Archive for the ‘2012 | 02 | February’ Category

Columns 
Ask Rhee Gold
2 Tips for Ballet Teachers
2 Tips for Hip-Hop Teachers
2 Tips for Modern Dance Teachers
2 Tips for Tap Teachers
A Better You | Beating the Blahs
EditorSpeak
On My Mind

Departments
Mail
Thinking Out Loud | Down But Not Out
Teacher in the Spotlight | Suzanne Welch-Kakouris
Bright Biz Ideas | Bring On the Bachelorettes
Mindful Marketing | Summer Camp Srategies
Classroom Connection
Strength in Numbers

Feature Articles
Ballet Scene | Personality Cults by Stephen Manes
Summertime Teacher Training
Higher-Ed Voice | Dance Geets a Boost in Missouri by Marlise A. Cole
A Walk on the ‘Wildish’ Side by Joshua Bartlett
Back to School at ABT by Roxanne Claire
Dream Weaving by Sandi Duncan
Me Time: Meditation by Dunya Dianne McPherson

Dear Rhee,
I am teaching for the instructor I studied with for 15 years. The parents request me for a teacher and I get letters from former students thanking me for the confidence I’ve given them through dance—and in return I get snide comments and what I now recognize as jealousy from my employer. For nine years my instruction, choreography, and methods have been scrutinized by her. (Her daughter is also a teacher.)

I don’t want to bash my employer since I learned a lot from her, but I also learned from many other teachers over the years. My dilemma is that I feel creatively and emotionally drained. I don’t want to desert the students, but when every dance I choreograph, every plié I do, or even every costume I look at is said to be stale or boring, I just want to move on. Judges always say my pieces are creative and innovative, but my employer told me that I need to change my style. I represent her studio! I do this for her!

I feel loyalty and tried to tell her I need to leave before bad blood is created. I’m scared to teach the way I like to and I am creatively depleted. Please help. —Unhappy

Hello Unhappy,
Your frustration is coming through loud and clear. It sounds like you are teaching in a toxic environment that has to change, but given your long history with your former teacher/boss it is worth the effort to make one more attempt to clear the air.

Make an appointment to meet with her, maybe outside of the studio so that you both can be on neutral territory. Make it a public place so that you both will have to present yourselves in a professional manner.

Start by expressing your loyalty to her for all that she has taught you and for the opportunity to teach at her school. Let her know that you really enjoy teaching but that based on her constant criticism you feel like you are not giving her what she wants.

Instead of referring to her snide remarks, put your concerns in question form. For instance, “You are asking me to change my style; can you give me an example of what you think is wrong with my current style?” Let her answer without interruption, and listen closely to determine if there is any validity to her opinion. Also, ask her why judges call your work creative or innovative and why she doesn’t see it that way.

Don’t bring up her daughter or the jealousy you perceive. It’s better to make this about you and your employer so that she doesn’t become defensive about her child.

It is important that she know that you cannot continue to work where you feel creatively or emotionally drained, in a setting where you are constantly criticized or discouraged. Explain that you don’t want to leave but that you need to feel appreciated and encouraged to grow as a teacher.

If things don’t change, then I would advise you to move on to a school that will let you work with confidence in who you are and what you believe to be solid teaching practices. I wish you the best. —Rhee

Dear Rhee,
More than a year ago, I was teaching a class when a student broke her ankle. I called 911 immediately and grabbed an ice pack. The child was hysterical. Because her parents weren’t at the school I rode in the ambulance with her. Her parents met us at the emergency room, where they thanked me for taking good care of their daughter. I stayed there for hours to be sure that the student was OK. She was out of dance for several weeks.

While she was recovering, she observed her classes because we were heavy into choreography and she didn’t want to miss it. When her cast was removed and she had finished physical therapy she came back to class and danced for the rest of the year before leaving for college.

Last week I received a letter from the family’s attorney asking me to come in for a deposition because the parents had filed a lawsuit against me personally and my business. They feel that I was negligent in caring for the injured child and that I encouraged her to return to class before the injury had healed. Therefore, they say, the child is now suffering from a permanent injury that I am responsible for.

I have hired an attorney I cannot afford, and my insurance company has an attorney as well. I am doing my best to recall the things that happened and were said that night so that I can be prepared for the deposition. I am nervous that this situation is going to cost me a fortune and that my insurance is going to be canceled. The hardest part about all of this is that the child seemed completely healed before she returned to dancing. She brought me a note from the physical therapist that said she was cleared to return to class.

Do you have advice on how to handle this? I am completely lost. —Karen

Hello Karen,
I have dealt with this kind of situation before, and the attorney did cost a lot of money, but in the end I was cleared of all negligence. Here’s what I learned along the way.

When an injury takes place, either at the studio or at a performance, you need to make an accident report. This means that you write down everything that happened in great detail, including what the injured party was doing when the accident occurred and everything the injured party says and does. In this case, I would have written down what the parents said at the hospital as well.

Next, you should ask all witnesses to write down what they observed. Another important thing to do is to have a camera available to take pictures of the child, her injury, and the surroundings. That way you have a much easier time recalling what took place long after the incident. These actions also give the lawyers the impression that you are organized and responsible, which could discourage the lawsuit in the first place.

At this point, I suggest writing down everything you can remember. Ask your students or anyone else involved to write down what they recall, too. It’s very important to bring to your attorney’s attention the letter from the physical therapist clearing the child to dance. If there’s a video of the injured child performing or taking class after she was cleared to return, it could help you prove that the child did not appear to have any signs of a permanent injury after the fact.

When I went through this situation, I discovered that a large percentage of these types of lawsuits are dismissed and that the lawyers are really looking for a payoff from your insurance company and not you. Obviously I am not an attorney and you need to follow the advice of yours in this matter, but do provide as much information as you can that defends your actions.

It is easier said than done, but try not to panic. Let the professionals handle the legalities and you do the best that you can to behave professionally during the deposition. In the long run you will be smarter and stronger for this experience. Good luck. —Rhee

Dear Rhee,
All of my life I have danced or taught dance, but today I am dealing with serious health issues that are going to cause me to stop teaching. I don’t know what I will do without dance in my life because it is all that I know and it is my passion. My family keeps telling me not to worry because I will be able to collect disability and not have to worry about anything, but what they don’t understand is that dance is not about money for me, it’s who I am. No one around me understands what I am going through and I’m hoping you might offer me some words of wisdom. —Katherine

Hi Katherine,
I am sorry that you are dealing with this illness. You are not alone when it comes to your passion for dance and the fear of giving it up. My responsibilities as a publisher and speaker now keep me from teaching, but I still think of myself as a dancer. That’s because dance is in my blood and nothing can take that away from me—nor you.

If your health permits it, look for new ways to be involved in the dance world. You could consider writing about your experiences as a dancer and teacher. You might be able to consult for other teachers or work in a management position for a school. You could create a curriculum based on your years of experience and knowledge. I see a dance world that has endless possibilities for everyone who “knows the passion.”

Take care of your health, but don’t think that you can’t continue to share your expertise and love for dance unless you teach. You have many options to continue in the world you love so much. I wish you all the best. —Rhee

By Mignon Furman

Tip One
Only a few lucky dancers have natural elevation. Elevation depends on the Achilles tendon, the thigh muscles, the muscles at the back of the knee, and demi-plié. To stretch the Achilles tendon, this is a helpful exercise: stand about a yard away from the barre, facing it with both hands on the barre and the feet in parallel. Then, with both heels on the floor, lean forward. The dancers should feel the Achilles tendon stretching. For soft, controlled landings, a good demi-plié should be developed.

Tip Two
The eyes have it! In order to hold a balance or perform a good pirouette, dancers should focus their eyes on a spot. To show a sense of style in classical ballet, the eyes should follow a hand in port de bras. Looking down has the effect of losing communication with the audience. This is a most important aspect of performance. Whether the dancers are gazing at each other in a pas de deux or expressing sadness, happiness, or horror, the eyes tell it all.

By Geo Hubela

Tip One
Teach your students to listen. Get them to focus on the music, not just counts. Hip-hop music is filled with rhythms, beats, rap, and sound effects that have to be accented with choreography, with style and swag. A song needs to become part of them so they are “in tune” with it; the more they know it, the better they will dance to it. Becoming masters of musicality will enhance their battle and freestyle skills.

Tip Two
Teach your students to be expressive. Explain that dance needs to evoke emotion from the audience and that if they are just going through the motions with the steps, the audience will lose interest. They can keep them engaged by expressing themselves through the movement and the music. In hip-hop terms, that means getting your swag on! “Swag” is the way a dancer presents himself. Students need to express themselves through personality, confidence, and style as well as movement.

By Bill Evans

Tip One
When I ask teenage dancers what a plié is, often they answer, “Bending the knees.” This oversimplified image of a total body experience has caused countless dancers to become non-resilient and disintegrated. Plié involves simultaneous yielding in the hips, knees, and ankles. The folding at the hip is the primary action. Suggested language: “Ride your exhalation; drop your heavy tail; allow your sitz bones to widen and your feet to melt into the earth. To rise, push the earth away with your tail and your feet as you allow the sitz bones to narrow.”

Tip Two
There is an epidemic of hyperextended knees among today’s young dancers. Flexibility is important in modern dance, but pressing back in the knees when rising from plié creates misalignment throughout the skeletal system and a dangerous loss of shock absorption when jumping. Students must know the difference between extension (which allows for resilience) and hyperextension (which creates rigidity). I never say, “Straighten your knees.” Instead, as dancers return from plié, I say, “Extend the hip while allowing the patella to slide freely upward.” To guide leg gestures, I say, “Lengthen the whole leg, sensing the through-line in your open joints.”

By Stacy Eastman

Tip One
It is important to have children start listening to sounds and counting at a young age so that they understand timing. Clapping short rhythms and matching them with tap sounds is very effective. Have the students clap and then simply tap the rhythm back to you at the same speed. Keep the children involved in making up the rhythms so they feel a sense of investment in the class. Plus, it keeps them thinking.

Tip Two
With older children you can create a rhythm game that is fun yet keeps them learning. Stand in a circle and create an easy rhythm that they can follow. Have the students repeat it one at a time, like a call-and-answer. Then do a step while they are facing away from the circle and have them repeat what they hear without looking. These games help them understand what they are listening to. As they progress, make the rhythms more challenging.

Don’t let seasonal affective disorder get you down

By Suzanne Martin, PT, DPT

Do you realize how the seasons affect you? Weather affects mood. Dance teachers aren’t immune, especially since many studios, looking for a steady income stream, offer summer and holiday camps that keep their faculty teaching through all seasons.

Winter may seem to last forever. A number of people get a case of the blues that comes on gradually in autumn, lingers through the winter, and lightens when spring brings more sunlight. Though it’s more common in the fall and winter, seasonal affective disorder (SAD) can strike at other times, depending upon your personal preferences. If you’re the cool-weather type, you may experience an endless summer, just barely tolerating the heat and blazing sun until fall comes around.

Which weather pattern matters to you most as a dance teacher, and how does it affect your teaching? Here are some tips to understanding which season affects you most and how to manage that impact.

There is no known test for SAD, yet we can be proactive. Just noticing how the ebb and flow of the seasons affect you can be worthwhile in understanding your moods. Dance teachers need to be “people people,” gregarious enough to show interest in our students. When we enjoy ourselves while teaching, others notice, and the result is infectious. We need to draw people to us to ensure the success of our classes. While class content and teaching competence matter, the reality is that people also return year after year because of our personalities.

SAD is considered a type of depression. The typical symptoms of a full-blown depression—such as taking too long to perform simple administrative tasks, increasing isolation, persistent irritability, and just plain apathy—are easy to spot. Nobody wants to be around Debbie Downer. But SAD starts slowly and may progress to true depression before we realize it. Noting the effect of seasons can be critical in maintaining a teaching career.

Because I am a morning person I love the summer months, when it can be light enough to walk out to the beach at 5:30am. As much as I love the light of summer, here in the coastal Bay Area, summers can be foggy and cool. (The quote long attributed to Mark Twain, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco,” is apocryphal but nonetheless accurate.) How do I cope?

First off, there’s light therapy. Apparently the diminishment of outdoor light can be off-putting to our circadian rhythms. I replaced most of my overhead light bulbs with natural light spectrum bulbs. They usually last a whole year, longer than regular incandescents, and they don’t have the green cast and vibrating light of fluorescents. They’re easy on my eyes, don’t give me headaches, and help my mood.

Since dance teachers spend many hours indoors, it is cost effective to get the type of lighting that will work for you. If bulb replacement in your facility is not an option, try some at home or even consider light-box therapy. Sit in front of a light box for about 20 minutes a day. The additional light influences the circadian rhythm and lifts mood.

Do you prefer the dark and cold of winter to summer heat? I grew up in the South, and I love a warm and sunny day. However, I was amazed at how much easier it was to dance in the more moderate humidity and temperatures in the San Francisco area. Heat can be oppressive and lower frustration thresholds. It’s no wonder that more crimes are committed in hot weather. Ceiling fans and air conditioning can be indispensable.

As part of a program to promote well-being, I helped the ballet company I work with establish a protocol for limiting or canceling rehearsals on the occasional days when the studio temperature exceeds a certain limit. (Not many studios here have air conditioning because hot weather occurs so infrequently.) We eliminate all overhead light. Keeping cool drinks on hand and giving periodic mandatory movement breaks can help the dancers avoid heat stroke as well as the deadening sensation of inescapable misery that unrelenting heat can produce. The dancers were reluctant to stop rehearsing even when given the option to stop, so making a stringent policy of when to cancel class or rehearsal can be helpful.

There are more options for avoiding negative seasonal feelings. Decor is one place to start. One reason why the end-of-the-year holiday time can be fun is that it’s an excuse to dress up the workplace and be silly. It puts everyone at ease, creates excitement and interest, and is a great social elixir. Remember that decor can be what you are wearing as well as what’s hung on the walls or dangling from the doorways.

As goofy as it sounds, mixing things up with monthly or occasional themes—something as simple as having all the girls wear blue ribbons one day or decorating the lounge with colorful dried grasses or flowers—can lift the day for you and your students. Having a Plan B for an oppressively hot day, such as watching a dance DVD or sharing your own dance history, will surely delight your students.

Another strategy is to think opposites. Switch the season psychologically by showing clips from a cool-inspired dance classic like Anna Karenina in a summer month, or a vibrant piece like Paul Taylor’s Esplanade in a chilly month. Choose bright colors for yourself in winter and wear more subdued tones in the studio in very hot months.

Keep a tab on yourself. That’s one reason why journaling can be helpful; it identifies your own internal trends. Life’s inevitable disappointments and losses, in combination with seasonal mood shifts, may transform a subtle seasonal sadness into something larger. Women tend to be better at recognizing and voicing difficulties, so men should especially take heed of warning signs.

The signs of depression can include feelings of worthlessness and feeling overly guilty for things that went wrong or were out of your control. Studio owners and teachers will always grapple with artistic, management, and business issues as they strive to meet yearly goals and expectations. Keeping a log somewhere of these issues can help to maintain a larger perspective. Other signs include changes in sleep patterns such as sleeping too much, having trouble falling asleep, or awakening too early. Of course, the ultimate red flag is thoughts of death or actual contemplations of suicide.

The good news is that most people can be treated for depression. Dancers may worry that they will be rejected, criticized, or ridiculed if they admit to feeling depressed. That’s why seeking out a third party can be useful. Options include finding a competent counselor through a health care provider or religious organization. Anonymity can then be guaranteed.

