Posts Tagged ‘ballet teacher’

The Georgia Ballet school has added Theresa Lee Crawford to its teaching faculty for the 2010-2011 academic year. 

Theresa Lee Crawford (Photo by Rosalie O'Connor)

Crawford is an expert in the ballet syllabus developed by her aunt, Marcia Dale Weary, founder of Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, where Crawford was a permanent faculty member for 12 years. 

She will teach ballet classes at the Marietta-based school to students ranging in skill level from beginner to advanced, ages 6-18. She also will launch an intensive program for 8- and 9- year olds, membership in which will be by audition only.

 To learn more about the Georgia Ballet school,  call 770.528.0881 or visit www.georgiaballet.org.

By Mignon Furman

Tip 1
One of the weakest areas I have seen in students who audition for my summer school is the pirouette. If students cannot balance, they cannot pirouette. Therefore, have them start by balancing on two feet from age 8 or 9, feeling the body centered, then progress to balancing on one foot with the working leg in passé position. Once they have felt their balance, turning will become easier. Of course, the head, turnout, and arms must be synchronized, but the balance is the basis.

Tip 2
The second area that needs work is picking up enchainment (combinations). Set a combination of basic vocabulary: glissade derrière, jeté derrière, and two assemblé over. Repeat this twice and then add one pas de chat, a wait for one count, and then two pas de chat (one count each). Typically, dancers find it difficult to learn and to perform up to tempo, and their glissades have no demi-plié. (They look like poorly performed sissonnes.) The glissade must begin and end with demi-plié and the closing foot must stretch before closing. The combination must flow and keep moving.

Mignon Furman’s summer teacher intensive

Regular readers of Dance Studio Life have come to look for Mignon Furman’s “2 Tips for Teachers” department in every issue. Teachers who want more of Furman’s hard-won wisdom on ballet education have an option this summer: the Teachers Intensive 2010 at Purchase College SUNY.

The program at the Purchase campus, in New York City’s northern suburbs, runs from July 28 to August 2 and is presented by the American Academy of Ballet, which Furman founded and directs. Attendees must be older than 18 and involved in teaching ballet. There’s no registration deadline.

The program’s emphasis is nuts-and-bolts classroom work rather than theory. “I believe that teaching is a practical art that needs a practical approach—whether to a new class of 5-year-olds or to teenagers with stars in their eyes who have other options for their energy,” Furman explains in the program’s brochure.

The classes focus on such topics as classical variation as adapted for young students; postural alignment, turnout, and placement, including transfer of weight; the art and anatomy of port de bras and use of the upper body; and combinations suitable for various ages.

Attendees also will be able to familiarize themselves with the Performance Awards, Furman’s program for student development. “The basic concept is that all students—not only ‘stars’—need acknowledgement for their endeavors, an opportunity to perform a solo dance, and a stimulus to progress,” the program’s brochure explains. Awards ceremonies—at which every child gets a medal and certificate—are held as students, who start at age 5 or 6, advance through the program’s 12 levels.

In addition to getting special instruction in the Performance Awards program, teachers attending the intensive will be able to observe coaching classes for students and a Performance Awards session in which the students dance for an audience.
The faculty, in addition to Furman, includes:

• John Byrne, former artistic director of the Royal Academy of Dance in London.
• Olga Dvorovenko, who teaches the Studio Company of American Ballet Theatre.
• Rhee Gold, publisher of Dance Studio Life and motivational speaker.
• Brian Loftus, former director of dance for the Arts Educational School in London.
• Pamela McCray, a teacher in Virginia and a judge for the American Academy of Ballet Performance Awards.
• Merle Sepel, director of the Academy of Dance in Santa Ana, California, and artistic director of American Pacific Ballet Company.
• Violette Verdy, a former principal dancer with New York City Ballet and now a teacher at Indiana University in Bloomington. She joins Furman, Sepel, and Loftus on a panel for a Q&A session on August 1.

