despite the pros and cons of competing, most people won’t argue the fact that it can be a great learning experience for students. If your school doesn’t compete, or if you’re considering cutting back or stopping completely, it’s a good idea to think about what you can do to provide your students with same kind of benefits that competition provides.

Performing groups or companies
Including a performance group or youth company among the options at your school can provide many of the advantages offered by competitions. Throughout the process of learning, rehearsing, and performing choreography the dancers will face challenges that build strength in many areas. Auditions for the company provide school owners and teachers with a wonderful opportunity to discuss each student’s strengths and help them improve in the areas that need work. To keep the audition process objective, Diane Gudat of Indianapolis-based The Dance Company, Inc. suggests bringing in an outside teacher to act as a judge. This is a great way to take the pressure off you and your staff and reduce the chance that people will think that any favoritism is involved in the selection process.

Gudat also recommends using the word “and” instead of “but” when speaking to students about the need to work harder or improve in a certain area. For example, saying, “I’m so pleased with your progress on your port de bras, and now I’d like you to apply that same focus to your posture” has a far more positive tone than “but you still need to work on your posture.”

In addition to having students audition for membership in the group or company, you might choose to have them audition for parts in specific dances. This can be a formal audition or simply an understanding that the choreographer will choose the dancers who are best suited to the piece. By working in a range of choreographic styles and being exposed to multiple instructors, students will expand their performance abilities. Also, studying various styles increases their ability to pick up choreography quickly.

Participating in a group or company is an excellent way for students to learn the value of commitment and responsibility. They learn that being absent for a rehearsal or performance affects the whole group. It also teaches them to adapt to continually changing circumstances; if someone is ill or injured, an understudy must fill in or the choreography must be adapted, sometimes with little advance warning. Another life skill they learn is time management. Dancers learn to make the best use of their time when they must add the responsibility of rehearsals and performances to the time they set aside for schoolwork and social functions.

How you set up your school’s performance group or youth company and select the kinds of activities it does can be simple (taking a class or two to the local nursing home, mall, or fair for mini-performances, for example) or as involved as setting up a nonprofit corporation (which requires recruiting community board members, writing grants, and seeking bookings). Think about how much time you have and want to devote to the group. Will you establish a small, one-person operation or will you need the assistance of others? Will you involve parent volunteers or restrict their participation and input?

Depending on the structure you choose, you may want to consider offering some performance options to those students who cannot make a yearlong commitment to a company. By doing so, you open participation to those students who have other obligations that might extend for one to three months. Perhaps breaking the performing year into seasonal commitments can provide that possibility. Whichever method you choose, your students will gain confidence in their abilities through successful performances.

Informal performances
Once you get the word out that your students are available to perform, you will discover performance opportunities at every turn. Fairs and festivals are a part of every community, and most of them are looking for entertainment. Malls, libraries, and social clubs often have programs that showcase the arts.

Sometimes you don’t even have to go outside your own school. You might want to hold informal performances in your classroom space and open them to the public free of charge. This not only gives your students additional performance opportunities but allows members of the community to observe your students, facilities, and choreography. This kind of community awareness is good for your school’s reputation and can be especially helpful at registration time.

Student-choreographed performances
Another great learning experience is to have students of a certain level, age, or group choreograph a short piece. Set a time limit (we say one minute) and any rules, such as number of dancers, types of music allowed, whether or not the choreographers may dance in the piece, and whether costumes are allowed. (If you say yes to costumes, set a limit on the cost.) Those dancers who choose to include others in their choreography also experience the challenges of teaching and directing.

Limit the audience for this casual performance to all students in the group, plus their parents and the school’s faculty. This provides a supportive and nonthreatening atmosphere for the dancers. We found that this was a very popular event with both students and parents, and the students gained new appreciation for the work that goes into choreographing. One even said, “Do you know how many hours it took me to choreograph one minute of dance?”

Workshops: a chance to branch out
One of the benefits of competitions is the exposure to other dancers, teachers, and choreographers. Teachers often talk about how helpful it was to see their students in comparison to those from other schools. Taking the students out of their “home” sometimes clarifies which areas need attention or improvement. It’s also a humbling experience for dancers who are the big fish in a little pond.

The same benefits can also be obtained by attending workshops that do not have a competition component or those that include competitions as a minor part of broader educational offerings. Exposing students to a range of performance and teaching styles not only expands their learning experiences but can reinforce the material that has already been presented to them. Many teachers have smiled and said, “That’s great!” when a student relates a comment or correction from a workshop teacher that they themselves had given repeatedly.