Be proactive throughout the year in safeguarding your emotional health. Dance is about joy, which is the basis of our emotional health.

I have faith in you.

Tune-Up Time
For many of our readers, summer is a time to slow down, maybe even take some time off. And so it seemed like perfect timing to suggest using the slower months of summer to look inward and do some personal maintenance. We all take our cars to the mechanic and our kids to their checkups, but how often do we focus on our own well-being? In this issue, we’ve got some ideas on how to do just that, through a creative process of goal setting, a primer on meditation, some apps to help you with on-the-go wellness, and a few fun tips on teas and inspirational jewelry. It’s a package designed with you in mind, the brainstorm of my editorial assistant, Arisa White.

And now I’m going to take the idea of introspection a step further and say that it could (and perhaps should) include some awareness-raising about our attitudes toward others. So I’m going to steal some suggestions worth noting from an online holiday card posted last December by SYPartners.com, a company that promotes transformation in organizations. (Some of the wording is theirs; some I’ve paraphrased.)

First, exercise relentless empathy. How? Set aside your own worldview and see someone else’s. Dignify others by acknowledging their value.

Second, be that person. Which one? The one who’s fully present, calls everyone by name, and starts sentences with “What if?”

Third, curmudgeons be damned. There’s good in everyone, so find it. Expect the best in people and that’s usually (eventually) what you’ll get.

Fourth, embrace not knowing. In a fast-changing world, it’s the best way to open yourself to great things.

It’s not too late to add these behaviors to your list of resolutions for 2012. I’m sure going to try—are you game? —Cheryl A. Ossola, Editor in Chief

Sondheim’s Songs
I’m engrossed in a new book, and it’s a real page turner. I know whodunit, so there’s no mystery. In fact, I’m pretty familiar with the protagonist and his life story. But still, I’m savoring each word and can’t wait to see what the next paragraph brings.

It’s Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes by Stephen Sondheim. I wasn’t too thrilled to pick it up initially—I have a shelf full of musical-theater books, from rants to gossip to dissertations on the worst flops ever, and a list of lyrics sounded like a yawn. Did I say I knew Sondheim? I should have known better.

Because not only does he list all his lyrics, including changed verses and discarded tunes, but he dissects his own work with the skill of a surgeon (or a show doctor, as it were). It’s fascinating to follow him along as he looks back on his earliest efforts, and with the wisdom gained through years of doing a job only a few people have actually done well, tells us exactly where he went wrong.

From miscalculations to compromises to plain crappy work, he explains the art of lyric writing. Consider this comment from a song cut from West Side Story: “Wrong: the heavy use of soft consonants like s and n, which make the Jets sound more like a hissing radiator than a gang on the warpath.” Or, despite Maria’s uneducated immigrant status, how he couldn’t resist showing off with “It’s alarming how charming I feel.”

Of course, as he moves along to Gypsy, Company, A Little Night Music, and beyond—in this book as well as the sequel, Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981-2011)—the comments become more about why things work than why they don’t.

So since I’m a choreographer, not a lyricist, what does his book teach me? That all artists (even geniuses) have to take time to hone their craft; that no work (even on songs thrown away) is wasted; and that everyone can benefit from a little self-reflection now and again. Some nice advice from a man with no vice . . .  or is it price? Mice? (Sigh.) —Karen White, Associate Editor

We are in the midst of construction for the DanceLife Retreat Center, which will open July 6. The hustle and bustle of the many contractors involved goes on all day, every day, and I am having a blast watching it all happen. Who knew you could get so excited to see a wall go up or windows installed? But that’s exactly what happens to me every time I visit the site.

For almost half of my life I have dreamed that someday I would be able to host seminars for dance teachers and school owners in my own place, and now it’s becoming a reality. Yes, yes, there are times when I say to myself, “What have you gotten yourself into?”—especially when I find out that the cost of something turns out to be twice as much as I expected. Then there are the days when one of the well-intentioned contractors tells me that the plan we had discussed so often isn’t going to work. Somehow we get past it and make the necessary adjustments. And I’m learning a whole lot through the process.

I can already imagine groups of dance teachers gathered in the great room sharing their enthusiasm for this art we all love so much. Most of all I imagine school owners heading home after the retreat with concepts to improve their businesses, marketing plans, and organizational skills, and bursting with renewed enthusiasm to do their best in their classrooms and in their businesses. I can feel that this place I’m making is going to make a difference.

I’m spending time doing research on what to include in the seminar curriculums and am surprised at how much I am learning in the process. I feel like this project is helping me improve my own businesses, which is an added bonus that I didn’t expect. If I can share everything I am learning with my attendees, they’ll go home ready to tackle anything that comes their way. And so will I!

Two of the six seminars scheduled for the summer are already sold out with waiting lists and I’m expecting that we will reach full capacity over the next couple of months. Now I’m beginning to plan some exciting fall seminars, and I hope to keep events happening throughout the year.

I’m in the habit of preaching that we can have what we want if we are patient and work toward our goals each and every day, and now I am living according to that philosophy. I look forward to sharing my dream with many of you and inspiring you to achieve your goals.

Words from our readers

So inspired to see so much work go into such a worthy cause [“A Shoe Show With Heart,” October 2011]! The ripple effect is always there; we just need more people to throw the first stone. Congratulations on a wonderful show and community service.
Michelle Ballaro
Ballet Arts Center for Dance
Cheektowaga, NY
via Facebook

I enjoyed reading the article [“Dads on Demand,” October 2011]. This story is all about the kind of dancer dad I want to be.
E. Keith Turner
via Facebook

We all love the article [“Ballet Scene: Ballerinas of a Certain Age,” November 2011]! You were able to capture the essence of our school and the “ladies of a certain age” quite well. Mimi is already planning her next ballet spoof of Coppélia for November.
Jayne Santoro
Dance School/Performing Arts Director 
JCC of Mid-Westchester 
Scarsdale, NY

I just finished reading “Thinking Out Loud: [Creating a Culture of Welcome]” in the November [2011] issue. My, how the opening statement hit home. I travel to Florida quite often and always thought I’d like to take a class there. I called to ask if a recreational dancer would be welcome and was told it was definitely a class for adults who wanted to stretch and tone. [Once there] I overheard a student saying that just because it says “adult” doesn’t mean just anyone can drop in. You can bet I won’t be returning to class there again.
April Mosher
Agawam, MA

By Terry Clark

On a Sunday night, burglars broke into one of my studios in Fresno, California. When I checked my phone messages on Monday morning I found an urgent message from the property manager telling me to call immediately. The studio (which is in a shopping center that I had considered secure; for that reason I did not install a burglar alarm) had been broken into and there was quite a mess. The police were waiting for me. So after a quick call to my insurance company and to a friend, a district attorney who promised to meet me at the center, I was off.

All the way to the studio, a 20-mile drive, I prayed for a miracle. With the economy being so bad and the season just starting, I certainly didn’t need this.

When I pulled up, the police, my landlord, the property manager, the building’s other tenants, and my lawyer friend were waiting. I was told not to touch anything as we went inside. My friend handled a lot of the questions from the police. Thank goodness she was there to support me.

The studio’s wall had been broken through from a bathroom shared with other tenants. There was a hole in another wall on the opposite side of the room, adjoining another business. The phone lines had been cut. My music system was gone, along with some CDs. More CDs and some props were scattered on the floor, and the music cabinet was broken. The floor was littered with broken Sheetrock from the walls and debris from two holes in the ceiling.

As bad as the damage was, in a way I did get my miracle. The mirrors were intact (the thieves missed them by half an inch) and the floors were fine. All of my dance supplies were there. It certainly could have been worse. After all, I could still have classes. And my main concern was for the parents—I didn’t want them to see the mess and worry.

As I was teaching an advanced tap class, I started smiling. The song I was using was “Bye, Bye Blackbird.” As I heard the words “Pack up all your cares and woes, here I go,” I knew I would go on.

After three hours of cleaning up the mess, I left to get ready to teach at my main studio. I didn’t have time to review what I’d prepared for the classes, so I just read my notes on the dance floor and taught the steps. My students hardly ever see me go to my notes, but they were fine with it. My last classes of the day are adult students who have been with me for more than 20 years. I told them what had happened and they were great. I could feel their concern for me.

As I was teaching an advanced tap class, I started smiling. The song I was using was “Bye, Bye Blackbird.” As I heard the words “Pack up all your cares and woes, here I go,” I knew I would go on.

This wasn’t the first time that my studios have been broken into, vandalized, or otherwise damaged. The windows at my main location have been smashed four times. A previous studio was broken into three times, and one time the roof collapsed because of too much rain. Another time a car drove through the front window, smashing trophies and chairs.

Still another time I lost everything in a flood—maple floors, music, equipment, and supplies. I was wiped out. But even before I called the insurance company, I called my real estate agent friend and told her to find me a new location—now!

Why do I go on? Dance is what I do, and these setbacks, major though they were, made me all the more determined to keep going.

Within a week of the latest break-in I had replaced the sound system and had the walls and ceiling fixed. It was rough covering the insurance deductible, but I’m back. And I’ve decided that “Bye, Bye Blackbird” is my theme song. Here I go!

Owner/artistic director, Suzanne’s Dance Connection, Burlington, MA

NOMINATED BY: Katrina Pemberton, former student: “ ‘Dance teacher’ doesn’t begin to describe who Suzanne is to me. Most of my favorite memories of growing up involved the SDC girls, community performances, recitals, and traveling for competitions. Suzanne started out as my dance teacher but evolved into a mentor, cheerleader, confidante, friend, and support system.”

Being a part of her students' lives helped Suzanne Welch-Kakouris get through breast cancer. (Photo by Leanne Reardon)

Karla Pattavina, owner/director of Karla Pattavina’s Dance Academy: “I met Suzanne at master classes and conventions and we just clicked. A few years ago she was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer, and somehow she didn’t miss a beat at her studio. I went to help out on recital day and met many of her former students. Many flew in to be there. I was astounded to hear how many lives she touched throughout her years of teaching. I don’t know anyone with more courage.”

YEARS TEACHING: 31 years

AGES TAUGHT: All ages and ability levels

GENRES TAUGHT: Tap, jazz, ballet, lyrical, and contemporary. Lyrical is and will always be my favorite.

HER GREATEST INSPIRATIONS: Growing up at The Sherry Gold Dance Studio [now The Gold School] and being blessed to have had Sherry Gold as my educator, mentor, and idol. My mother and Sherry were my two most important people in the world. I was the underdog who worked really, really hard. Again and again I proved myself and was asked to be a member of the company—it was great!

WHY SHE CHOSE TEACHING AS A CAREER: I danced professionally at Busch Gardens and had a serious injury, which left me needing eight knee operations. So the professional career went out the window. After a little thought and soul searching I decided to teach, and it was the best decision of my life. To be a part of my students’ lives, to watch them grow year after year, is a privilege and pleasure.

FONDEST TEACHING MOMENT COUPLED WITH A LIFE CHALLENGE:

Four years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I thought, “Oh no, how am I going to do it all?” It was important for me to talk to the parents and students about the news. My physical appearance would change and I wasn’t sure how I would feel through the treatment. But I made a decision to show all of my students that when adversity comes your way, turn it around and kick it in the butt!

I had a double mastectomy two weeks before the recital—three shows in one day with three different casts. I had four drains in my underarms that needed to be emptied, but it was important for me to sit in that pit and direct the show. Then I did chemo and radiation every day for 52 days. It was a long haul, but with the support of my family, friends, and the dancers and their families, I did it! Our studio grew closer; we walked in the Making Strides breast cancer walk. It was so uplifting.

TEACHING PHILOSOPHY: Dedication, drive, perseverance, a positive attitude, and an openness to learn and grow every day.

REMINDER TO TEACHERS: Any teacher is instrumental in the lives of young children. Being the best teacher you can be enables your students to be the best dancers they can be.

IF SHE WASN’T A DANCE TEACHER: My dance teacher friends and I say someday we are going to write a book about how being a dance teacher sucked the life out of me. Putting all jokes aside, I would write how being a dance teacher got me through the roughest years of my life.

DO YOU KNOW A DANCE TEACHER WHO DESERVES TO BE IN THE SPOTLIGHT? Email your nominations to Arisa@rheegold.com or mail them to Arisa White, Dance Studio Life, P.O. Box 2150, Norton, MA 02766. Please include why you think this teacher should be featured, along with his or her contact information.

Cocktails and come-hither choreography mix for fun and profit

By Julie Holt Lucia

It almost sounds too good to be true, like a get-rich-quick scheme: dance parties for groups of grown women who are willing to pay $25 each to enjoy an hour of good company, choreography, and cocktails. For Tammy Tropeau of Studio One RP Dance in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, this is no scheme. It is a serious business venture, one that keeps her studio hopping during the lean summer months.

Tropeau hosts stagettes (otherwise known as bachelorette parties here in the States) at her dance studio on Friday and Saturday nights, primarily during the height of wedding season when her school’s dance classes are on summer break. And she makes extra cash—fast—with each hour-long event. In her words, “I have never had so much fun teaching before!”

Tropeau never imagined that her studio might become a destination for bachelorette parties. A Cecchetti-certified ballet instructor, she opened her school at age 19 with only 45 students. Today, 16 years later, she has more than 200 students and a staff of 20 teachers and office staffers, and owns two buildings with a total of three studio classrooms. Classes range from ballet to musical theater to hip-hop to yoga (and everything in between), and are offered to an array of ages and levels. The bachelorette parties aren’t advertised with the rest of the classes though; promotion is strictly through word of mouth—mainly from the studio’s teachers, their network of friends, and referrals from previous party customers.

The idea to offer the parties came to Tropeau when she helped plan the bachelorette evening for one of her instructors who was getting married. She looked into having a party at another studio in town that offered striptease and pole dancing classes, as well as studio rentals—but it was booked up. The resourceful Tropeau offered to host the event at her studio instead, and she brought in an independent instructor who specialized in bachelorette parties. She was astounded when she saw that the instructor had made $500 at the end of the hour-long class.

“The wheels started turning,” Tropeau says, as she realized the bride-to-be market was not only booming in her area, it was something she could tap into as a business opportunity. “The teacher had no dance teacher training like I did [and] she had no space like I did. I have awesome young teachers with lots of friends. So I started offering this through word of mouth.”

Tropeau used her experience as a participant in the previous bachelorette party as a jumping-off point to train herself how to teach the classes. She quickly came up with some simple, jazz-based choreography to popular music. The routine included lots of repeating steps, as well as a few suggestive but tasteful moves. (As the program took off, she added more routines, choosing music she can edit if needed.)

She also created a party plan, which included 30 minutes of warming up and learning the choreographed routine, a break for drinks and snacks, and 20 more minutes of dancing—give or take some socializing time at the beginning and end of the party. With a liquor permit in place (this was a simple process in Saskatoon; rules and fees in the United States vary greatly by state), Tropeau could allow the partygoers to bring their own alcohol along with food.

Hosting bachelorette parties with dancing and drinks is certainly unique for a traditional dance studio, and there’s an even more ironic twist in Tropeau’s case: her buildings are former churches. They provide ample dance space for the parties (typically 15 to 25 women), as well as a large enough lounge area for the drinks and snacks. Plenty of parking is available too, although the participants usually have designated drivers in place prior to the event—for example, they might hire a limo to take them to and from the studio if they plan on going out to dinner or to a club after the dance class.

There are important liability considerations with such a venture. Tropeau hasn’t yet checked IDs but says she would if she felt unsure about someone’s age. Because she owns her buildings, she is allowed to license them as she pleases, including for private functions that serve alcohol; those who rent would need to check with their insurance company and landlord before seeking a permit to serve alcohol. And although Tropeau doesn’t require partygoers to have designated drivers, some studio owners might want to.