Attendance for one or two days involves a fee of $130 per day for affiliates of the Academy of American Ballet—which costs $40 a year—and $150 for non-affiliates. For those attending for three or more days, the fee is $110 for affiliates and $130 for non-affiliates. Teachers’ fees are reduced by 50 percent if five or more of their students attend the American Academy of Ballet’s Summer School of Excellence from June 27 to August 8. Observation of Summer School of Excellence classes costs $60 per day for affiliates and $70 for non-affiliates. The cost of materials—such as CDs, DVDS, and notes—is not included, though these also are cheaper for affiliates.

A limited number of rooms at a reduced rate of $155 per night, including breakfast, have been reserved at the Hilton Rye Town, a 10-minute drive from campus. Also, some double-occupancy dorm rooms are available for $50 per night (for those sharing a room) or $60 otherwise.

For more information, contact Mignon Furman at the American Academy of Ballet, 250 West 90th Street #3A, New York, NY 10024; 212.787.9500; office@american-academy-of-ballet; or american-academy-of-ballet.com.

Dear Rhee,

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

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

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

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

Hello Michelle,

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

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

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

It is teachers like you who inspire me to do what I do. Please let me know what happens. —Rhee

By Mignon Furman

Tip 1
When teaching jumps, tell the students to push the floor away. My teacher always said, “Treat the floor like your worst enemy and it will turn out to be your best friend.”     

When teaching springs or sautés to young children, tell them first to bounce with their feet parallel. Then tell them to stretch their feet and legs as they push the floor away. Progress to a turned-out position and show the “window” made by the open knees in first position demi-plié. Reinforce the idea of maintaining a tall body as the dancers spring into the air and as they alight.

Tip 2
The basic vocabulary of ballet jumps includes sauté, changement, glissade, jeté, assemblé, pas de chat, and sissone. These steps should be taught slowly and carefully between the ages of 7 and 10, with continued practice to establish muscle memory so that they perform the steps correctly without having to stop and think. (“Practice makes perfect!”) Emphasize the following concepts:

• The foot never leaves the floor without stretching.
• All springing steps begin and end with a demi-plié.
• For the steps that start with a swish, such as jeté and assemblé, a firm thrust with the working leg gives the impetus for the jump.

A dance teacher with a mission, Elsa Posey gives high marks to accountability and lifelong learning

By Rachel Straus

Elsa Posey’s passion for giving children high-quality dance education comes by way of experiencing the opposite: Her first four years of dance training fell painfully short. Her early instructors, who had backgrounds in vaudeville, made her believe she was preparing for a career in ballet. They also jumpstarted her performance career, including her in military installation shows when she was 9 years old. But when Posey began studying at the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School at age 12, she says, “I was told that I needed to begin ‘at the beginning’ and that what I had learned up to that point was not ballet. I had to forget everything and start from scratch.”

By age 30, Posey was well established in her teaching career, with a school that offers a broad curriculum and shows an awareness of various learning styles. (Photo courtesy Elsa Posey)

Posey endured and re-learned. Since then her mission has been to ensure that no dance student is as unprepared as she was and that no child should be exploited onstage. “I did not want any of my students to have to suffer that painful experience,” she says. At the Posey School of Dance in Northport, Long Island, her commitment to teaching young people is in its 55th year.

The school occupies the top floors of an 1891 building, where ballroom dance instructors were plying their trade when the paint was still fresh on the walls. These teachers learned their craft from Civil War–era teachers who traveled from town to town, teaching social dances to children of privileged families. If born earlier, Posey says, she wouldn’t have been given the opportunity to dance. Her father was a taxi driver and they lived “on the other side of the railroad tracks,” far from the mansions dotted along Long Island Sound. But by the late 1940s, it was possible for middle- and working-class children like Posey to take dance classes and find local benefactors to further a professional education.

Today this passionate educator teaches 12 ballet classes weekly and knows her field inside and out. Like a historian, she considers the big picture, which leads her to ask big questions: Why, in the United States, can anyone call herself a dance teacher? Why do teachers adhere to traditions that foster self-loathing in students? Why aren’t there standards for teaching dance? This habit of asking questions not only makes Posey highly knowledgeable, it makes her a born teacher who needs to understand as much as possible before passing on information to her students. That’s certainly Patricia G. Cohen’s view of her. “My first impression of Elsa,” says the New York University dance education teacher, “was that she listened. She wanted to know who I was and what I thought.”