The educational benefits for students aren’t limited to their own participation. Teachers who attend workshops also contribute to their students’ learning. It’s great to see inspiring choreography that will thrill your students, but being exposed to various teaching methods and theories can help educators accomplish even more of their teaching goals. Those who attend continuing education classes bring enthusiasm and a feeling of renewal to the classroom, along with new techniques and choreography.

Another advantage to workshops is the camaraderie and outreach they offer to both students and teachers. Meeting students and teachers from other schools can be inspiring and supportive. Sometimes the ideas teachers share are worth the cost of the workshop. It’s also great to receive validation from people in your field whom you respect. Continuing education programs allow teachers to build a network of associates who can lend a hand in all kinds of situations. Likewise, students can build friendships that can last for years, with people they may even reconnect with at colleges or employment situations.

Guest choreographers or teachers
Depending on your school’s enrollment, location, and budget, you may want to consider hiring guest teachers to offer master classes or set choreography. If the cost is prohibitive, you may be able to exchange services with a teacher from another area, maybe someone you met at a workshop or seminar. For the most basic option, merely having students take class with someone else on your staff helps to broaden their outlook on dance.

Attend professional performances as a group
Exposing students to quality performances in dance and musical theater is another chance for development. Organizing a group outing may take some effort but is worthwhile. If no one on your staff has the time, consider enlisting a parent volunteer to handle the details. If possible, discussing the performance with the students as a group will help them analyze many aspects of it and give them the perspective of others in the group.

Dance educators who want to provide their students with growth opportunities other than competitions have many options available to them. All they need to do is look around at the resources available to them, both close to home and at more distant sites, and determine which ones are best suited to their circumstances. Anything that takes students and teachers out from behind their studio’s doors and exposes them to the greater dance world is bound to have benefits.

Allison Fippinger (second from left) performs with her adult students at the 2007 Fort Tryon Medieval Festival in New York City. (Photo courtesy New York Celtic Dancers)

Scottish traditions keep dancers jumping in North America

By Darrah Carr

Dancing to imitate a stag frolicking on the hillside. Dancing over the sword of a vanquished enemy or on top of a shield pierced by a spike. Dancing to keep warm outside of church while waiting for the priest to arrive. Dancing to kick off the hated English trousers and return to the beloved Scottish kilt. Such are the colorful stories surrounding the origins of Highland dance.

Highland dance, an athletic solo form, is preserved today through a series of strict competitions. During Highland Games (large outdoor gatherings to celebrate Scottish culture), Highland dance competitions are found alongside contests in piping, drumming, and sporting events such as the caber (pole) toss. Scottish country dancing, a social form of couple dancing, is also commonly performed during the Games. But the genteel country dances should not be confused with the strenuous Highland dances, whose origins lie with ancient warriors and whose present-day participants debate whether their skill should be classified as a competitive sport or an art form.

Originally Highland dances were exclusively the domain of men. Although it is difficult to separate folklore from historical fact, these dances are widely believed to have originated as tools for combat, as a form of military drill. Women did not begin competing in Highland dance until the late 19th century. Today, however, approximately 95 percent of all competitive Highland dancers are female and the form suffers from the common stereotype that dance is a girlish activity. Nevertheless, men and women compete side by side during Highland Games—a rarity in both dance and sports.

Since 1950 the Scottish Official Board of Highland Dancing (SOBHD) has governed the competitive circuit, standardized the dances, and certified Highland dance teachers and adjudicators. Today’s dancers compete in four categories: the sword dance (or gillie calum), Highland fling, Highland reel, and seann triubhas (pronounced “shawn trews”), which means “old trousers”; the dance celebrates the return to wearing the kilt. Two character dances, the Irish jig and the sailor’s hornpipe, have been included as competition categories since 1986. All are solo forms; even the four dancers in a Highland reel are judged on an individual basis.

Traditionally, all of the dances are performed to the accompaniment of bagpipes. Each dance has a finite number of steps, and the sequence of those steps is mandated by the SOBHD. That means that Highland dance competitions are based on the precise execution of specific steps rather than the interpretation of individual choreography. Anne Sutherland, owner of Sutherland Studio of Dance in London, Ontario, Canada, for more than 40 years, describes the main criteria for judging as “timing, or the ability to execute the correct rhythms within the dance; technique, or the ability to have one’s arms, feet, and head in position on the count; and deportment, or one’s costume, posture, and carriage.”