Fees for the parties are per person only, to keep things simple. To stay competitive in her area, Tropeau charges $25 for each participant the day of the event. The fees help cover the cost of the liquor permit, time in the studio, instruction by Tropeau, and cleanup afterward. (Even considering those costs, Tropeau can easily net $250 or more for a one-hour party.) Upon request, she will give the group a copy of the music she uses for the dance routine so that the women can practice on their own. This was a particular success after one party, when the CD Tropeau gave them made a special appearance a short time later.

“It happened to show up at the bride’s wedding, and some of them had the courage to do [the routine] for the guests,” Tropeau says. She was surprised and also pleased—and instantly knew her formula for the class was working. “I was so proud of them!”

Setup for the parties is simple, since not many supplies are needed. Many times friends of the bride-to-be like to dress for the occasion (for example, in fishnets or high heels) and often they will bring extras like hats, hairpieces, or other costume accessories to share with all of the partygoers during the dance class. Tropeau will sometimes provide chairs to use during the dance routines she teaches, but for now she hasn’t wanted or needed to invest in any other props.

“I was concerned about my reputation as a teacher of young children, but to be honest, it’s exactly like a jazz class for adults.” —Tammy Tropeau

Although she currently teaches all of the parties herself, Tropeau does plan to train some of her teachers as well. She estimates that they could easily commit to five or six parties in a weekend during the summer wedding season now that the program is established and doing well. She has another idea to keep things interesting: her husband is a firefighter, and she’s considering hiring some of his friends to dress up as hunky firemen and serve the drinks at the parties.

So has Tropeau ever worried about her studio’s name being connected to something many people might see as risqué? “I was concerned about my reputation as a teacher of young children,” Tropeau admits, “but to be honest, it’s exactly like a jazz class for adults.” Sometimes the moves are a little risqué, but the bachelorette parties are simply a different side of the studio’s business—one just for adults. So far, Tropeau reports that she hasn’t heard any concerns about the parties from other customers.

Most of all, she wants the women to learn some legitimate dance moves, have fun together, and be confident in their bodies. The inviting and relaxed environment of a bachelorette party is just what some of the women (most of whom are not dancers) need in order to feel comfortable learning choreography.

Tropeau urges other dance studio owners to consider the business advantages of offering bachelorette parties. In addition to being a quick moneymaker, it’s one of the easiest, most fun ways she supports her business and connects in the community. And if bachelorette parties aren’t all the rage in your neighborhood, try a different tack—try a girls’ night out, a burlesque workshop, or chair dance classes. See what’s popular in the nearest big city’s nightlife, or do some research to see if anything similar is being offered in your town.

If you aren’t comfortable teaching a class like this or simply can’t add another thing to your schedule, look into hiring an independent instructor who is already experienced in one of these styles. You might be surprised at how many women in your community would be interested in a specialty class or workshop.

“I would recommend dance teachers give it a go,” Tropeau says. “All in all it has been great fun. And when something is good, people tend to talk!”

By Melissa Hoffman

With the changing economy and increased overhead, more studios than ever before are running programs in the summer months. In marketing such programs, several strategies are key to success.

The first is to have everything ready early. Over the past several years I’ve noticed that I need to start promoting and setting up schedules for summer much earlier than I used to in order to secure registrations, no later than the beginning of March.

Why? These days children are tremendously overbooked, and in my area parents are seeking activities for children who are much younger than in previous times. And there is so much for them to choose from. Not only is my school vying for parents to choose our dance camp over another, but also over non-dance activities. With that in mind, I schedule my dance camps for weeks that do not coincide with local sports camps and other popular activities. Town-run activity schedules are out early; for others, I ask for their schedules.

When my school’s dance camp enrollment began to drop off several years ago, I looked at why that was happening and who was still signing up. One of my faculty members was quick to note that the program didn’t sound very exciting on paper—yet I knew what we offered was fun and educational. We needed to make sure the camps were marketed effectively so that everyone else knew that. Remember, your goal is to have your program be the one that parents schedule everything else around.

So I looked at our ads and promotional materials and saw that we didn’t have very much, nor was what we had very exciting. Our simple, multiple-page summer brochure describing our summer programs was generic and boring. So I started fresh, by creating a tri-fold brochure. Because we offer three types of camps, I created three brochures for three target groups, each with a unique look.

Don’t forget to pay close attention to what you call your camps. For example, since much of our client base is female, I decided to change the name of the program for 4- to 7-year-olds from Dance/Arts Camp to Princess Dance Camp, even though I knew that doing so would eliminate boys in this age level. (This year I plan to market a boys-only camp, with a name that will grab attention.)

The Princess camp brochure explains that each day of the week is dedicated to a different princess and includes photos from the prior year’s camp as well as testimonials from parents. Testimonials are essential; people really do read them. It attracted 25-plus children for each of the two weeks (up from 10 dancers per week the prior year).

We then created a separate brochure for dancers 3 to 5 years old, which yielded 15-plus dancers per week, mostly 3-year-olds.

Once you have an attention-getting brochure, it’s time to get the word out. I distributed the brochures to target age groups within the studio and to daycare centers, activity centers, and pediatricians’ offices. In addition, I advertised in local newspapers, which usually run summer activity and camp sections in March or April. (I’ve always had much better luck with small papers than those with huge distributions.) Each ad targeted a particular age group and offered a discount if registered by May 1.

Don’t forget electronic media. Facebook is a great place to advertise upcoming programs, but you should update the page at least daily in order to reach your audience. I also send out an email blast announcing the dance camps to my current clientele and subscribers. Then I follow up with several more, saying “Don’t miss out!” or “Classes filling quickly!” or “Deadline approaching!” To my shock, I discovered that many people at our studio did not realize we offered a summer program.

It’s not enough to have a great program; you’ve got to make sure you’re selling it well. With marketing materials that appeal to the audience you wish to reach, and by getting the word out early, you’re sure to get results.

Take a Moment
Teachers try to impress on students the importance of being on time for class. However, if students arrive early and simply text or chit-chat, we can redirect them in their use of time. I have recently inserted one minute of silence before class. The dancers claim their space at the barre, the pianist plays an adagio, and the students stretch or breathe in their own way. The only rule is that there is no talking. I tell them that this is an opportunity to have a “conversation’ with their own body.

The minutes leading up to the first plié speak to the maturity level of the dancer. Since many of us teach young students, this minute of quiet can be an opportunity for us to model the behavior we seek in a responsible and sensitive dancer. Very young or inexperienced students will not know what to do, and you may need to talk them through stretches and verbalize what they may be feeling. For intermediate students, create a repertoire of stretches and exercises that can help them begin to take more responsibility for their bodies.

I instruct students to visualize the plié combination at the beginning of class as a threshold—a point of entry or beginning. This silent minute of free time can provide that threshold, just as yoga practitioners take a few moments to breathe and chant, readying the mind before moving the body. I tell students that the first moments of class should be transitional and coach them into “entering into the body of the dancer you want to be by the end of class.” Moving the body through simple postures brings the mind and concentrated energy together. More advanced dance students may be able to recognize other ways to use a silent minute before class to their advantage.

A silent minute at the end of class can function as a cool-down and allow students to integrate the information they’ve learned. Repeating the opening free-minute stretch can bring a sense of completion to the class. —Kerry Ring

Improvisation
Dance improvisation encourages students to develop innovative movement patterns while experimenting with the concepts of shape, space, time, and energy. The following techniques are fun and inspiring for both students and teachers.

Props are great for improv exercises. Props I have used include a pair of white gloves, pink rose, scarf, red clown nose, derby hat, and book, but anything can be used for improv. Give students one minute to improvise using their prop however they see fit. Allow the more experienced dancers to go first and lead by example.

I always remind them to move without inhibition and try not to be too literal. That means that a dancer who gets the clown nose doesn’t have to wear it on her face and be silly like a clown. Get them thinking by asking, “Is your prop hard or soft? Is it heavy or light? What emotions might be attached to this item?” Don’t give them too long to think about it, but remind them to allow these kinds of thoughts to transfer into their movements.

Along with props, I keep envelopes on hand that are full of pieces of paper with various words (nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs) written on them, especially ones that relate to choreographic concepts (shape, space, time, and energy). I ask less experienced students to draw a word from one or two of the envelopes to use as a foundation when creating their improv motifs. More advanced students can draw a word from each envelope to develop more complex motifs.

Storytelling is a fun way to work with a partner while exploring improvisation. Ask one student to be the storyteller and the other to be the performer. As one is telling a story, the other is acting it out through dance. Trade places and repeat this process.

Adding music to these exercises can be an interesting component, but it’s not always necessary. The possibilities are endless. —Michele Monaghan

Dance teacher organizations—where to team up, share ideas, and be heard

Profile: Dance Alliance of Rhode Island
In the mid-’80s the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts started a discussion about ways to encourage cooperation among the organizations that represent different dance sectors in the state. The result was Dance Alliance of Rhode Island, a state affiliate of National Dance Education Organization which was certified as a 501(c) 3 in 1986.

Dance Alliance of RI Chance to Dance performers have closed their shows for 26 years with "Can't Stop Dancing," choreographed by founding artistic director Marty Sprague. (Photo by Nikki Carrara)

In its early days, co-presidents Catherine Bodner and Sharon Jenkins worked to fulfill the group’s mission—to bring dance-minded people together and to increase the visibility and accessibility of dance to the community at large—as current president Tovah Bodner Muro does today. With this mission, Dance Alliance serves K–12 schools, dance studios, dance companies, independent choreographers, and both students and teachers in higher education.

“We help each other when, how, and where we can. We build on our strengths and always welcome new ideas and people,” says Helene Scheff, treasurer and former president. “From toddlers to professionals our goal is the education of dancers at all levels and in all genres. People continue to join because they believe dance should have a voice in Rhode Island, and through Dance Alliance, we do have a collective voice.”

Many facets of the dance industry are included in the organization’s programming and relationships. Individuals from AAHPERD and the ballroom-based USA Dance, as well as local physical therapists and dance merchants, are either members or work closely with Dance Alliance. The organization also serves the multicultural dance community by hosting ethnic groups at dance festivals, inviting them to participate in projects, and by featuring classes in such as ethnic dances as classical Indian, Mexican folkloric, and Irish step at workshops.

Two of the group’s main initiatives are the RI Independent Performers Network (RI2PN) and Chance to Dance. RI2PN is a collection of dancers, choreographers, and other professional artists dedicated to engaging audiences through live performance. The group participates in events such as the summertime Indie Arts Fest in Providence and produces the Frazier Festival, a site-specific festival held in two downtown Providence parks or other open spaces each July.

 Chance to Dance, founded in 1986, offers dance instruction and provides a performance opportunity to public schoolchildren in grades 3 to 6. Scheff recalls one memorable quote from a sixth-grade boy; more physically suited to football than dance, he was in Chance to Dance as part of a physical education requirement. His end-of-year evaluation comment—“Our class was the dance bomb and we will be the next Riverdance!”—really hit home, she says.

Dance Alliance’s membership of more than 100 grows a bit each year, and individuals have the option of joining just Dance Alliance or applying for joint DA/NDEO membership.

Dance Alliance offers four master classes a year in conjunction with a meeting, plus various seminars on topics such as injury prevention or business issues. This year the organization teamed up with Massachusetts Dance Education Organization in its first joint venture: a one-day dance festival with master classes and a shared performance, held January 8 at Bridgewater [MA] State University.

Member benefits include a workers compensation policy for independent contractors and event insurance for any events held under the Dance Alliance umbrella. For details, visit ridancealliance.org.

March events

AAHPERD/NDA
800.213.7193 ext. 464; AAHPERD.org/nda
Event: AAHPERD National Convention and Exposition
When: March 13-17
Where: John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center, 900 Boylston St., Boston, MA
What: “Let’s Move—Let’s Dance—In School!” special event with presentations including Dancing Through the Curriculum, Fit2Dance Groovin’ Kids, Hip Hop to Glee, and more, plus the master class New Approaches to Physically-Integrated Dance Training, presented by Mary Verdi-Fletcher and Mark T. Tomasic of Dancing Wheels Company and School.

Canadian Dance Masters of America Chapter 38
canadiandancemasters.weebly.com
Event: Performing Arts and Solo Title Competitions
When: March 23-April 1
Where: PAC: Armenian Youth Centre, 50 Hallcrown Place, North York, ON; title competition, Simcoe, ON
What: Annual PAC for CDMA member students only. Solo title audition classes March 23 at Lisa Naves Dance Company, 68 Pond St., Simcoe, with judges’ interviews and competition March 24 at Simcoe Composite High School, 40 Wilson Dr., Simcoe.

Carolina Dance Masters
carolinadancemasters.org
Event: CDM Performing Arts Competition
When: March 23-25
Where: Johnston Community College, 245 College Rd., Smithfield, NC
What: PAC open to member students only. 

Dance Council of North Texas
214.219.2290; thedancecouncil.org
Event: 16th Annual Dance Planet
When: March 31, 10am-5pm; April 1, 12-5pm
Where: Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, 2501 Flora Ave., Dallas, TX
What: Two free days of dance including 80 performances and 25 master classes in samba, jazz, Pilates, Afro-Caribbean, and other genres.

Dance Masters of Arizona Chapter 36
dmaz36.com
Event: Annual Spring Workshop
When: March 16-18
Where: Sheraton Crescent Hotel, 2620 West Dunlap Ave., Phoenix, AZ
What: Classes, scholarship auditions, and performing arts and title competitions. 

Dance Masters of New England Chapter 5
401.486.4544; dmachapter5.com
Event: Performing Arts Competition and Solo Title Pageant
When: March 23-25
Where: Worcester State College, 486 Chandler St., Worcester, MA
What: Competition and titles, plus the selection of four Dean College scholarship winners.

Dance Masters of Western New York Chapter 8
dma-chap8.com
Event: Performing Arts and Solo Title Competition
When: March 30-April 1
Where: VVS High School, 5275 State Route 31, Verona, NY

Florida Dance Education Organization
fdeo.org
Event: Third Annual Florida Dance Performance Assessment
When: March 3
Where: Pinellas County Center for the Arts at Gibbs High School, 850 34th St. South, St. Petersburg, FL
What: A day of performance assessment for high school dance programs 

Ohio Dance Masters
dma-chap16.com
Event: Performing Arts Competition and Scholarship Auditions
When: March 23-25A
Where: Cleveland Marriott Downtown at Key Center, Cleveland, OH
What: Competition for solos, duos, trios, groups, lines, and productions, with scholarship auditions. Faculty includes Richard White, Christopher Robbins, and Anthony Russo.

Utah Dance Education Organization
udeo.org
Event: UDEO 12th Annual Spring Conference
When: March 3, 8am-4pm
Where: Weber State University, Ogden, UT
What: Following the theme “The World Needs What Dancers Know,” presentations and group sessions will focus on dancers’ skills and how they can impact dancers and non-dancers alike.

April events

Associated Dance Teachers of New Jersey
800.825.0933; associateddanceteachers.com
Event: Senior Scholarship Auditions
When: April 1
Where: New Jersey School of Ballet, 15-17 Microlab Rd., Suite 102, Livingston, NJ
What: Scholarship program for ADTNJ member high school students, honoring past ADTNJ president Frances L. Chalif.