 Posey is a product of both vaudeville and European ballet training. American dance, she says, is a reflection of both strands, but schools, even today, remain divided into competition studios or ballet academies. When Posey opened her school, however, she didn’t want to create just a ballet academy. With her sister Jacqueline, who was trained in modern dance, she offered instruction in several dance forms, incurring the disapproval of her peers. “My ballet colleagues severely criticized me for bringing modern into the curriculum,” says the school owner.

Since Posey never divided dance forms into “good” and “bad,” “high” and “low,” she developed, with her sister, her own tastes and standards. When 29-year-old Jacqueline died in 1971 after being hit by a drunken driver, Posey’s mission for her school endured. She found other instructors to teach Jacqueline’s specialties—modern, jazz, and tap, thereby honoring her sister’s legacy and her desire to offer, she says, “a complete education in dance.” The school now offers classes in jazz, tap, Middle Eastern/belly dance, modern, ballet, and creative movement.

Today’s commonplace fusion of multiple dance forms on the world’s stages has not escaped Posey’s notice. But a career on the stage is not something she pushes on her students. “A majority of my former students choose not to pursue a career in dance; they dance to enrich their lives through artistic endeavor,” she wrote in her resume.

At first glance, Posey’s ballet classes appear identical to others’. Her students start with pliés and graduate to battements. They wear pink tights and black leotards. Silence, however, does not reign. “I believe children should be allowed to talk at appropriate times during dance class,” Posey explains. By reading about child developmental psychology and by talking to experts, her sense that children learn in many ways—not only by silently watching and replicating—was confirmed.

Last May, when Posey’s intermediate-advanced students took New York City Ballet soloist Jennifer Tinsley-Williams’ class at the Lincoln Center studios, they didn’t make a peep, knowing well ballet class etiquette. “I want my students to be able to take a ballet class anywhere in the world,” said Posey, observing their calm, concentrated approach to Williams’ class.

But in Northport, those students receive more than traditional technique classes. Posey teaches them historical dances, gives them individual corrections tailored to how each one learns best, and encourages them to improvise and choreograph. In 1997, Posey created The Children’s Dance Company, with a focus on children’s choreography. “[Students] should be encouraged to participate in creating the dances they perform, rather than just memorizing steps,” she says. Choreographing can yield fringe benefits, such as the increased understanding of musicality that high school senior Laura Dabrowski, a Posey School student since age 3, says she gained from the experience.

 ‘If you think of a pebble being tossed into a pond and the ripple effect it creates, that is Elsa.’ —Trish Harms, dance teacher and former Posey School student

Many of the students represent their family’s third generation with the school. “It’s important that they aren’t carbon copies of each other,” says Posey, speaking of her multigenerational clientele and of her desire to develop each student’s artistic voice.

Posey’s pride in her students and her desire to give them the best education possible led her to join eight dance organizations. She co-chairs an education subcommittee for the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science and is an active member of the Congress on Research in Dance, the Dance Critics Association, and the Society of Dance History Scholars. From 1998 to 2002 she was president of the National Dance Education Organization, which gave her a lifetime achievement award in 2007, established a scholarship in her name in 2002, and partnered with her to create the National Registry of Dance Educators. She is a founding member and past president of the American Dance Guild and a former board member of the National Dance Association, and was on the Professional Advisory Board of the Dance Notation Bureau.

Posey could have modeled her teaching after her most famous teachers—George Balanchine, Antony Tudor, Margaret Craske—and called it a day. But this teacher has never been star-struck or self-satisfied. She is a seeker of information. Her high standards for dance and her exploratory sensibility reached their most comprehensive expression with the creation of the National Registry of Dance Educators, founded in 1996 by Posey and Peff Modelski, a longtime teacher at STEPS on Broadway and a former Joffrey Ballet and American Ballet Theatre dancer. The RDE honors master teachers—regardless of whether they have degrees or extensive performing experience—by recognizing their ability to teach safely, ethically, and well. Though the registry doesn’t include a step-by-step model of how to teach, “it gives,” says Modelski, “parents the right to ask, ‘So what makes you qualified to train my child?’ ”

The RDE allows teachers to answer that question with confidence. To become a member, Posey says, “Applicants supply extensive information and documentation regarding their educational background, dance education, and performance and teaching experience, which is reviewed by trained evaluators who are qualified dance educators themselves.” RDE teachers possess a proven track record. They demonstrate ethical and professional teaching practices and knowledge of child development, dance science, and dance medicine.