Like ballet, Highland dance requires an erect, vertical carriage, rounded arms, a wide turnout, and pointed feet. According to Jennifer Pierson, who founded the Lakes Area School of Highland Dance in White Lake, MI, four years ago, “many of the terms used in Highland dance are the same as ballet; for example, pas de basque, assemblé, and relevé.” The shared characteristics are thought to stem from the “Auld Alliance” between Scotland and France that joined the two nations against England. Today, ties between the two dance forms are more physical than political.

Sutherland’s competitive Highland dancers take four classes a week: two Highland, one ballet, and one stretch and strength. “I package these classes together to encourage cross-training,” she explains. “In Highland we’re constantly jumping and landing on the ball of the foot with a bent knee. So the teacher has to make sure that the students do lots of balletic pliés with the heels grounded in order to counter that landing.”

Highland dance requires a huge amount of strength and stamina, says Pierson. “No matter how much jumping we do, our heels stay off the ground. [Some people] say that performing the Highland fling is the equivalent to running a mile.”

Given the constant jumping and the unique landing position required for Highland dance, shin splints, injuries to the Achilles tendon, and stress fractures are potential hazards. “Injuries are common. [Highland dance] is something that young people do well,” notes Hannah Ramsey, a physical therapy student at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Institute of Health Professions and modern dancer who grew up competing in Highland dance in her native Tennessee. For Ramsey, this form of dance was appealing for several reasons, despite the risk of injury. “For me, it is like gymnastics. I think of it as a sport. I had a competitive drive from all of my years playing sports and Highland dance became an outlet for that drive,” she explains. “It also represents the culture that I come from. It was my only outlet for my Scottish heritage. It was so much fun to go to the Highland Games, these huge gatherings that had so many different things going on, not just dance. I met people from all over the country and I always felt very excited. I didn’t feel the pressure that I felt in ballet or modern. It was a cultural experience for me.”

No matter how much jumping we do, our heels stay off of the ground. They say that performing the Highland fling is the equivalent to running a mile.’ —Jennifer Pierson

Highland dance has not yet experienced mainstream globalization like its Celtic sister, Irish dance. The majority of its participants are still of Scottish descent. Given the history of Scottish emigration to North America, it is not surprising that Highland dance is more popular in Canada, which has approximately 5,000 registered competitors, than in the United States, which can claim only about 1,000 competitors. Highland Games proliferate across both countries, however, and the most serious dancers travel frequently to compete. Scotland’s Cowal Highland Gathering, home to the World Highland Dance Championship since 1934, is a pinnacle yearly event.

In addition to the competition circuit, Highland dancers can be found performing on Scottish holidays such as St. Andrew’s Day (honoring the patron saint of Scotland), Burns Night (commemorating Robert Burns, Scotland’s most famous poet), and Tartan Day (celebrating Scottish descendants overseas). Dancers are also in demand for Scottish weddings as well as for the occasional concert with Scottish traditional musicians. Many dancers quit competing when they graduate from high school, while others become teachers and adjudicators. But pursuing a performing career as a professional Highland dancer is a road that has only recently begun to be traveled.

Ontario’s Scottish Dance Company of Canada, founded in 1996 by Sandra Bald Jones, Joyce Kite, and the late Gladys Forrester, seeks to provide professional performance opportunities for champion Highland dancers. “After all of their years of training, there wasn’t anything out there for competitive dancers to do when they retired. They weren’t ready to stop dancing, but they didn’t want to compete anymore. That’s why we established the company,” says Jones. “We’ve been fortunate to perform on TV specials, in large theater venues, and with some of the top Scottish artists in our area.”

The New York Celtic Dancers, under the direction of Allison Fippinger, are also creating alternative avenues to the competition circuit. “We are a performing group that holds classes in order to support our performances and to engage people in Scottish dance,” Fippinger says. A typical performance might include Highland dances, Scottish national dances, and hard-shoe step dances. “We choreograph so that we can use all of the traditions in one dance. We reenvision older dances so that they are fresh for performance now,” continues Fippinger. “Highland dances are solo dances that are done on the spot; there is not a lot of movement. I try to make them more dynamic so that the energy translates to the audience.” By alternating figure dance patterns with Highland dance steps, Fippinger makes greater use of the space and physically moves the dancers around the floor. She also researches older Highland dance steps that are not currently used in competition. “Finding steps that are not known increases my vocabulary as a choreographer,” she says. “Not only do I use older Highland steps, but I often use more modern music, choosing from a wide variety of Cape Breton tunes or songs with lyrics. It will always be within the Celtic realm, but it won’t necessarily be Scottish.”