OhioDance
614.224.2913; ohiodance.org
Event: OhioDance Festival and Conference
When: April 27-29
Where: BalletMet, 322 Mount Vernon Ave., Columbus, OH|
What: “Dance Matters: Dancing with History” features master classes in contemporary, ballet, jazz, historical, world, and social dance forms, plus panel discussions addressing current dance trends.

An excerpt from Where Snowflakes Dance and Swear: Inside the Land of Ballet

By Stephen Manes

Chapter 36

The Barn.

Anywhere else, those two words could connote anything from a cowshed to a drafty auditorium. But in the Land of Ballet, they conjure up an old red building with a steep roof and tiny windows in sleepy Carlisle, Pennsylvania, seat of Cumberland

County. For more than 50 years, The Barn has been the home of a school called Central

Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, CPYB for short.

Image courtesy Stephen Manes

Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, founded in 1955, has a national and even international cachet of its own, thanks primarily to the tireless Marcia Dale Weary, a petite woman the great Balanchine dancer Violette Verdy, who has taught at CPYB, calls “a high priestess” with a “tremendous combination of will and devotion and love and intransigence.

Now in her 70s, Weary learned the hard way about ballet instruction. She

grew up in the ’50s taking dance at local schools in Carlisle and Mobile, Alabama.

“They had jazz, ballet, tap, Hawaiian. You take half an hour of each thing. But I thought

I loved ballet. And I wanted to be a ballet dancer. I was their best student, doing solos.

And I went to New York” in search of a dance job, “and found out I knew zero, had to start again. I was 18. I called home and said, ‘Mother, I don’t know. I have to start all over again.’ And I was crying. She said, ‘Well, are you staying, or are you coming home?’ I said, ‘I guess I’ll stay.’ ”

Weary tried several schools. “Not SAB, because they were very selective” and rarely took students her age. She studied with “great names. But I felt there was something missing.” She eventually presented herself at the School of Ballet Repertory, run by Arthur Mahoney and Thalia Mara, veteran dance stars with a strong interest in teaching. “I went there, and he said, ‘Tell me, how did you find this school?’ I said, ‘I just picked you out of the Yellow Pages.’ ” His response, according to Weary: “Boy, are you lucky! You don’t know anything!”

Then, she says, “he called people in to see what I didn’t know, all the other teachers. It was terrible. . . . But I learned so much there. Thalia Mara was so exact and so careful. As he said, I really was lucky.”

Weary would work part of the year at the Carlisle Sentinel selling classified ads. “Then I’d save all my money and go to New York and stay there until the money ran out. And I’d come back to my local school and help teach.”

Back in Carlisle in 1955, Weary started her own school, the Marcia Dale School of Dance, in the local Carlisle Band Hall. “I taught tap because it was hard to get people who just wanted to study ballet in Carlisle.”

Two years later, “my father and I went all over town looking for something that would make a nice studio.” An 1870s-era barn came with a house of the same vintage across the cornfield. “When I found this place, I remember sitting on the porch and thinking I know I belong here.” She and her sister Sandy pooled resources to buy it.

Room by room they set about transforming the barn into a dance studio. “My sister, Sandy, and my father and one of the students’ fathers made one room into a dancing room. It was very narrow. But it worked,” even though it had disorienting tilted mirrors, which it does to this day.

Weary taught both ballet and tap; tap was the draw. In typical tap shows, the kids would “come out in a line, do their little tap dance routine. I made mine into stories.

We’d have the train station and the little shoeshine boy and the businessman and the soldier and the sailors and the girls. Or I’d have the mountaineers come from the mountains. Then they’d put on their little high top patent shoes and they’d go to New York.”

Eventually she managed to train four girls who loved ballet, and “finally I won people over. Took me about seven years to change them from tap to ballet. They weren’t allowed to take tap unless they took ballet. But soon I was able to produce little girls who could dance well.”

From Thalia Mara, Weary learned that “you have to start at the beginning. If you don’t have a good foundation with the little ones, you’re not going to have a good school.” Weary is very familiar with Balanchine’s famous dictum about “First, a school.”

But she adds, “first the babies in the school. You’d better train them well. And not many people like to do that.”

Weary did. “Back then I knew that children could do more than people thought they could do, and I made them focus. I taught them things a little beyond them and I’d say, ‘I’ll close my eyes.’ They always thought they could do anything, children. They finally learned. You had to kind of close your eyes and say, okay, that’s not too good yet. I learned it from teaching tap” to 3-year-olds.

“People couldn’t believe what they could do. They said, ‘Oh, they can’t do a shuffle.’ I’d just take their little feet and brush them and spank them with my hands until soon they were doing it by themselves. And then I figured out you had to do it quick, quick, and soon the little 3-year-olds were going step, shuffle, and change; step, shuffle and change. People didn’t know that. When I saw Shirley Temple could do that,

I said, ‘Why not others?’ ”

Her students gradually became more interested in ballet. “Tap dancing is so much fun, but if you have to go over and over it, shuffles and all those things, it does get a little tired. But you can never get tired of ballet technique. You always have to focus so much to know where your knees are, what your inner thigh muscles are doing, what the muscles on the outside of your knees are doing. How you’re holding your torso. It’s so much, so much.” Ultimately, the students themselves decided for ballet. “The children found out that ballet was more challenging.”

Weary’s approach is simple: “You have to repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat. That repetition is what trains the muscles to be stronger. When you’re a baby, you can’t feel those muscles. But I feel them for them and I tell them what they have to do. Then they begin to feel them, and then the more repetition, the more you feel, the more you understand about your body. The kids don’t know that that’s from repetition, like physical therapy. Your muscles get stronger. Then you reach a plateau and then you have to go above that.”

Outsiders can’t always fathom Weary’s commitment. “They say, ‘How can you teach beginning classes every day? How do you do that?’ I say, ‘Because they’re different children.’ Boredom is in your head. You look at that child, and you say, ‘When is she going to understand me?’ Or you look up and say, ‘I’m not giving up.’ And you keep going, you keep going. Then one day, you say, ‘When did she learn to do that?’ ”

Maurinda Wingard, CPYB’s longtime executive director, who began her time at the organization as a young student and remained there until her death in 2009, said in 2008, “She has the patience of a saint. It’s just unbelievable. . . . She never had them do the little creative movement stuff or anything like that. They get ballet. She expects them to be able to do a pirouette by the time they’re 7. And do double pirouettes by the time they’re 8. And triple pirouettes on pointe by the time they’re 9. She really expects that, and they do it. And they do it well. But they do have the muscle strength, because they spend a lot of time there.”

Sometimes it’s a struggle. “We’ve had some stay in the beginner class for three years,” Weary says, “and I think it’s a wonder their mothers don’t take them out. But then they finally reach the top and even end up doing some of the leads in ballets. How’d they get there? I never thought they would.”

Some kids are at the other end of the scale. When one was just a year old, “she’d come and watch her sister and drink the baby bottle. When she was about 2, she asked when she could take ballet. I said, ‘Well, not yet, honey.’ So when she was 3, she asked. I said, ‘Well, you can take tap, but I can’t teach you ballet yet.’ She was amazing in what she learned to do in tap dancing. But then she didn’t want tap; she wanted ballet. So one day I said, ‘Well, you’ve learned your little tap routine today,’ and I had a little class. I said, ‘We’ll do a little port de bras to show you. You bring your arms front and you open them.’ She did this. She was 3. With so much feeling. The goose bumps came out. I thought, ‘Where did that come from? That was amazing.’” She didn’t stop there. “She was like a sponge. Everything you gave her, she could do. When she was 11, she did Sugar Plum Fairy. When she was 13, she did Swan Queen with the 32 fouettés. . . .

“Tap dancing is so much fun, but if you have to go over and over it, shuffles and all those things, it does get a little tired. But you can never get tired of ballet technique.” —Marcia Dale Weary

“She did all the leads. She did Giselle. She did it with a professional dancer. Nobody could top it. Everybody was crying. We couldn’t talk for a long time after. She did Sleeping Beauty, she did Coppélia, she did everything. This little girl inspired me so much, and I got her when I was young. I really didn’t know what I had there. She was a genius. Whatever you gave her, she could do.”

In ballet, alas, body is destiny. “Her career was over when she was 17. She only grew to be about 4′ 11″ and then she gained weight at the wrong time. But she was phenomenal.”

Weary often enlists older students like Carrie Imler to help her with younger students, another way of reinforcing what they’ve learned. “I started teaching here when I was 12,” Wingard recalled. In that role, “You’re not only breaking it down, but you’re trying to get somebody who can’t do it yet to do it. . . . So you really have to think about how you do each step.”

Weary believes in being flexible. “You have to teach what they’re ready for. Some years, you’ll have these great classes, and then it’s like crops. They grow. Some years you have nobody. The children are not talented. They’re not interested. They’re not focused. So it depends on the children.” Still, she expects advanced students to spend 22 hours a week in classes.

“They have to,” said Wingard. “If they miss, they have to make up. . . .” And, Wingard pointed out, Weary teaches seven days a week. “She sets the tone for all of us. You can’t really complain about working too much, because you know she’s there from nine in the morning until seven-thirty at night on Saturdays with two half-hour breaks.” In the mid-’60s, Weary started a satellite school in Harrisburg, about half an hour away, which serves in part as a starter school to widen the recruitment pool and gives kids who live near it a way to get more studio time.

“She’s brilliant,” says teacher Bruce Thornton, a Seattle native who studied at CPYB and returned there to teach after a soloist career at Edward Villella’s Miami City Ballet. “She knows how to challenge. She knows how to pat on the back. She also knows how to discipline.”

“Just put your blinders on and do the work,” is how Wingard said Weary looks at teaching ballet. “Don’t worry about all that other stuff. Even in a situation where enrollment is down or people are complaining that her school is too strict or whatever. She never listened to any of it. She just put her blinders on and did her work.”

Weary is proud of what ballet can do for students. By the time she’s finished with them, “Ballet has done them so much good. It’s been good for their bodies. It’s been good for their minds. . . . It’s not just to become a ballet dancer. They learn to use their time well because they have to get their schoolwork done. Most of them are honor students in school. They do have to be intelligent. It just takes so much focusing to understand what’s happening to your body. . . .”

Wingard added that “CPYB is different in that Marcia has always felt that performance is . . . a very important part of their education. Not a recital, but a performance as close to what the professionals do as possible.”

Weary rues that finding males for the school is an ongoing problem. “It’s hard to get little boys, because their daddies don’t want them to do it.” The flip side is that “often talented little boys get very lazy, because they’re given everything and they don’t have to work at it. If they’re very talented and they’re in a school like this where you don’t have many boys, they’re given the leads before they’re really ready. Then they think, ‘Oh, that was easy. I don’t have to work at that.’ ”

“We try to get a stronger preschool and beginning ballet enrollment from the boys,” former public relations director Donna Lynch says, “but it’s just hard to attract them. Over the summer last year, we actually had five boys in our preschool program, in the one class. And we were completely shocked by this. We were crossing our fingers that they stuck with it.” Boys do tend to get scholarships, and, in summer, a housing stipend.

Weary finds today’s kids a particular challenge. She blames TV. “They just are not as active as children used to be.” Years ago, “they’d go out and play in their woods, so they had good muscles. I could teach a 5-year-old to do an assemblé during that year. It’s so difficult today to teach a 7-year-old to do it. A 7-year-old is like a 5-year-old was about 40 years ago.”

And today, says Weary, “it is harder to make them find out that hard work is so rewarding. If you can get them past the first year and sometimes the second, and they begin to find they can do a pirouette on a straight knee. . . . It just is exciting. I get excited, and they get excited. But it is hard, because I think schools entertain them too much. Because they can’t focus: You can look them in the eye and talk to them and say,

‘Your shoulders have to be down, your tummy in. Okay, now what did I say?’ And they don’t know what you said.”

One thing that sets CPYB apart, said Wingard, is that “you don’t always come in and see these perfect bodies, because” Weary “believes in the heart and the mind,” and “she will train anyone who wants it enough.”

Weary’s initial success spiraled. Notable students included Leslie Hench, who danced with London’s Harlequin Ballet and returned to teach at CPYB; Lisa de Ribere,

New York City Ballet corps member, American Ballet Theatre soloist, School of

American Ballet teacher, and accomplished choreographer; Michael Owen, who had a long career at American Ballet Theatre; Sean Lavery, a Frankfurt Opera Ballet principal and New York City Ballet principal and ballet master; Tina LeBlanc, a Joffrey Ballet and

San Francisco Ballet star; and Darla Hoover, a New York City Ballet dancer who brought Weary’s syllabus to New York’s Ballet Academy East and became CPYB’s associate

artistic director. These alumni inspired and helped younger dancers in part by example, in part by returning to teach. As Weary puts it, “It just becomes like a family that goes all over the world.”

Copyright 2011 © Stephen Manes. All rights reserved. Edited and reprinted with permission. Read more at  http://wheresnowflakesdanceandswear.com/

It's a full house for a dance teacher workshop at the American Dance Festival in 2011. (Photo by Sara D. Davis, courtesy ADF)

Your guide to workshops and intensives across the U.S. and beyond

Programs are listed in alphabetical order by sponsoring or producing organization.

Horton Pedagogy Workshop
Sponsoring or producing organization: Ailey Extension
Dates: July 9-13, introductory session; July 16-20, intermediate/advanced session
Location: The Ailey Studios, New York, NY
Fees/cost: $775 per session, $1,400 for both (through June 10); $800 per session, $1,425 for both (through July 1)
Special requirements/prerequisites: All participants must have a book, The Dance Technique of Lester Horton, and three DVDs on Horton technique (available from the Ailey Extension). A larger package ($199.11 plus tax) with the required materials plus two additional DVDs and two CDs is recommended.
Registration deadline: July 1
Description: Review the Horton vocabulary and learn the range and depth of this technique under master teacher and Horton scholar Anna Marie Forsythe. Refresh your teaching skills while sharing experience and knowledge with other Horton teachers.
Contact: 212.405.9500; aileyextension@alvinailey.org; aileyextension.com; The Ailey Extension, The Joan Weill Center for Dance, 405 W. 55th St., New York, NY 10019

Teachers Intensive
Sponsoring or producing organization: American Academy of Ballet
Dates: August 3-8
Location: Purchase College SUNY, Westchester County, NY
Fees/cost: $140 per day, discount for 3 or more days
Special requirements/prerequisites: Minimum age of 18
Registration deadline: None
Description: Top-notch faculty, excellent studios, and small classes, with a special program for teaching preschoolers, a session with a dance physiotherapist on recognizing and treating injuries, beginner to advanced pointe work, and the unique Performance Awards program, taught throughout the U.S. and in 10 other countries.
Contact: 212.787.9500; office@american-academy-of-ballet.com; american-academy-of-ballet.com; American Academy of Ballet, 250 W. 90th St. #3A, New York, NY 10024

ABT National Training Curriculum Teacher Training
Sponsoring or producing organization: American Ballet Theatre
Dates: August 1-8, Training Session #1: Primary Level through Level 3
Location: American Ballet Theatre, New York, NY
Fees/cost: Tuition: $1,500; materials, $150
Special requirements/prerequisites: Advanced or professional level of ballet training
Registration deadline: June 1
Description: A program for the development and training of young students that embraces sound ballet principles and incorporates elements of the French, Italian, and Russian schools of training. This program aims to assist teachers in training dance students to use their bodies correctly, focusing on kinetics, coordination, anatomy, and proper body alignment.
Contact: Jenna Bitterman, 212.477.3030 ext.1169, jbitterman@abt.org; abt.org/education/nationaltrainingcurr.asp; American Ballet Theatre, 890 Broadway, New York, NY 10003