RDE members pay $125 annually, becoming part of an online network of instructors who can safely ask and answer each other’s confidential concerns. They are committed to taking continuing education courses, attending seminars, and staying up to date on teaching methodology advances. To date, the organization numbers nearly 40 members who teach all types of dance and who work in studios, public schools, and as college adjuncts across the United States. Though Posey hopes to expand the membership base, the application and screening process is lengthy, requiring approximately a year.

When Posey began building the RDE, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Modelski says that Posey never faltered in her efforts to develop the organization or in her teaching practice: “She would have fallen over at the barre before she would have taught inappropriately.” Determined to create an organization that allows dance teachers to network and problem solve together “kept me going,” says Posey, who has been cancer free for more than a decade.

Straddling developments in dance medicine, history, journalism, and preservation, as well as federal- and state-level arts education initiatives, Posey’s involvement and contributions are staggering. She does all this without a PhD, a master’s, or even a college degree, making her an autodidact of the best kind. “If you think of a pebble being tossed into a pond and the ripple effect it creates,” says dance teacher Trish Harms, a former Posey School student, “that is Elsa.”

By remaining focused on people while continually learning from others, Posey has embodied a singular philosophy throughout her career: the human potential for growth. With this belief, she gives her students the desire and confidence to become dancers for life. And to the community at large, she serves as a role model of how to stay engaged and make a difference. “Many times you have one teacher who is trained in a village,” says Jane Bonbright, executive director of NDEO and an RDE member. “He or she opens a school. Fifty years later they haven’t learned much beyond the walls of that village.” But like the tendus that Posey teaches daily, “Elsa is constantly stretching and growing,” says Bonbright.

When asked what she wishes for in the field of dance education, Posey replies, “An openness where teachers are not so singularly focused” on their niche, “a free flow of information between all levels of the dance world,” and an understanding that “all people can dance.”

These days, rather than being satisfied with her achievements or writing her memoirs, Posey is looking forward. “My theory is that we are in a time of change; in the future dance will be taught differently.” With Posey and other master educators who think like her steering the way, that theory could become a reality.

By Mignon Furman

Tip 1
In ballet, an ending is as important as a beginning and middle, if not even more so. From early training the children should be taught to remain motionless for a count of 3 at the end of each exercise. You can make this into a game of statues in which everyone turns to marble when they finish an exercise. Then wave your magic wand to free them, and move on to the next step.

Tip 2
With older students, insist that they finish all movements cleanly and in an appropriate position. Teach them to hold a pose in order to emphasize the concluding movement and enhance the presentation for the audience. Pirouettes in particular should have a well-defined ending. All diagonal turns should finish in a strong position as well, which can be varied according to the type of movement and music.

Why novice ballet students deserve top-notch teaching and how to make it happen

By Vanina and Dennis Wilson

“I’ll teach at your school, but only advanced or, in a pinch, intermediate students. I won’t teach ballet to beginners.” Is there a school director anywhere who has not heard this version of “I don’t do windows”? Many instructors consider it beneath their dignity to teach ballet—or any kind of dance—to beginners. A lack of teachers who are interested in and qualified to teach beginning ballet, along with some of the ways school directors respond to this problem, can negatively affect the quality of the instruction.

Why do so many teachers prefer working with advanced students? The obvious answer is that those students tend to be committed and enthusiastic and to work harder than their lower-level schoolmates. Most of them do ballet because they love it, and they push themselves without much instructor intervention. The teacher need only concentrate on the dancing—a pleasant and not-too-tiring proposition.

A second reason is that advanced students may be technically easier to teach than beginning students, especially for new instructors who are making the transition from performing. Performers have trained their bodies to do most ballet moves with ease and fluidity and have spent their professional lives around people with similar mastery. Consequently they find the capabilities of students who have already absorbed the basics of ballet training more familiar, and therefore consider such students easier to teach. Classes with advanced students who add beauty and intricacy to their dancing can be quite exciting; teachers can develop  challenging series of steps with various tempos and types of music for these students. Not surprisingly such classes appeal to ex-performers who are familiar with this kind of energy.