Multimedia artist Laura Carruthers, a two-time Cowal championship winner as well as a former soloist with Ballet Arizona, finds inspiration in the music of renowned Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser, cellist Natalie Haas, and guitarist Mike Hoffmann. She and the musicians are currently collaborating on the creation of Fire and Grace 2, to be premiered at the Tempe Center for the Arts in April 2008. Both a reference to Carruthers’ 1998 dance work Fire & Grace as well as Fraser and Haas’ 2004 album by the same name, the title of the production alludes to the image of the warrior-poet. “Both fire and grace pervade the Celtic arts,” says Carruthers. “There is the high energy that comes with being fiery in spirit. Yet, the landscape, literature, and people are delicate, beautiful, and soft.”

As with other dance forms, Highland dance can have life outside of strict competition and traditional dictates. Carruthers draws on her by-the-book training but uses Highland steps and influences in nontraditional ways, melding them, along with elements of contemporary ballet and jazz, into her choreography and film projects. “Highland is a very distinct and unusual part of my background,” she says. “It naturally comes into whatever I do. It is indelible.”

Spice up the slow months with something new for your students

By Tracy Bauer-Durso

By the time June rolls around and the curtain has fallen on the end-of-year show, everyone is exhausted. Both students and teachers are ready for a break. But there’s no need for that breather to last an entire summer. To keep your summer enrollment brimming, consider enticing current students, as well as new ones, back to the studio with classes you don’t normally offer. By spicing up your summer programs this way you can expose your students to new dance forms and other kinds of classes that will expand their versatility as dancers.

In addition to your core course schedule, offer an enrichment program for a variety of ages that your students may not be able to find anywhere else. Whether it’s a two-month focus on one area or a series of short programs to whet your students’ appetites, the idea of exploring something new and fun may be just what kids need to find the motivation to continue their training during the slow, steamy days of summer.

Musical Theater Workshop
Do your dancers dream of performing on Broadway? Triple-threat performers who can sing, act, and dance are most likely to get those jobs. Consider a one-week, two-week, or three-week program that includes classes in voice, acting, and auditioning skills in addition to learning theater dance repertoire.

Dancers as young as 6 can learn simple movements that support the action and songs they are taught. More experienced dancers can be exposed to an array of theater dance movements that developed on Broadway stages over the last century. The 1920s ragtime era featured the Charleston, cakewalk, sugars, shimmies, and more, all of which can be set to music from Thoroughly Modern Millie or Ragtime. The 1950s and ’60s introduced the pony, jerk, twist, stroll, hand jive, and monkey, seen in productions like Grease and Hairspray. The ’70s brought disco, which was showcased in Saturday Night Fever. Even pop moves from the ’80s, including the Roger Rabbit, running man, and moonwalk, were recently brought back to the stage with The Wedding Singer.

Advanced dancers can learn the repertoire of legendary Broadway choreographers like Bob Fosse, Michael Bennett, and Jerome Robbins as well as view excerpts from musical movie classics like Singing in the Rain. Perhaps an alumnus who has made it in “the biz” can return to teach a master class.

Offering a theater program at an advanced level will take some research and preparation, but theater games and song-and-dance numbers for beginner and intermediate students can be a simple place to start.

If you or your faculty do not have much vocal or acting experience, hire guest instructors to teach the voice and acting classes. Your students can benefit from the expertise of others in the performing arts. Make sure that the classes offered allow students to improvise, pantomime, and create scenes and characters. At the end of the program, stage a workshop-style, in-house performance for the students’ families in which each age group performs a song and dance from an age-appropriate musical. Some popular musicals for kids include Annie, The Music Man, The Wizard of Oz, Oliver!, The Sound of Music, and Peter Pan.

You can also use this opportunity to teach your students the dos and don’ts of auditioning, including what to bring, what to wear, what to prepare, and what to expect. Hold a mock audition. Give the students numbers and have them quickly learn a combination to perform for each other in small groups. Judge them on a variety of criteria and show them how they can improve their auditioning skills. Help them understand that stage presence can sometimes score bigger than technique on Broadway. It’s a good way to teach them to always perform!