Dance Professionals Workshop
Sponsoring or producing organization: American Dance Festival
Dates: DPW Dance Sampler—Option 1: June 23-July 1, Option 2: July 1-8, Option 3: July 8–15, Option 4: July 15-22; DPW Intensive—June 24-July 1
Location: Durham, NC
Fees/cost: $875
Special requirements/prerequisites: Undergraduate degree or 5 years of professional experience
Registration deadline: None
Description: The DPW Dance Sampler allows you to choose the dates you would like to attend ADF in a self-guided exploration of Six Week School classes and performances. The DPW Intensive is a nine-day workshop that provides the opportunity to take classes specifically designed for dance practitioners and educators.
Contact: 919.684.6402; school@americandancefestival.org; americandancefestival.org; American Dance Festival, Box 90772, Durham, NC 27708

Ballet Magnificat! Teachers Workshop
Sponsoring or producing organization: Ballet Magnificat!
Dates: July 14-22 or July 14-28
Location: Jackson, MS
Fees/cost: 1 week, $757; 2 weeks, $1,222
Special requirements/prerequisites: Teachers 18 or older
Registration deadline: May 18
Description: Teachers from across the world come for training and development classes with our professionals. Our format allows teachers from a variety of backgrounds to come together to learn, be refreshed in the Lord, and share ideas.
Contact: 601.977.1001; bmag.workshop@balletmagnificat.com; balletmagnificat.com; 5406 I-55 North, Jackson, MS 39211

Cecchetti USA International Summer School
Sponsoring or producing organization: Cecchetti USA
Dates: August 5-11
Location: University of California–Santa Barbara
Fees/cost: $675 tuition, $395 room and meals
Special requirements/prerequisites: All teachers welcome; need not be Cecchetti trained.
Registration deadline: July 1
Description: Classes for students and teachers cover Cecchetti Syllabus Grades 4-10 and Final Diploma. Teachers’ course covers Associate, Licentiate, Fellowship, anatomy and conditioning for dancers, and music.
Contact: 805.636.9444; pasdenise@aol.com; cecchettiusa.org; Judith Hawkesworth, 414 Greene St., Camden, SC 29020

CNADM Summer Dance Workshops/Training School & Convention
Sponsoring or producing organization: Chicago National Association of Dance Masters
Dates: July 16-19 (training school), July 20-23 (convention)
Location: DoubleTree Chicago, Oak Brook, IL
Fees/cost: Variable; housing not included
Special requirements/prerequisites: Ages 16 and up
Registration deadline: Early-bird registration ends June 15.
Description: World-class instruction with core classes in tap, jazz, ballet, and modern, with specialty classes in hip-hop, contemporary, and more. Training School classes focus on teaching skills. Convention is a continuing-education workshop serving the needs of professional dance educators. Concurrent tracks run for student instruction.
Contact: 815.397.6052; dance@cnadm.com; cnadm.com; Kathy Velasco, CNADM, 220 E. State St., Suite G, Rockford, IL 61104

Bill Evans Laban-Based Modern Dance Technique Intensive for Advanced Dancers and Dance Teachers|
Sponsoring or producing organization: Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth
Dates: June 22-July 27 
Location: Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX
Fees/cost: To be determined
Special requirements/prerequisites: None
Registration deadline: June 15
Description: All courses are integrated by principles and methods that support individual growth and regeneration. Evans Laban-Based Modern Dance Technique, Bartenieff Fundamentals/Somatics, pedagogy seminars, Laban Movement Analysis, Evans repertory. Faculty: Bill Evans, Don Halquist, Heather Acomb, and Jenny Showalter. For advanced modern dancers and established and emerging dance educators, including college dance education majors. 
Contact: 585.964.9196; billevansdance@hotmail.com; billevansdance.org; Bill Evans Dance Workshops, 6908 Benedict Beach, Hamlin, NY 14464

18th Annual Summer Dance Institute for Teachers
Sponsoring or producing organization: Creative Dance
Dates: July 9-13 (one-week refresher course) and July 16-27 (two-week foundational course)
Location: Creative Dance Center, Seattle, WA
Fees/cost: $500 (one week), $800 (two weeks)
Special requirements/prerequisites: See website
Registration deadline: See website.
Description: Directed by dance educator and author Anne Green Gilbert, the institute covers a variety of dance techniques, world dance, choreography, BrainDance, and the creative process, with takeaway conceptual lesson plans for different ages and settings and the chance to explore brain-compatible dance pedagogy and best practices.
Contact: 206.363.7281; info@creativedance.org; creativedance.org; Creative Dance Center, 12577 Densmore Ave. North, Seattle, WA 98133

Teacher Training and Certification Program
Sponsoring or producing organization: Dance Educators of America
Dates: June 25-30 and July 2-7
Location: New York, NY (June) and Las Vegas, NV (July)
Fees/cost: $1,200
Special requirements/prerequisites: None
Registration deadline: May 18
Description: In its 70th year, the DEA Teacher Training and Certification Program is a dynamic, multi-dimensional program of study, enhancing the knowledge and teaching techniques of all dance professionals, based on the “How-What-When-Why” of teaching.
Contact: 914.636.3200; dea@deadance.com; deadance.com; Dance Educators of America, P.O. Box 8607, Pelham, NY 10803

Teachers Training School
Sponsoring or producing organization: Dance Masters of America
Dates: July 22-26
Location: SUNY Buffalo, NY
Fees/cost: $475 ($400 for DMA members); dorm lodging (double occupancy) at $300 for six nights; three-meals-a-day plan for $260
Special requirements/prerequisites: Teachers must be at least 18 years old.
Registration deadline: May 1
Description: DMA’s Teachers Training School program provides a comprehensive curriculum, outstanding faculty, a unique focus on technique and teaching skills, and the nurturing of camaraderie among dance educators. This is a four-year graded intensive program that ends with a diploma and DMA certification after final exams, though many teachers opt to continue in our advanced curriculum program.
Contact: 718.225.4013; dmamann@aol.com; dma-national.org; 214-10 41st Ave., Bayside, NY 11361

Simonson Method of Teacher Training, Presented by Lynn Simonson
Sponsoring or producing organization: Dance New Amsterdam
Dates: June 1-28
Location: Dance New Amsterdam, New York, NY
Fees/cost: $1,250Special requirements/prerequisites: Completed application form and brief phone interview with Lynn Simonson
Registration deadline: Until full (tends to fill quickly)
Description: Participants learn to teach and communicate information regardless of the movement form they are teaching. The course is based on communication, verbal articulation, anatomy awareness, injury prevention, visual assessment of body alignment, rhythmic nuance in teaching and cueing, drum accompaniment, music choices and rhythms suitable for level taught, choreographic skills, and class structure.
Contact: sliggett@dnadance.org; dnadance.org; Sydnie Liggett, DNA education programs coordinator, Dance New Amsterdam, 280 Broadway, 2nd Fl., New York, NY 10007

Dance Teacher Web Conference & Expo
Sponsoring or producing organization: Dance Teacher Web.com
Dates: August 6-9
Location: Red Rock Resort, Las Vegas, NV
Fees/cost: $449 until March 15; $549 thereafter. Room rate $109.
Special requirements/prerequisites: For dance teachers, studio owners, administrative staff, college dance majors
Registration deadline: July 22
Description: Pick up choreography and teaching strategies; tips to make your students shine in the studio and at competitions; help with management and marketing issues; clues to developing financial, tax, and insurance plans and creating ads and brochures; and lots more.
Contact: 203.545.7167; steve@danceteacherweb.com; danceteacherexpo.com; Dance Teacher Web, 1580 Post Rd., Fairfield, CT 06824

Isadora Duncan Teacher Workshop
Sponsoring or producing organization: Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation
Dates: One-week sessions in June and August; see website for details.
Location: New York, NY
Fees/cost: $400 to $600; see website
Special requirements/prerequisites: An introductory course or its equivalent in Duncan technique
Registration deadline: See website.
Description: Workshops with Lori Belilove and Cherlyn Smith include daily classes in Isadora Duncan dance technique and repertory, field trips to museums, viewing of rare Duncan video, discussion, networking, and tunic-making.
Contact: 212.691.5040; info@isadoraduncan.org; isadoraduncan.org; 141 W. 26th St., 3rd Fl., New York, NY 10001

Bill Evans Dance Teachers’ Intensive:
Developing a Personal Pedagogy of Dance Technique
Sponsoring or producing organization: Bill Evans Dance Company and Department of Dance, The College at Brockport, SUNY
Dates: June 24-July 7
Location: Brockport, NY
Fees/cost: $850, two weeks/$550, one week; single room, $500/$250; double room, $280/$140
Special requirements/prerequisites: None
Registration deadline: May 31
Description: All courses are integrated by principles and methods that support individual growth and regeneration. Modern dance, ballet, Bartenieff Fundamentals/Somatics/Feldenkrais, hands-on teaching labs, pedagogy seminars, Laban Movement Analysis, improvisation/composition. Faculty: Bill Evans, Don Halquist, Kitty Daniels, Debra Knapp, Suzie Lundgren. For established and emerging dance educators, including college dance education majors.
Contact: 585.964.9196; billevansdance@hotmail.com; billevansdance.org; Bill Evans Dance Workshops, 6908 Benedict Beach, Hamlin, NY 14464

Finis Jhung Teacher & Adult Student Workshop
Sponsoring or producing organizations: Finis Jhung and The Ailey Extension
Dates: August 11-12
Location: The Ailey Studios, New York, NY
Fees/cost: $375 until May 1; $425 thereafter
Special requirements/prerequisites: Teacher or advanced-beginner adult student
Registration deadline: August 10
Description: Whether you’re a teacher or an adult student with a passion to learn more about ballet technique, this 10-hour weekend workshop will turn mystery into mastery. Learn the “untaught” preparations that can make a world of difference for you and your students. Teach and do what really matters. Bring your dance clothes so you can take class, or sit and observe.
Contact: 800.357.3525; finis@finisjhung.com; finisjhung.com; Ballet Dynamics/Finis Jhung, 119 W. 72nd St., PMB 353, New York, NY 10023

Module Certification Program in Laban Movement Analysis
Sponsoring or producing organization: Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies
Dates: June 4-June 21 for each of two modules
Location: New York, NY
Fees/cost (per module): $3,250. Application fee: $225
Special requirements/prerequisites: Introduction to Laban Movement Analysis (15 hrs.), Introduction to Bartenieff Fundamentals (15 hrs.), Introduction to Anatomy & Kinesiology (20 hrs.), completed application, and interview
Registration deadline: May 25
Description:
Module I: Immersion
You will become acquainted with the fundamental categories of the Laban system, explore your movement possibilities according to your own body uniqueness and begin perceiving the power of Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) as applied to your field of interest. Classes include theory and movement experientials and are accessible to students from all disciplines. This course serves as the first of four Modules within the LIMS® Certification Program in Laban Movement Studies, which awards the Certified Movement Analyst (CMA) title.
Module II: Concentration
Students will be immersed in LMA Theory, Bartenieff Fundamentals, Movement Observation, and Seminar in LMA history and application. This course is meant for students who have successfully completed Module I. Students will subsequently need to complete Module III and IV and a Final Certification Project before receiving the title of CMA.
Contact: 212.643.8888; info@limsonline.org; limsonline.org; 520 Eighth Ave., Suite 304, 3rd Fl., New York, NY 10018

Leap ’N Learn Teacher Workshop
Sponsoring or producing organization: Leap ’N Learn
Dates: August 2-5
Location: Lafayette, LA
Fees/cost: See website.
Special requirements/prerequisites: None
Registration deadline: See website.
Description: Dr. Annie Spell and Beverly Spell will share an in-depth examination of the learning process of 3- to 12-year-olds as well as creative movement ideas, stress management, and assertiveness training, with discounts on Leap ’N Learn products.
Contact: 888.211.5180; Beverly@leapnlearn.com; leapnlearn.com; Beverly Spell, P.O. Box 474, Milton, LA 70558  

Summer Workshops: Teaching Contemporary Limón
Sponsoring or producing organization: Limón Institute
Dates (Swiss session): July 30-August 10
Location: Bern, Switzerland
Dates (U.S. session): August 13-24
Location: New York, NY
Fees/cost: TBA
Special requirements/prerequisites: Designed for dance teachers already teaching Limón-based classes or interested in doing so.
Registration deadline: None
Description: This workshop examines the use of Humphrey/Limón principles in contemporary dance training. The program includes daily technique classes, phrases from repertory (contemporary and classic), exploration of the underlying principles, the use of rhythm and music in Limón classes, and a chance to present class materials and contemporary dance phrases based on Limón principles.
Contact: 212.777.3353; summer@limon.org; limon.org; 307 W. 38th St., Suite 1105, New York, NY 10018

PeffPointe Teacher Training 2012
Sponsoring or producing organization: Mme Peff Modelski
Dates: June 22-24
Location: Visceral Dance Center, Chicago, IL
Fees/cost: $375
Special requirements/prerequisites: None
Registration deadline: March 15
Description: Ballet-based dance teacher training intensive. While focusing on maintaining balance as a constant action, the main themes are pointe work, extensions, and jumping. We will renew, refresh, and revitalize the perception of how the terminology works when interpreted daily in the studio as action. Fun, easy, interesting.
Contact: 630.730.8737; peffdance@aol.com; movementprocessforliving.com; Mme Peff Modelski, 351 W. 55th St. #104, Clarendon Hills, IL 60514-1785

Dance Education Laboratory June Intensive: Dance Improvisations and Explorations for Middle and High School
Sponsoring or producing organization: 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center
Dates: June 11-14 and June 16-17
Location: 92nd Street Y, New York, NY
Fees/cost: $375 until June 4, $400 thereafter  
Special requirements/prerequisites: None
Registration deadline: June 8
Description: Learn how to provide clear and stimulating instruction in dance exploration, improvisation, and composition. Empower your students’ artistic voice and choreographic decision-making. With Randi Sloan, MFA.
Contact: 212.415.5500; dance@92Y.org; 92Y.org/del; 92nd Street Y Dance Education Laboratory, 1395 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10128

DEL Summer Institute: Full-Day Intensive—92Y WonderDance Teacher Training: A New Early Childhood Dance Education
Sponsoring or producing organization: 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center
Dates: July 9-13
Location: 92nd Street Y, New York, NY
Fees/cost: $550 until July 2, $575 thereafter
Special requirements/prerequisites: None
Registration deadline: July 6
Description: The curriculum encourages learning through play, providing a stimulating, multi-sensory, and nurturing community for diverse young learners to discover their innate movement capacity. Become a WonderDance educator and help children develop self-awareness, kinesthetic understanding, self-confidence, and the joyful expression of their dancing heart and mind. With Ann Biddle, MA, and Deborah Damast, MA.
Contact: See previous entry.

DEL Summer Institute: Full Day Intensive—Language of Dance Fundamentals (Module 1, Part 2)
Sponsoring or producing organization: 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center
Dates: July 16-20
Location: 92nd Street Y, New York, NY
Fees/cost: $550 until July 9, $575 thereafter
Special requirements/prerequisites: Language of Dance Fundamentals, Module 1, Part 1
Registration deadline: July 13
Description: Explore and apply the Language of Dance (LOD) approach to dance education and movement practices that promote dance literacy and holistic learning. Investigate the LOD Movement Alphabet to experience and integrate Motif Notation in dance practices. Successful completion of this course leads to Language of Dance Fundamentals, Module 1 Certification. With Tina Curran, MFA, EdD, and Susan Gingrasso, MA, CMA.
Contact: See previous entry.

