Posts Tagged ‘musicals’

How studio owners use dance videos as teaching tools

By Heather Wisner

“Which movies can I show him to get him interested in dance?” This urgent query came from a friend of mine with a 4-year-old son shortly before they headed off to San Francisco’s Ethnic Dance Festival. After wracking my brain (Billy Elliot? Too mature. Singin’ in the Rain? Too long. Hmm . . . ), I turned to studio owners to find out what videos they liked to show to different age groups and which videos best served a particular purpose. Most teachers like to add interest to their lessons with visual aids, of course, and dance teachers are no exception. Based on the responses I got, you could say that studios use dance videos in service of the three Is: introduction, instruction, and inspiration—or in some cases, all three.

As an introduction
Very young children sometimes find it helpful to see examples of movement while they’re still getting their own limbs under control. And as many teachers have found, music and visuals can sometimes capture children’s attention and jog their memories as well as, if not better, than spoken instruction.

“For my 3-year-olds, I sometimes use clips of The Wiggles—great if there are little boys in the class,” says Maria Jacobs, owner of Valley Forge Dance School in King of Prussia, PA. “Besides a Captain Feathersword number, I like ‘Five Little Ducks’ to teach them how to drop out of a dance one by one. I use ‘Five Little Ladybugs’ for the same reason, and the children love the song. It gives everyone a chance to sit down and refocus, and one picture is worth a thousand words.”

Among studio owners, the most popular videos for young children range from Shirley Temple films to animated shorts featuring Angelina Ballerina, the dancing mouse. “I would suggest any Shirley Temple movies for the young ones who love to tap and sing,” says Dana Loving-Sparks, owner of In-Step Dance and Performing Arts Center of The Woodlands and Conroe, TX.

Rhonda Foote, director of Rhonda’s FooteWorks in Syracuse, NY, agrees: “I also use The Wiggles and Mary-Kate and Ashley’s ballet video for little kids’ dance camps. Shirley Temple is a big hit with them, too.”

“Shirley Temple movies—she’s awesome,” says Melinda Shaner, artistic director of the Conservatory of Dance in Silver City, NM. “The Barbie dance movies are not too bad and the kids love them.” Although Barbie’s producers have taken a bit of artistic license with storytelling, Shaner says, the videos are a great introduction to classical music and dancing.

One director finds that videos also help put young dancers in the mood for class. “The all-age–friendly top film, as far as I am concerned, is Tales of Beatrix Potter, which uses The Royal Ballet,” says Nancy Whyte, head of Nancy Whyte School of Ballet in Bellingham, WA. “Children and adults of all ages adore this film. The children in my studio sit and watch videos before class time arrives, and this is my number-one choice for the younger classes especially.”

As instruction
Older children, especially those with good attention spans, can benefit from videos in two important ways: They can see examples of the work they’re learning and absorb some dance history and context in the process.

“For our June recital we’re doing excerpts from Coppélia, which we’ve never done before,” says Jacobs. “I have several videos—Kirov, Australian Ballet—that I’ve been showing so they better understand the mazurka, a character dance. I’ve also shown Anna Pavlova in The Dying Swan so that they get a sense of dance history. I have a biographical movie of Anna Pavlova which I may show during lunch breaks in our daytime summer intensive.”

Lori Pryor, artistic director of Dance Foundations in Columbia, MD, draws her instructional videos from a large collection of musical classics and modern professional productions. “Some of the studio’s favorites are Give a Girl a Break, You Were Never Lovelier, Singin’ in the Rain, My Sister Eileen, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Oklahoma!” she says. “We most often watch them during dance camp at lunchtime, but I have taken breaks in classes to show a particular video section if we are learning something from that show.

“I have also shown the students professional videos for the same purpose: No Maps on My Taps, Tap, LaVaughn Robinson’s Dancing History, Tap Heat,” Pryor continues. “I also show videos in our waiting room in advance of a guest artist: Gus Giordano’s work before [his daughter] Nan visited, Frank Hatchett, Fosse before Andy Blankenbuehler came, Dancemaker and Wrecker’s Ball from Paul Taylor before Liz Walton visited. It’s been so helpful for them to see the work before they do it, since many are visual learners. . . . During our ballet intensive we watch at least one ballet and study it and discuss it.”

This practice seems especially popular at studios that produce a Nutcracker. “For older children, I use the prior year’s video of our Nutcracker ballet when we start rehearsing every fall,” says Jacobs. “It motivates the children who are in the video to want to do even better this year, and it helps the new performers come up to speed quickly.”

Adds Shaner, “I think that this year I will require my Nutcracker cast to watch one or two versions of Nutcracker.”

In addition to serving as learning tools for new steps and combinations, videos can help students think about creating steps and working in different styles, says Loving-Sparks, who shows A Chorus Line, Grease, Fosse, Chicago, and Cabaret to her advanced students. “I use the movies’ scenes in musical theater, jazz, and Broadway dance classes,” she says. “I let the kids watch the scenes and then they come up with different ways of [creating] choreography themselves. [Film] is good to use in choreography classes as well. It gives them a feeling of pride and accomplishment, of trying something new and exciting.”