Choreography Workshop
Some students will jump at the chance to create dances of their own, and in fact, some less-talented dancers may find that they make great choreographers. The demands of a technique-driven curriculum don’t usually permit us enough time to let our dancers be creative. One sure way to allow them to grow as dancers is by exploring their own ability to be creative through choreography.

Start this workshop by playing a piece of music and having the students draw or explain the images, concepts, and movements the music brings to their minds. Encourage them to create dance phrases that reflect these ideas. Pantomime and acting can also connect a dance to its music and lyrics. For example, you can ask them to dance as if they are brokenhearted, floating in heaven, using their legs for the first time, trapped in a bubble, or lost and frightened in a forest. Teach them how to use elements of choreography like time, levels, space, canon, dynamics, and direction. It’s one thing to create a combination and quite another to stage it as choreography. Help them learn about the nuances of choreography by having them dance movement phrases while facing different directions, at different tempos, by adding levels, on different areas of the stage, and in various formations.

The idea of exploring something new and fun may be just what kids need to find the motivation to continue their training during the slow, steamy days of summer.

A choreography workshop can also include an introduction to music theory and dance notation. An understanding of time signatures and how to identify 3/4, 4/4, 2/4, and 6/8 rhythms is invaluable to a choreographer. Play music with different rhythms and have the students write down how many beats they hear per measure. Most dancers think in terms of 8-count phrases, but musicians generally play in measures of 4 beats. The more methodical thinkers among your dancers will also benefit from learning to write their choreography on paper. Dance notation can include how many counts of music they are using, which steps are danced to those counts, which port de bras are performed with those steps, and which direction the dancers are facing.

The dancers will likely enjoy creating dance pieces to perform at the end of the program. They could choreograph in small groups, on themselves or each other. Perhaps you could divide one piece of music into sections for each group to work on, creating a completed piece for performance.

World Dances
Ethnic or folk dances are seldom taught in the classical or contemporary dance studio anymore, but the popularity of Irish step, hula, salsa, African, and Israeli dance make them worth exploring. There are so many exciting folk dances from around the world that are appropriate for girls and boys of all ages, and they are very social and fun to perform.

While it may be difficult to find a specialized instructor in these styles for a yearlong or seasonal program, it is feasible to bring in someone who can teach for a day or a week. Line up two, three, or four people to teach different ethnic dances and you’ve got a complete program.

Make sure that the classes teach the dancers about the origins of the dances, the music they are typically danced to, and the traditional costuming for each style. You can even incorporate a snack at the end of the day that relates to the culture the students are learning about.

Getting Started
These three enrichment programs are just a few of the topics that can make your summer an experience your students won’t forget. There is no limit to the types of classes you can share with your students, so let your imagination go wild. Some other ideas include a modern-dance sampler that teaches the basics of a few different techniques, such as Cunningham, Graham, and Limón; a ballet program that explores the differences between the Russian, French, and Italian schools; capoeira (perhaps combined with hip-hop); and conditioning techniques, including yoga and Pilates. You could even do an informal poll among your students before planning your summer offerings; that way you’ll know which types of classes are likely to generate enthusiasm.

Another key to getting enrollment for these unusual programs is to create promotional materials that grab your students’ attention and leave them wanting more. For example, for a musical theater workshop, the headline on your flyer or brochure could read “Would You Like to Dance on Broadway?” That will stop your dancers in their tracks. Then go on to explain the benefits of the program. Focus less on what you are offering and more on what they will gain from being part of the program. Make them feel like they will miss out on something big—and fun—if they don’t sign up. Play video footage from movie musicals in your lobby at summer registration time and tape a flyer about the program to the monitor.

Once you’ve decided on the programs, have your instructors talk about them in their classes so that the enthusiasm spreads among friends and classmates. Hand out flyers to your students and explain that friends outside the studio are invited to participate as well. Also consider sending a press release to your local newspaper to attract new students. You might even get some coverage in the paper since reporters are likely to pick up on something that sounds original and intriguing.

By adding unique enrichment programs like these to your summer class schedule, you can accomplish four great things simultaneously: You’ll expand your dancers’ versatility, reenergize them for the upcoming school year, keep them loyal to your school throughout the summer season, and attract more community attention to your school.