DEL Summer Institute: Morning Workshop—Constructivist Play in the Dance Class
Sponsoring or producing organization: 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center
Dates: July 23-27
Location: 92nd Street Y, New York, NY
Fees/cost: $185 until July 16, $200 thereafter
Special requirements/prerequisites: None
Registration deadline: July 20
Description: Constructivist dancemaking strategies demand creative higher-order thinking and a strong sense of personal commitment and engagement. Constructivist play in the dance class celebrates child-centered instruction, supports collaborative problem solving and risk taking, and gives dance teachers a unique perspective on their students. Develop innovative strategies for observation, analysis, and assessment. With Mila Parris, PhD.
Contact: See previous entry.

DEL Summer Institute: Afternoon Workshop—Dance Education and Technology
Sponsoring or producing organization: 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center
Dates: July 23-27
Location: 92nd Street Y, New York
Fees/cost: $375 until July 16, $400 thereafter
Special requirements/prerequisites: Laptops with iMovie, Audacity, and Photoshop Elements required.
Registration deadline: July 20
Description: Explore strategies to bridge technology and dance education. Investigate the creative processes enabled by new technology. Integrate dance technology into your classroom to redefine and transform the way you teach and learn about dance. No previous experience with technology is necessary.
Contact: See previous entry.

12th Annual Teacher Workshop
Sponsoring or producing organization: The Pulse on Tour and Broadway Dance Center
Dates: July 13-15
Location: Sheraton NY Hotel, New York, NY
Fees/cost: $390 through May 13, $400 thereafter
Special requirements/prerequisites: For studio owners, teachers, and assistants 18 and older
Registration deadline: June 6
Description: More than 50 classes in all styles of dance, taught by the Pulse faculty, Broadway Dance Center master faculty, guests, and industry specialists. Seminars for studio owners cover studio PR, website tips, business strategies, pre-dance ideas, increasing revenue in today’s economy, recital suggestions, retail training, and more.
Contact: 877-PULSE-01; info@thepulseontour.com; thepulseontour.com; The Pulse on Tour, 347 W. 36th St., Suite 1501, New York, NY 10018

Teacher Training Workshop
Sponsoring or producing organization: James Robey Jazz Dance Technique & Syllabus
Dates: July 16-20
Location: Ridgefield Conservatory of Dance, Ridgefield, CT
Fees/cost: Module fee only: $695. Module fee with syllabus (all 6 levels): $1,095. Discounted accommodations available at the West Lane Inn, Ridgefield.
Special requirements/prerequisites: None
Registration deadline: June 1
Description: Teacher Training Workshops provide a comprehensive, tactile experience of the Jazz Dance Technique & Syllabus™. Teachers learn the tools and techniques to pass on the exercises to their students in a stress-free environment with hands-on, in-depth explanations. Teachers electing to complete all three modules receive official certification.
Contact: jamesrobeydance@me.com; robeyjazzdance.com; James Robey, P.O. Box 615, Ridgefield, CT 06877 

Bill Evans Modern Dance Teachers’ Intensive
Sponsoring or producing organization: Saint Mary’s College of California
Dates: July 14-19
Location: Moraga, CA
Fees/cost: TBA
Special requirements/prerequisites: None
Registration deadline: June 15
Description: All courses are integrated by principles and methods that support individual growth and regeneration. Modern dance, rhythm tap, Bartenieff Fundamentals/Somatics, pedagogy seminars, Laban Movement Analysis, improvisation/composition. Faculty: Bill Evans, Don Halquist, Heather Acomb, Jenny Showalter. For established and emerging dance educators, including college dance education majors, and advanced modern dancers.  
Contact: 585.964.9196; billevansdance@hotmail.com; billevansdance.org; Bill Evans Dance Workshops, 6908 Benedict Beach, Hamlin, NY 14464

New program, new studio, big plans at UCM

By Marlise A. Cole

Many institutions of higher education are suffering painful cuts in their arts programs, but that’s not the case at the University of Central Missouri (UCM). The 11,000-student public university in Warrensburg, Missouri (about 50 miles from Kansas City), boasts a brand-new dance program and an $80,000 state-of-the-art dance studio.

Those changes became possible when dance moved out of the physical education department and was placed in the hands of Dr. Richard Herman, UCM’s Theatre and Dance Department chair, and Ashley Miller, assistant professor of dance.

According to Herman, UCM’s physical education (PE) program included classes in ballet, modern, and jazz, plus the more recreational folk and square dancing. “We always wanted to have dance as part of the theater program,” he says. But it didn’t happen until “recently, when PE faculty retired and the new PE regime was willing to release dance to the theater department.”

Ashley Miller teaches tap in UMC’s new dance studio, The school spent $80,000 to accommodate the dance program’s needs. (Photo by Joseph Drobesko II)

When that happened, in 2009, the theater department deleted the existing dance curriculum and hired Miller, fresh from graduate school, as assistant professor of dance. (She earned a BA in performing arts with a dance emphasis at Iowa State University and an MFA in dance at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.)

“I have always had a love for musicals and musical-theater dance,” says Miller, who has been involved in musicals since she was in junior high school. As an undergraduate she served as dance captain and assistant choreographer, and in graduate school she choreographed an original musical, Greek Row Tragedy. “The more I work on musicals, the more I fall in love with them,” she says. “The big draw of working at UCM was the new musical-theater degree and the opportunity to choreograph their musicals every year.”

After looking at other musical-theater and dance programs as examples in developing UCM’s degree requirements and curriculum, Miller designed a new dance curriculum of 10 courses: two levels each of ballet, tap, jazz, and modern (ballet and modern in alternate semesters; Miller hopes to add a third level of classes in each genre), musical-theater dance, and choreography. Professional Practice courses allow students to do independent study in technique or choreography.

The sole dance instructor, Miller also choreographs for theater productions and directs the spring dance concert. “The first year we did the spring dance concert we incorporated all of the dance classes—jazz, tap, ballet, modern—into the show in order to include as many students as possible,” she says. “This year and last year we auditioned dancers and choreographers for the show and have made it an evening of contemporary dance. All of the dances are conceptual and held to a professional level.”

Miller’s expectations of her students are high. “I expect nothing less than their best,” she says. “The students who are in the musicals are encouraged to enroll in dance classes because I choreograph what I want and the movement can be challenging and complex. It is sometimes over the actor/dancers’ ability, but I push them to master it. And they do. I think they sometimes surprise themselves.”

She says that having dance at UCM has “brought a wider range of performance opportunities to the theater department. In October 2010 we did A Chorus Line and in October 2011, Oklahoma! Before the addition of the dance program, they would have avoided dance musicals, or if they did tackle one, they would have had to get additional support like hiring a student to choreograph.”

A nurturing environment
Miller says dance is well supported at UCM and attributes that to the fact that the university recognizes the arts as a huge part of its growth. “My colleagues have been great,” she says. “Anything I want to do, the dean [Dr. Gersham Nelson] says go for it. He let me customize the dance studio to be best for our needs and purposes.”

Nelson, dean of UCM’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, says that theater at UCM “is an integral [part] of the larger community. Over the years it has reached out into the Warrensburg and surrounding communities to provide theatrical experiences for young and old alike. Its summer Children’s Theatre is taken on the road to neighboring communities, earning the respect and support of individuals in the region.”

And the department is growing. “From 2000 to 2011 we increased our majors by 58 percent, our faculty and staff by 55 percent, and our production schedule has grown from four mainstage productions to five mainstage productions and a dance concert,” says Herman. “The university has a real interest in programs becoming nationally recognized. Our theater program is one of the top theater programs in the state.” The program and its students have won the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival’s Alcone Makeup Design Award and four national awards from the festival.

On Miller’s wish list is making all the dance classes a full semester long rather than eight weeks, “which is comparable to other university dance course offerings and needed for proper technical training,” she says. “We’ve also talked about adding another dance faculty or adjunct so we can add more courses to the curriculum and create a dance minor. Students are constantly asking me when a dance minor will be available.”

Establishing a BFA degree program is another step toward excellence—and to do it, says Herman, “we needed the dance [component].” The BFA program will begin in fall 2012, says Miller, who helped develop its dance requirements. She is in charge of recruiting and advising the BFA students and will choreograph their musicals.

Reallocation of finances from another department provided enough funding to build a dance studio. (Before that, Miller and her students were relegated to the carpeted lobby of the theater.) “The powers that be didn’t say, ‘You have x amount of dollars; do what you can with it,’ ” Herman says. “They said, ‘What do you need?’ and ‘We’ll make it happen.’ What we needed turned out to cost $80,000, and we got it.”

Construction of the roughly 2,500-square-foot studio, which is connected to the theater building, included converting two classrooms into a space suited for dance and bringing in new technology. “It’s an awesome space because it’s as big as the stage of the Highlander Theatre, our main performance space,” Miller says. “We got a brand-new sound system and we are even able to play videos.” A computer, projector, screen, and white board were all left in the space, and Miller uses them when lecturing.

“The movement can be challenging and complex. It is sometimes over the actor/dancers’ ability, but I push them to master it. And they do. I think they sometimes surprise themselves.” —Ashley Miller, UCM assistant professor of dance

The department hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony on March 12, 2011, the night of their 2011 Spring Dance Concert, at which two dance classes performed for an audience that included the university provost and the dean.

Collaboration
Although Miller is the only member of the dance faculty, she says she doesn’t feel like an outsider in the theater department. “We have made tremendous strides in the two years since the dance [program] was added,” she says. “My colleagues in the theater department are very supportive and listen to my needs.”

Still, she has endured some growing pains, she says, “like figuring out how to add another show to our season—we now have six shows a year compared to five—and developing our dance costume stock—we had nothing.” Other challenges included finding adequate rehearsal space for dance concerts and getting the theater department used to the rehearsal process for dance shows—“much different than a typical play or musical,” she says. “But it always comes out where everybody is happy.”

According to Miller, UCM has 120 theater majors, who are allowed to take nine credits in a collateral field. With dance now an option, the majority of the theater majors (many of whom had never studied dance) have chosen it as their collateral field, Miller says. “They recognize that this new skill set can benefit them as performers or directors, and they acknowledge the importance of having a basic understanding of dance and choreography.”

To accommodate the new dance component, the theater department did some rescheduling and purchased new equipment. “My colleagues realized that creating choreography can be a longer process than [producing] a typical play,” Miller says, so dance auditions are now held in the fall instead of at the beginning of the following year, giving her enough time to prepare for the spring show. And since a dance production had never been done on the Highlander stage, additional lighting equipment and a marley floor were purchased.

A bright future
For now, dance remains a component of UCM’s musical-theater program, but dance degrees are a goal for the future. “Once the BFA in musical theater gets going in the fall of 2012, we will work to create a dance minor and eventually a dance degree,” Miller says. “I would like to have a minor in place within two years.”

Another goal within the next couple of years is to hire an additional faculty member. “Our classes are full,” she says, “and if we had more teachers we could offer more sections [in each genre]. We could still use the one space; we’d just add more dance courses and a wider variety of classes taught throughout the day.”

In fall 2011 the dance department created the University of Central Missouri Dance Company, which is open to any UCM student and has about 30 members, according to Miller, who is the faculty advisor.

“The purpose of the company is to show the artistic and technical aspects of dancing and choreography to the UCM campus and Warrensburg community as well as support theater and dance concerts,” Miller says. “It creates interest and stimulates creativity and fosters achievement in all the arts.”

Campus performances will promote shows, and workshops at high schools and community colleges will encourage students to attend UCM.

“The students have been ecstatic about the new dance program,” says Nelson, citing such evidence as large numbers signing up for dance courses, well-received performances, and praise in the campus paper. “The success at this early stage in the life of this dance program is tremendous.”

Lawyers, ER workers, bankers, and secretaries all dance their way into Kat Wildish’s Performing in New York Showcases. (Photos by Arthur Coopchik)

Kat Wildish on workshops for adults

By Joshua Bartlett

“Good luck, dancers!” shouts Kat Wildish. After teaching her adult ballet students a tricky relevé/piqué combination for their upcoming November showcase, she knows they need a little encouragement. At The Joan Weill Center for Dance, passing New Yorkers look through the floor-to-ceiling windows into a spacious ground-floor studio where Wildish is teaching a modified version of the Tarantella section of the ballet Etudes. Some of the dancers get it immediately; others look a little bewildered. “You’d better be good. The cab drivers are watching,” she adds for good measure.

Wildish has earned a reputation for producing inventive showcases that feature her adult ballet students who want to participate. Most of her dancers are age 23 and older and many started ballet as adults. Every August—and on Thanksgiving weekend and in March—she produces her Performing in New York Showcase, which presents her students and dancers from other classes at The Ailey Extension, as well as various dance studios around New York.

Her imagination and experience have also dictated how to produce an inventive summer intensive program that culminates with a well-drilled showcase. “Each workshop takes on its own life,” says Wildish. “In the spring I begin to develop the summer curriculum to educate the adult dancers about these ballets from the inside—a dancer view—and not just the outside view as an audience member, which they know very well. We do take into account what moves the audience and how we can create that onstage as dancers.”

In her ballet classes she works on steps from the choreography and alters them to suit the dancers’ ability. “We talk about that because it’s important that they look good and feel confident while performing,” she says. “They don’t need to be disabled by steps that can easily be adjusted—as choreography has been through the ages.”

Wildish is like a clever chef who uses the mishmash of ingredients in her refrigerator to whip up an enticing meal. She knows what she has and uses it to her advantage. “One of my first pieces had 50 people in it,” she says. “I had to figure out what to do with 50 people.”

Her summer showcase originally intended to feature 38 students dancing corps de ballet excerpts from Swan Lake, Act 2. But Hurricane Irene dampened their plans and reduced the corps to 28 for the rescheduled August 31 show and 27 for the September 1 show—plus one prince. “Most big ballet companies have 32 swans,” explains Wildish. “I have several men, so we made the men black swans. They all had feathers in their hair.” (You can see a video of that Swan Lake on her Facebook page or at vimeo.com.)

Since the showcase was formed in 2008, performances have included corps de ballet excerpts from Napoli, La Bayadère, and Le Corsaire. “When I structure for ballet performances, I want real ballet-type things,” she says in a throaty tone that sounds more like it belongs to a seasoned rock star than a ballet teacher. One show included a segment from Rodeo with original choreography by former New York City Ballet dancer Gloria Govrin. Another featured the women in cocktail dresses and heels gliding around to the “Dance of the Knights” from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. “They marched with a champagne glass. It was a drill-team-timing thing,” says Wildish.

Taylor Gordon, Wildish’s rehearsal assistant and a professional freelance dancer, says the secret to her performance successes is that she puts together pieces from much of the traditional repertoire she has danced over the years, and then some. “She mixes it up,” says Gordon. “Classical rep—that is her thing. She is a ballet teacher. She knows her stuff and diversifies.”

But Wildish also knew from the beginning how tough it would be to produce showcases that feature only adult ballet students. “My thoughts were always, ‘Let’s bring in the jazz and hip-hop people and put together a program with everyone on faculty,’ ” she says. Over time, she has added African dance, tap, belly dancing, ballroom, and liturgical dance pieces.

Wildish attends performances around New York regularly to scout out choreographers. “I invite choreographers from all over the city—the people I know,” she says. “Very few teachers and choreographers want to work with adults.” But she finds them.

She wisely recognized that street hip-hop dancers don’t often have the opportunity to perform onstage. So she has invited hip-hop choreographers like Pavan Thimmaiah, who was in the studio across the hall whipping up a routine to Chris Brown’s “I Can Transform Ya,” blasting through the loudspeakers.