As inspiration          
One reason that dancers of all ages return to dance on film is the inspiration they draw from seeing performers at the peak of their technical and artistic powers. Many studio owners and teachers use videos to show their students important dancers throughout history and changes in dance styles over time.

Older children can benefit from videos in two important ways: They can see examples of the work they’re learning and absorb some dance history and context in the process.

“Because we are an old studio with much history, I feel strongly about educating the new generations about the classics. Not all students have parents that danced, therefore many of them have never heard of Fred Astaire,” says Kim Brokaw, owner of Jill Mallory Studio of Dance in Miami, FL. “We work hard to stay current with our music and choreography styles, but try to still let them know how it all started. Last year we found a funky remake of Singin’ in the Rain by Mint Royale, but I made them all watch Gene Kelly dancing the original. They loved it! I think 1 out of 18 had ever heard of him. We even have kids now who have never seen movies like The Wizard of Oz.”              

Melanie Hedden-Perron, owner of Rising Star Performing Arts in Waterdown, Ontario, Canada, likes to show her students old MGM musicals and That’s Entertainment. “We have used clips to introduce our students to the great dancers of the past so they have a connection to the past,” she says.

Shelly Beech, owner of Art of Motion Dance in Bartlesville, OK, also likes That’s Entertainment videos. “They are too long to watch in one sitting but have great production numbers and show a nice history of the movie musical,” she says. “I have also used videos from Biography. It’s a great way to educate dancers about the roots of dance.”           

Videos can also serve as “a great teaching tool for the history of dance and the changing of styles,” says Linda R. Kalnen, an instructor at Southeast Dance Academy in Wilmington, NC. “The studios I’ve previously owned have found movies and video to be useful tools. A picture tells a million unspoken words.”

Bettijane Grey-Robinson, director of Commonwealth Dance Academy in Walpole, MA, believes that dance videos can also help students relate to their peers in other parts of the world. “A good movie for preteens and teens interested in serious ballet is The Children of Theatre Street,” she says. “It is about girls and boys accepted into the Leningrad ballet academy [Kirov] in Russia. Although it shows the dance students participating in formal ballet classes, it also shows them as real youngsters who sometimes are late to class, tease each other, get homesick, or have fun.”

In some cases, videos can help further a school’s mission as well. “We operate a grant-funded program for local schools called Express the Positive,” says Foote. “Our goal with this program is twofold: to introduce fine arts to students who may not otherwise have the opportunity to find out about them, and to build self-esteem and positive self-expression through the arts.”

Not all students will respond to all videos, of course, so it’s important to choose wisely and recognize when something isn’t working. Diane Abraham, a co-owner of the Dance Studio of Wakefield in Massachusetts, found that her students didn’t relate to Fame and found West Side Story too long.

Another concern is when to show the videos: Some teachers have a movie night, while others show videos during lunch breaks, before and after class, or in class. “I don’t want to take away from class time, where they need to build their technique,” says Jacobs, although she does feel compelled to make dance films available to her students. “If more dance movies were on TV, inspiring children to pursue the art form for its beauty, perhaps I wouldn’t feel the need to show them myself. The only problem I’ve encountered is some parents looking askance when they see my class sitting on the floor, watching a brief video on our classroom’s TV. I don’t see this as an issue, but I usually explain the what and why to them.”

Ultimately, when students (and parents) understand what can be gleaned from watching dance videos, everyone benefits. “Everything old is new again from a child’s perspective,” Foote says. “If it is in your possession and is age appropriate, they will watch, absorb, and enjoy.”

Dance Films Reference List

Here are some of the dance videos that studio owners across the country suggested for use in class, based on genre and age-appropriateness. We’ve added a few films for good measure. To add your favorites, email Jeff@rheegold.com or write to Jeff Warzecha, Dance Studio Life, 10 South Washington St., Norton, MA 02766. 

Young dancers (up to age 6)
Angelina Ballerina
Any movie with Shirley Temple
Barbie in The Nutcracker
The Tales of Beatrix Potter
Any movie with The Wiggles
Mary Poppins
Zoe’s Dance Moves
Happy Feet

School-age children and preteens (7–12)
Give a Girl a Break
You Were Never Lovelier
Singin’ in the Rain
My Sister Eileen
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Oklahoma!
That’s Entertainment series
The Wizard of Oz
42nd Street
Annie
Newsies
White Christmas
Busby Berkeley productions (Yankee Doodle Dandy, Gold Diggers of ’33, etc.)
The Children of Theatre Street

Teens
Fame
Grease
Tap
Center Stage
A Chorus Line
Chicago
Step Up
Sweet Charity
Hair
Pippin
White Nights
The Turning Point
Billy Elliot
Stomp the Yard
All That Jazz
Fosse
Funny Face
An American in Paris
Hairspray
Dancers
You Got Served
High School Musical
West Side Story
Cabaret
On the Town

Instructional/historical videos
The Nutcracker (various versions)
Company videos (Martha Graham, Mark Morris, Alvin Ailey, Paul Taylor, Gus Giordano, Savion Glover, ballet company videos)
Biography series
Ballets Russes