The challenge of teaching beginners
Teaching beginners requires different skills than those needed in working with advanced students, and an instructor who is good with advanced students will not necessarily be equally good with beginners. In other words, the ability to teach beginners is not a “lesser-included capability” of the ability to teach advanced students competently. The most important skill in teaching beginners is a great deal of patience. Young children who are starting ballet, even in professional programs, often do not display the kind of commitment required to make progress. Discipline problems can arise when children cannot or do not want to focus on the class. Even focused students learn ballet slowly. The first years of training involve conditioning the body so that it can perform ballet moves safely and beautifully, and this development progresses slowly even for physically gifted and motivated students. The moves tend to be static, involving considerable repetition, correction, and command, and students do not actually dance a great deal at this stage; consequently teachers must be passionate and work hard to keep students interested. Having an unmotivated teacher in the classroom may lead to bored and resentful students who are prone to quitting.

Instructors of beginning-level students must also have a complete understanding of ballet moves and know how to demonstrate them. They must know some anatomy and be able to estimate what the students can do given their physical abilities and limitations. Their goal should be to enable students to work to their maximum while never going beyond their capability, thus risking injury. Ironically, performers who are transitioning to instructors may have forgotten the basics they went through themselves many years before. Those with a natural facility for ballet often have difficulty analyzing the detail of individual moves and assisting less-gifted students in conditioning their bodies.

Finally, teaching ballet to beginners is just more work. The instructor must plan not only each lesson but also the course syllabus, as well as assessing the class’s pace and organization. This process becomes easier with experience, but each class has its own challenges. Only teachers who are passionate about teaching ballet are likely to enjoy teaching ballet to beginners.

The director’s dilemma
Most school directors say it is difficult to find instructors who are willing and able to teach beginners competently. Because the directors know that only a small fraction of students will proceed to the intermediate or advanced levels, they may conclude that beginning-level ballet instruction is not important. Sometimes they assign their least qualified instructors, advanced students, or even parents to teach beginning classes. They may rationalize that students who acquire bad habits in such classes can be “cleaned up” by better-qualified instructors in more advanced classes.

But resolving the dilemma this way leads to problems. Students who have acquired bad habits because of deficient early instruction do not do basic ballet moves well, nor are they ready for more complicated moves. Even students with no professional potential run an ever-increasing risk of injury if they try to perform moves beyond their capability. For students who have professional potential, the results of poor initial training can be devastating. Besides the increased risk of injury, their bad habits will severely limit their ability to compete for positions in professional companies.

A director’s hope that a student can be cleaned up in later instruction is apt to be no more than wishful thinking. Almost every teacher has had the unhappy experience of seeing ballet students with good physical potential who are limited by deficient early training. Teaching such dancers requires being especially attentive to their moves and quick to correct mistakes, a tiring and often unproductive process. Such students, even if they understand the need for correction intellectually, may soon begin to resent what appears to be an incessant barrage of criticism. And despite both the students’ and teachers’ best intentions and efforts, ballet dancers, like all human beings, tend to revert to bad habits that feel comfortable under conditions of stress. Unfortunately, this stress is likely to be induced by competitions, auditions, and performances, the very conditions under which proper technique is most important.

Searching for a solution
There exists no “magic formula” that will enable school directors to find and retain instructors who have the temperament, skills, and desire to teach students of beginning ballet. School directors can, however, take steps to improve their chances.

First and foremost, do not try to rationalize the problem away by pretending that beginning ballet instruction is not important. Second, demonstrate the value that you place on beginning ballet instruction by visiting those classes at least as often as you do advanced classes, perhaps even teaching them periodically. Identify beginning students who show potential and desire, pay as much attention to them as to your advanced students, and encourage them to participate in competitions and auditions when possible. Finally, use the tools available to you as a school director (status and money) to reward instructors who show excellence in teaching beginners. Recognize those who teach beginners well (for example, change your faculty roster from alphabetical order and list them first) and consider paying them more or giving them a bonus.

People do respond to such incentives, and by using them you will improve the morale of beginning ballet instructors, the performance of beginning students, and the overall quality of your ballet program.