Her motto for the showcases could best be summed up as “whoever is taking class and wants to perform gets to.” The summer 2011 showcase featured a cast of 198 dancers.

“When you offer a workshop, you can’t discriminate,” says Wildish. “It doesn’t matter what their skill level is. We all learn. I try not to discriminate about who is good and is bad.”

The deal with her students is this: each student pays $20, which goes toward the theater rental and also covers 12 rehearsal sessions, three performances, company warm-ups, and tech rehearsals.

Wildish’s students include lawyers, ER workers, bankers, secretaries, and other New York professionals. Adults enrolled in the full Ailey Extension summer intensive take 10 classes a week of their choice, including pointe and cross-training classes like power yoga. They rehearse the chosen ballet on Monday and Wednesday nights and Saturday afternoons for three weeks. During the rehearsals, they explore the history of the ballet and view various videos of the piece with question and answer sessions. Anyone who misses a rehearsal is responsible for learning the material. “The fact that they show up for rehearsal after working 10- to 12-hour days is an amazing thing to me,” Wildish says.

She also makes sure they understand terms like “upstage” and “stage right,” how to avoid scrims, wings, and shin-busting light booms. They discuss hair and makeup whys and why nots (no glitter!) and the psychological aspects, such as fear and excitement about the performance.

After the spring performances, Wildish usually takes a holiday to focus on the upcoming summer intensive and to decide which ballet to set. “I prefer to do excerpts from the big white ballets to feature them all working as a group,” she says. “Well, this summer was a no-brainer with all the hoopla over the Black Swan movie. Also all the major companies here and abroad had Swan Lake in their rep, so everyone was excited to learn more about it and take part.”

When Wildish was a child, she claims, she was “uncoordinated and not the greatest dance specimen.” Her first dance teacher, Anzia Arsenault in Tampa, Florida, encouraged her to take all classes, including the adult beginner classes. Wildish would often demonstrate for both “baby” and adult classes, and sometimes, as a teenager, would teach the adults.

“You can’t fool the adults; they are not like children,” she says. “You can’t just say, ‘Do it because I say so.’ They want to know why they have to do this.” She took the time to research anatomy, finding out how core muscles worked and how muscles like the iliopsoas and the quadriceps affect extension.

“Each time I watch this come together at the opening performance, I have tears in my eyes because it’s all the work they have done as adults. Some of them have fears of being onstage or of remembering the steps. You feel for them. You are proud of them.” —Kat Wildish

Her first dancing job was with Louisville Ballet, which received grants through CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, established in 1973). With grant money paid to Louisville Ballet, she and two or three other company dancers introduced dance classes and lecture-demonstrations to schools, jails, hospitals, and nursing homes.

Wildish saved her money, came to New York and was given a full scholarship to the School of American Ballet during George Balanchine’s last years. Professionally, she danced with Eglevsky Ballet, then directed by Edward Villella, and Metropolitan Opera Ballet.

But she has always taught. “Through high school and between jobs during my dance career I taught because it was extra money and it was a great passion,” she says. “The more I taught, the more I learned about teaching. Now I’ve been teaching almost 37 years. I adore teaching the adults and I’m really rather an expert on it because I don’t treat them like children.”

When Wildish speaks, her eyes pop with an intensity that gives credence to her last name. Her energy never seems to flag—she’s like Joan of Arc on a mission for adult ballet students. She eventually established a big following at Broadway Dance Center on West 57th Street, but BDC lost its lease in 2006 and had to close abruptly. It rented studios elsewhere, but they would hold only 30 people. And Wildish’s classes were huge.

“That meant 20 of my people didn’t get into class every time,” says Wildish. “One of my students said, ‘If I come one more time and can’t get in, I’m not coming back.’ So I went to Ailey and said, ‘Here is my problem. Until Broadway Dance gets their new space built, I will lose my following. Could I please move my classes over here?’ ”

Reluctantly the Ailey people said yes. “I told them, ‘I will show you how the Ailey Extension can grow like you’ve never thought.’ Sure enough, I registered 2,000 people in two weeks—new people that had never registered! [The Ailey people] thought the golden girl had just walked in the door,” she says with a bellowing laugh.

While teaching at Broadway Dance Center, Wildish began producing student showcases for performance at Martin Luther King, Jr. High School near Lincoln Center. Since joining the faculty of The Ailey Extension, whose tagline is “real classes for real people” and is open to students ages 16 and up, Wildish uses Ailey Citigroup Theater for her showcases. (She initially rented an Ailey double-wide studio, but when 300 audience members showed up, it was considered a fire hazard.)

Her approach to casting is as democratic as you can get: anyone who shows up gets to be a swan, a wili, or a courtier.

“I think she believes in everybody,” says Dara Jenel, who started training with Wildish in July and performed in Swan Lake during the summer Performing in New York showcase. “There was someone who had never taken a dance class—just walked in off the street and had no idea of the terminology. [Wildish is] patient and encouraging for people who have no experience. For people who know a little bit more, she will say, ‘You need to do this.’ She has a good balance. She’s tough on us when she needs to be but encouraging when we need it as well.”

Evgenia Ilienko, who does the costumes for Wildish’s showcases, was not accepted into ballet classes as a child in the Czech Republic because she was too tall. She later took adult ballet classes in Prague and began studying with Wildish when she came to the United States three years ago. “I learned technique before, but I really feel like Kat has the power to make you a dancer,” she says. “It’s a great experience to be onstage. For some, that’s the only chance they’ll have to perform. I love it because I feel like what I learn in a classroom I can apply to my dance performances.”

Wildish says she has learned how to teach from her students. “As an adult we all have established the way we learn things,” she says. “Some are visual, some learn by touch, some by hearing. I have a blind woman who learns from hearing my voice and by my touching her. Some people need to go over and over something to learn it; some people can grasp it right away. All of that needs to be nurtured in adult classes. These people are professionals in their own right. They have experienced life in their own way—ups, downs, and traumas that affect their bodies in different ways.”

As an example, she points out tension in the back that prevents some students from doing a proper cambré. “Yet you can show them how a forward bend is going to help them backbend. As a teacher, you must be open to different ways people learn. These are not disabilities; they are actually assets.”

Curtis Etheridge, now 53 (one of the black swans in Swan Lake), had studied at the Ailey school in 1984 and came back to it because of Wildish. “I had stopped dancing just to survive, by getting regular jobs here and there, but dance has always been close to my heart,” he says. “I wanted to dance in the Performing in New York Showcase because it allows me to continue the experience of performing onstage without having to audition. I hate auditions.”

Wildish never tires of coaching her adults for a show. “Each time I watch this come together at the opening performance, I have tears in my eyes because it’s all the work they have done as adults,” she says. “Some of them have fears of being onstage or of remembering the steps. You feel for them. You are proud of them.

“Some don’t get the steps and they know it,” she continues. “Maybe their foot isn’t pointed or leg straight but they are doing their very best. They just love performing for sold-out audiences. The energy in the building is amazing.”

Teacher training homes in on discipline, musicality, and artistry

By Roxanne Claire

Just as dancers need to continue to train as long as they’re dancing, teachers need to take time to learn new, fresh ways of approaching both students and material. Last year I did just that by participating in American Ballet Theatre’s Teacher Training Intensive.

I walked into the large fourth-floor studio at ABT with some trepidation. I had no idea what to expect. I was surprised to see so many people, every one of them (50 or so) moving like a dancer. At the back of the room were two tables of coffee, fruit, and—what else?—bagels. We were in New York, after all.

I was there to take the Primary–Level 3 Intensive, the first of three teacher-training segments. If I passed this first segment, I would qualify not only to advertise myself as an ABT-certified teacher and present my students for exams, but to take the two subsequent sections, Levels 4–5 and Levels 6, 7, and Partnering.

I’m cradling a large three-ring binder I had picked up in the hallway outside the offices and take a quick look inside. In addition to detailed descriptions of the curriculum, there are handouts on dance medicine, physical therapy, nutrition, and child development.

The first seven days of the eight-day program are packed with lectures, observation classes, and participant presentations. (The last day is reserved for written and oral exams.) Jenna Bitterman, the program’s national training curriculum manager, steps to the front of the room. After a warm welcome and a brief orientation, she turns the proceedings over to Raymond Lukens and Franco De Vita, co-authors of the curriculum.

De Vita, principal of ABT’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, and Lukens, an instructor at JKO and artistic associate for the ABT/NYU master’s program in ballet pedagogy, are longtime colleagues with many years of experience in teaching ballet. Their love for the art, and for teaching, is evident not only in their passionate involvement in the intensive but in the curriculum itself. It’s obvious that an enormous amount of work has gone into the analysis of every step and exercise, sometimes reaching back into history to understand the development of a particular movement.

De Vita and Lukens speak with quiet authority on the various schools of ballet—Bournonville, Vaganova, RAD, Cecchetti, French, Italian. They, in collaboration with members of an advisory board (which included ABT artistic director Kevin McKenzie and JKO faculty member Lupe Serrano, a former ABT prima ballerina), have synthesized the many approaches into one cohesive, coherent set of principles and guidelines.

The curriculum
Over the next week, De Vita, Lukens, and BalletMet Academy director Susan Brooker share not merely a system of ballet education, but a pedagogical philosophy seasoned with humor and vivid teaching techniques. “When you love the taste of something,” says Lukens, demonstrating a port de bras, “you want to keep the taste in your mouth as long as possible. Savor the end of your exercise.” He slowly lowers his arms to fifth position en bas and smiles. “Deli-cious!” (One unusual aspect of the curriculum is the renaming, at least for this RAD-trained dancer, of some positions of the arms. What I know as “low first” becomes in the curriculum “fifth en bas.”)

The intensive begins with an overview of what Lukens and De Vita call the Ten Principles. Underlying the curriculum is an emphasis on working with the natural structure of the body. Line, weight, and coordination all flow from this basic idea. Coupled with the focus on anatomy is a respect for both safety and age appropriateness.

“We noticed,” says Lukens, “that all major ballet institutions go slowly at the beginning.” For this reason, placement and the careful progression of movements form the core of early training. In the three years it takes to complete Primary, for instance, children ages 5 to 7 perform all movements either in the center or across the floor, not at the barre. Similarly, Level 1 students spend a year learning the placement of coup-de-pied, moving on to frappé only in Level 2. Much of the intensive, then, focuses on breaking a step or position down to its basic elements and identifying when and how to teach those elements.

This idea is perhaps the single most important aspect of teaching I learned at the intensive. Other things I was eager to use right away were preparations for pas de chat and polka, which broke down the steps into clearly defined positions and, for the polka, presented them in image-rich form. “Imagine you are making the letters A, I, A, P,” says Lukens, illustrating his contention that young children must be taught in terms of shape, not position.

What to expect
The intensives are intense. I spent each day from 9 to 5, usually with only an hour for lunch, listening to presentations or watching a class and taking notes. Every level is covered thoroughly. It is presented first in lecture form; then participants watch an ABT instructor lead a group of children through the material. Next, an ABT instructor leads participants through a class. (Participants have the option of observing instead. I found it most helpful to stand at the back of the room, marking the exercise and then making rapid notes.)

Participants are required to spend the evening making up their own enchaînement or exercise to demonstrate that they have grasped the theory and outline of the material. In order to make the best use of each teacher’s creativity, there are no set exercises in the ABT curriculum as there are in other systems of ballet instruction. Instead, teachers create their own exercises, following the principles of movement and the material assigned to each level.

Each participant then presents his or her assignment to the group and one of the program’s instructors and receives feedback from both the instructor and other group members. Finally, the material is reviewed and groundwork is laid to progress to the next level. Each level is distinguished by its approach as well as the material to be covered. At the lower levels, for example, each exercise includes only one movement. A cou-de-pied exercise consists of placing the foot on the ankle and then returning it to the floor. A higher-level class will combine this with another movement, a frappé, for example. At another level, this will be combined with a change of foot or change of timing for a longer, more complex exercise. This sequence is repeated for each of the four levels covered in the Primary to Level 3 Intensive. Time is reserved on the next-to-last day for review, in preparation for the written and oral exams the following day.

The examinations, though nerve-wracking (especially for those of us who have not taken any exams recently), are straightforward. In the oral presentation, I was asked to present an exercise for a given level. I was also asked to identify a common fault seen in dance students, along with my suggestions for how to correct this fault. Participants are also expected to give proper instruction to the accompanist. Even though many teachers don’t have the good fortune to have live music for classes, the ability to tell an accompanist what is wanted is part of the intensive’s training. Similarly, the curriculum stresses musicality in the students. Developing the ability to clap a 2/4 or perform an enchaînement while responding to the character of the music is included in every level of the curriculum.

In addition to outlining the material to be covered at every level, the program offers instruction on structuring class time (barre, center, and allegro) and the nature of the student–teacher relationship that is best suited to quality instruction.

A positive environment is crucial for quality instruction. One rule of thumb is the “three pluses,” three positive comments for every suggestion for improvement. “This, this, and this were good; what I’d also like to see is this” is an excellent way of creating in the student the ability to hear a correction without defensiveness. It is important for the teacher to remain an authority figure, however. Says Lukens, “Students have to fear the teacher a little.”

Structure also contributes to atmosphere. “You have to have ritual,” says Lukens. It puts students in the right state of mind, helping them focus better. One means of ritual is a consistent class format.

Another ritual that serves a dual purpose is the JKO tradition of starting classes with skipping. “We noticed that children no longer knew how to skip,” says De Vita. (Children today typically engage in fewer high-impact activities than previous generations did, which can lead to a negative effect on bone density.) An added advantage of using skipping to start the class is that children are immediately drawn into a state of classroom focus. Also, it is a graceful way of warming and loosening muscles, preparing them for class work.

The experience
It’s amazing how exhausting it is to listen so carefully and think so deeply. Still, I found the time and energy during my stay in New York to take part in the cultural life of the city. Too, it is energizing to be in an atmosphere of professionalism and learn an exciting new way of teaching students.

The program is longer and more expensive ($1,500 for Primary–Level 3; $1,300 for Levels 4–5 and Levels 6, 7 and Partnering, plus materials fees, travel, and living expenses) than other teacher trainings I have attended. However, I found it to be one of the most worthwhile. Well planned and presented by a dedicated and inspiring faculty, it reflects the same level of excellence as the curriculum.

A teacher, says Lukens, needs discipline, musicality, and artistry. The ABT program has all three.

If You Want to Go

• To apply, you need to submit a resume. In my intensive I met many professional dancers, some retired, some transitioning. Many participants, however, were longtime teachers. What ABT looks for is evidence of solid technique. You cannot teach what you do not know.
• For lodging, the ABT office provides a list of suggestions. There are many choices for a quick lunch nearby, including a Whole Foods. Transportation is readily available via a subway station a few blocks away.
• Do dress for movement. Even if you opt not to take the participant class, you will need to demonstrate your homework. And after sitting all morning, a few minutes of stretching can relieve an aching back.

To get what you need, you need to know what you want

By Sandi Duncan

How often do you take time out of your hectic teaching and business-owning schedule to think about what you really want in life? Do you even know what you like about your life? If you had to put down in writing what you wanted more of, could you do it? More important, would you do it?

Our wants and desires become buried in the hustle and bustle of planning classes, picking out costumes, creating choreography, working on budgets, and ensuring that our families are taken care of. We may become blind to the fact that we matter. We may convince ourselves that taking care of our needs is selfish. But if you take care of yourself first, you will have more to offer to everyone else.

How do you begin to explore what you want in life? First, you need to be open to the brainstorming process. Are you willing to become a student again, participating in three assignments that will challenge you to explore areas of your life that may have been neglected? You will tap into your inner-child artist and writer and let go of the feeling that you don’t deserve what you want in life. You’ll need to commit to “you” time on a daily basis.

An inspiring quote by Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho rings true to me: “Don’t let anyone make you feel like you don’t deserve what you want.” I would like to take it a step further: don’t give yourself permission to feel that way. Once you have decided that you and your aspirations and goals matter, you are ready to take steps toward living a more fulfilling life.

Journaling
Your first step is to take a trip to a bookstore and find a journal that catches your eye. Set aside a bit of journaling time each night before you go to bed. Let your imagination flow as you write down things you want and enjoy. They can be as simple as your favorite foods and clothing or as extravagant as a castle in Europe. Don’t limit your thoughts; let them flow freely.

Through this brainstorming process you may discover new likes and dislikes. Review what you have written at the end of each week. You will see that your thoughts change over time, but allowing yourself the freedom to explore is a great stress reliever. And since writing, even journaling and brainstorming, involves imagination, the process encourages you to be creative in a non-dance-related way. 

Dedicate a section of your journal as your “gratitude” pages. Each day, write down what you are thankful for. This will help shift any negative thoughts of the day toward a more positive energy, helping you to focus on the good things in your life.

Think about how often teachers focus on that one complaining or nagging parent in the studio who can cloud your entire day. If you release that negativity by appreciating the good part of the day, you’ll be less apt to replay that scenario over and over again in your head as you are trying to fall asleep.

Finding gratitude in each day will allow your thoughts to become more peaceful and calming, allowing for a better night’s sleep.

Creating your “100 list” 
Creating a 100 list can be one of the most empowering tools in discovering what you want out of life. This can be done in one sitting or it could be something you do over a period of a few weeks.

Your goal is to create a list of 100 things you want to accomplish, own, or do in your lifetime. Let your imagination run free. Don’t stop yourself from putting something on the list just because you think there is no way it could ever happen. If you want to do it, put it on the list. Sit back, close your eyes, and see where your thoughts lead you. Do you see yourself piloting a plane? Soaring over the Alps in a hot air balloon? Running a marathon? Having your own talk show? Owning a sports car? Finding more peace and joy? Having more family time? Writing a book? Worrying less over finances? Taking a trip to a deluxe spa and resort? Having more energy? Owning a waterfront home? Being financially independent? Put them on the list—all of them!

Once your list is complete, review each goal. Identify a time frame in which you think this goal could become a reality—a day, a week, a month, a year? Five years, or 10, or 25? Be realistic. The goal is to create new energy in your life, not set yourself up for disappointment.

Next, identify which goals you want to achieve within the next year. Set a clear and concise date for each one.

You can want things to happen, but unless you take action, your goals will just remain wishes. When you begin to act on your goals, you begin to feel empowered to move forward with your dreams and aspirations.

Now choose five goals that you intend to work on over the next month. Take a bit of time each night to set an action plan for each goal. You can want things to happen, but unless you take action, your goals will just remain wishes. When you begin to act on your goals, you begin to feel empowered to move forward with your dreams and aspirations.

Vision Board
Your final assignment is to create a vision board, an extension of your 100 list. You’ll put the goals that you have chosen to work on over the next month to a year on this board, which will be home to pictures that represent your goals and dreams.

This assignment is my favorite of the three because it allows us to go back in time to our childhood, playing with crayons, markers, glue, tape, and glitter. Creating your vision board is a form of play, which is a wonderful way to relax, meditate, and celebrate your goals.

Here’s what you will need:

• a large table or an open floor space
• time (2 or 3 hours)
• a huge assortment of magazines
• posterboard or a blank canvas
• paste or glue sticks
• scissors
• colored pencils and markers
• scrapbooking accessories (optional)

Begin by searching through magazines and cutting out pictures that reflect what you desire to have in your life. Do you want to travel? Find a picture of a place you want to visit and cut it out. If you want a new car, find a picture with the exact color and model of that car. Want more joy in your life? Find pictures of happy people.

Be specific in choosing the images that represent your goals. You will use the board as a daily reminder of what you want to accomplish.

Once you have chosen your pictures, look through the magazines for empowering words, phrases, statements, and quotes that will propel you to move forward in accomplishing these goals, such as “balance,” “peace,” “rest,” “relaxation,” “gratitude,” “take action,” “let’s travel,” “family fun,” “time to play,” “eat healthy,” and “optimal health.”

Now it’s time to create your masterpiece. As with your journaling and 100 list, there are no boundaries for your vision board. Let it reflect your personality, drive, dreams, and ambitions. Position your pictures in a manner that works for you, overlapping in a collage style or highlighting a picture that represents your most prominent goal. You may choose to categorize your pictures. Working on getting in shape? Create an area that is dedicated to exercise, healthy foods, and activities. Be bold, adding vibrant colors, glitter, feathers, rhinestones—whatever makes the board attractive to you. Remember, this board is for you alone.

Now that the board is complete, put it where you’ll see it often. You may want to keep it near your bed so that it’s one of the first things you see when you wake up. If you don’t mind if others see it, maybe you will decide to keep it at your office to provide inspiration during a challenging day.

Look at the pictures every day. They serve as a daily reminder to hold yourself accountable to your plans. Envision yourself living as if those goals are a reality. Feel what it’s like to be on a family vacation, driving your dream car, or living with more laughter and peace in your life.

Finally, share your goals with your family and friends. Let them know that you have every intention of checking every one of those goals off your 100 list. Feel free to add to and edit your goals over time, making a new board every 6 to 12 months.

There’s no such thing as failure here. It’s not a quick fix but one way to keep your thoughts and visions consistent. Using the board is a move toward positivity—a belief that you can create or facilitate what you desire.

Fashionable Reminder
The jewelry we wear often has a story behind it—the pearls Grandma wore only to the ballet; the gold watch Dad won in a poker game. We adorn ourselves with reminders of the people and things that are important to us. So why not have a necklace (or bracelet or ring) made that reminds you of the time and creativity you’ve spent in uncovering your desires?

Jewelry designer Sarah B. Flanagan creates hand-stamped silver and 14-karat gold jewelry that reflects something about the wearer, which she’ll personalize with words that are meaningful to you. So when you’re complimented on your “dream” necklace, be sure to express your gratitude and say: “I wear it to remind me that my 100 dreams are worth fulfilling.” And others will take notice of you in a completely different light. SarahBFlanaganToo.etsy.com. —Arisa White

Focus on breathing for healing and balance

By Dunya Dianne McPherson

We love dance and all its benefits for body and soul. But running a business and teaching a physically demanding activity can be stressful. There’s a lot going on, and most of it requires focusing away from our own bodies and feelings. From my time as a professional dancer, dance professor, and meditation teacher, I know meditation gives us a moment with ourselves, develops our ability to focus, awakens awareness, and opens us to deepening embodiment, sensation, and relaxation. This simple act of rebalancing, tucked into the day, is a worthwhile, sanity-reclaiming skill to cultivate.

Four meditations
Meditation doesn’t require much time or need fancy equipment or gear. It does require your full attention.

I have a saying: Sometimes you have to do the “not doing” in order to undo the overdoing. Dancers are especially good at continuously holding muscles taut. As well, we tuck emotional strain into crevices between fascia, hiding our anxieties until some other time when we imagine we can better handle them. Then, given a moment to relax, we feel restless. We need to relax, but we can’t, and being unable to unwind is stressful.

Because dance people are kinetic creatures, the first step in our meditation work is to consciously let go of tight spots. Fully letting go is more than plopping down on the couch. We need to release not just the big outer muscles but the clenched jaw, gripped neck, the diaphragm, and the pelvic floor as well.

Here are four simple meditation techniques for healing and balance. For each of these, find a comfortable, quiet, clean place to sit or lie down where your body can fully relax. It can be small, even a corner of your studio or office—anywhere you have some privacy. Turn off your phone. I like to use a timer so I don’t have to keep checking the time. Set it for at least 10 minutes; 20 is better. Make sure you are warm enough. You might like to lie on a mat or blanket on the floor, or on a sofa or in a big armchair. Let’s begin.

In the beginning, choose one practice and do it once a day. The following sequence of meditations works well, but if you feel drawn to begin with #3 or #4, go ahead. Start with the one that attracts you. Don’t jump around between practices; that won’t calm you down any faster.

Give each meditation a chance to move you through and beyond anxiety and stress. Later, once you are familiar with each practice you may find that one becomes your relaxation “home base.” Or you may cycle through them as you learn how each can benefit you.

Meditate every day or every other day at the same time. Just like pliés, making it regular helps it become natural for your body.

Practice #1: finding gravity and breath
Get comfortable and close your eyes. Let yourself relax, feeling your muscles unclench. As your muscles soften, find your inhale and exhale. Just find that breath without changing anything about it.

Continue to let your muscles release—your legs, your belly, your shoulders. Let your eyelids settle down. Let your facial muscles relax. Go through your body methodically, releasing each part as you go. Don’t worry about the order. Let your body decide, but if you’ve left an area out, make sure to give it a chance to unwind as well.

Now return once again to your breathing. Breathe in and breathe out. Just simple, ordinary breathing. Watch the breaths come in and go out. Stay with this for a while.

Now breathe in, and then on the exhale consciously let go of any tension. Breathe in and breathe the tension out, letting it go in a wavelike fashion. Do about 10 cycles of this.

Now relax your focus and be at ease. Become aware of gravity. Let the chair or couch or floor hold you. Feel where your back sinks into the ground; feel your buttocks melting, the backs of your legs spreading. Breathe naturally. Wherever your body is touching, let go into that surface. Continue to breathe gently. Let the awareness of your body in gravity fill you. Let anything else go. Feel yourself sink into gravity as you breathe until the timer ends your session.

In the beginning, if you feel sleepy it is fine to sleep; it is a sign that you need more rest. You’ll get more from your meditation when you can stay awake, relaxed, and attentive. As you learn to relax more fully, this will get easier.

Practice #2: developing an inner gaze
Most dancers use a mirror to help attain goals. We focus out. The mirror is a terrific assistant, but it takes us away from feeling what we are doing. If we are more aware of how we look than how we feel, we will repress pain or fatigue, inviting injury, souring our quest for health or physical virtuosity, and depleting our bodies. Though we need to push through discomfort in order to progress, it is easy to go too far and become numb. Numbness as a regular state is dangerous.

The next focus expands inner gaze and proprioception (how our body speaks to us, rather than us telling our body what to do).

Begin as before, in a comfortable position. Close your eyes. (Closing the eyes enhances proprioception and makes sensation easier to perceive.) Find your breathing. Feel yourself let go into gravity.

Meditation is relaxing, and relaxation unbinds a storehouse of energy. It helps us become more integrated. We become more realistic about who we are and what we can do. We develop realistic goals.

Bring your attention to your skin. You might gently do a tiny motion with your arms or legs to activate sensation in your skin. How does your skin feel as it touches your clothing and the air? Be aware of your breathing. Do this for a little while.

Now let go of skin awareness and draw your attention to your bones. Breathe in, breathe out. Don’t imagine an anatomical chart; try to sense where the bones might be. It doesn’t matter right now if you are accurate. Rather than telling them what to do, we are giving our bodies a chance to communicate to us. Where is your pelvic bowl? Your spine, skull, your arm and leg bones? Yes, they have Latin names, but right now just let them be arm bones or leg bones. Breathe in, breathe out, seeing your bones with your inner gaze. Inner gaze is more about sensing than imagining.

If thoughts pop up about how your bones should look, let them go. If thoughts pop up about what you should be doing or not doing (other than breathing and seeing your bones), let them go. You have nothing else to do at this moment but breathe and look inward.

As you gaze inward, getting a feeling/sense of your bones, enjoy the inner view. You might see colors, or feel dizzy, or experience unusual aches that flash in and out. Let these come and go. Breathe in, breathe out, watching with your inner gaze. Continue this with no concern for how you look. You don’t have to look or be different. Let the inner gaze be nonjudgmental. Stay awake and gently attentive. Continue until the timer ends your session.

Over time, as we work with inner gaze we learn to attach significance to the sensorial experience of self. Become the sensation of your body. Become the feeling of yourself. This subjective definition belongs to you; no one can feel how you feel but you. It stands outside of comparison. This value of self is crucial to feeling relaxed, whole, comfortable in our own skin, and solid in the world.

Practice #3: getting present
Attention to breathing is common to all meditation traditions because it defines what it means to be alive. If we can become aware of breathing, it will always be a place we can turn to for centering. In this practice we focus on breath pattern.

Set the timer and close your eyes. Bring your attention to your breathing. Breathe in, slowly and gradually. Breathe out, slowly and gently. Don’t force the slowness; let the breathing settle down naturally. With your inner gaze, watch each breath flow in and out through your nose. Continue until you can see the entire breath cycle from beginning to end. The ability to see this fully may come and go. Don’t worry; that’s normal. Keep going.

This time, see the inflow of breath pass through the nose and down into your lungs. The lungs swell, the diaphragm arcs up. As you breathe out, watch the air depart. The breath is like water flowing in and flowing out. Do this for a while.

Now let the inhale and exhale seep through the cells of your skin. This is not as close to anatomical breathing. Draw energy from the surrounding air in through your pores as you inhale. And as you breathe out, let any interior congestion leave you. Continue.

This is similar to releasing tension, but not the same. Focus on drawing the breath in through your skin and letting congestion out. Try to keep your focus attentive, specific, undivided. Draw your entire awareness to what you are doing. If thoughts come, let them go. You may notice the sensation of the breathing and the feeling in your body changing. Just notice. Don’t get stuck. Keep following the process of this breathing.

Now relax and return to your normal breathing. Rest with your eyes closed until the timer ends your session.

Practice #4: one breath now
At last, come to your breath and slow down. One breath. Another breath. That’s all. Slow and slower. The world fades back. Time stops. One breath is all there is. Fall in love with your breath.

Simple but not easy
Even though we need it, even though it is effective, most of us resist meditating. That’s natural. You have to resist the impulse to resist. When it drops off the to-do list, put it back, at the top. Especially when you are new to meditation, taking a course or a retreat can jumpstart and support your learning.

Do these practices make us better dancers? I think they do. They certainly make us happier, more satisfied with who we are, and that in turn makes us better at what we do. Meditation is relaxing, and relaxation unbinds a storehouse of energy. It helps us become more integrated. We become more realistic about who we are and what we can do. We develop realistic goals. We know and respect our physical and emotional parameters. We strive in a healthy, integrated fashion.

Should you add meditation to your course offerings? Absolutely. Having it at your studio could make it easier for you to include it in your own life. And when you are comfortable with it, why not start all of your adult and young adult classes with five minutes of closed-eyes meditation? Everyone needs a little unwinding time.

Meditation gets richer with time. Stop the millions of things you are doing and focus in. It will repay your efforts a hundredfold.

Tea Time
Now that you’re calm, aware, and centered after meditation, keep the relaxation going with a cup of tea. The Republic of Tea has a collection of Be Well Red Teas that I like—organic South African rooibos tea paired with wellness herbs. So if you’re feeling down, have a cup of “get happy,” and if you’re trying to keep your New Year’s resolution to lose weight, fill your tummy with tea (and “get lost”) during your break time. Next time you’re offered a cup of joe, respectfully decline, because a cup of “get charged” will energize you without the jitters. Since this is the month for Valentine’s Day and passion—there’s a tea for that too—sip some “get heart” and show your students that your love for dance continues to beat strong.

Be Well Red Teas, $10.50 for 36 tea bags; republicoftea.com

—Arisa White