This is the second article in a two-part series about alternative dance careers. Last time, we visited with Claire Bagley Hayes, a student of the University of Utah’s Screendance Certificate Program and Chelsie Batko, a student of Columbia College Chicago’s Dance/Movement Therapy program.

In part two of this exploration, meet tutu-maker, Toya Dubin and dance critic, Brian Schaefer.

What is an “alternative” dance career?

A person pursuing an alternative dance career is someone who is not primarily dancing with a company, teaching at a school or in a studio, performing, or choreographing for the stage.

Toya Dubin has always loved costumes.

Toya made her first tutu when she was 13 for her first ballet variation showing.

“Because I didn’t know what to be afraid of, I launched in worry-free,” she explains. Toya tried to do as much research as possible before starting her project but found that information on tutu-building wasn’t as readily available as she initially assumed. She was largely on her own when it came to this project, but soon discovered that “the rules guiding line in an arabesque are not dissimilar from the lines a tutu creates to best flatter its wearer.”

“From the moment at which I was capable of changing my clothes, every day involved at least ten costume changes. I love the endless possibilities presented by fabrics and their uses to create a character.”

From here, Toya fell in love with the art of making tutus and works to make them by commission.

She is currently working on a rehearsal tutu commissioned by a fellow dancer. She finds her inspiration from ballet itself.

“Ballet taught me that beauty takes huge amounts of hard work and pain to accomplish – that no one gets good overnight, that corrections are to be learned from, and most of all, not to quite. Essentially, it taught me never to accept failure.”

Right now, Toya balances costume designing with dancing in three ballet companies and taking honors classes as a senior at her high school. This fall, Toya will be attending SUNY Purchase as a Design and Technology major.

Brian Schaefer engages with the dance community through his writing.

As a weekly columnist at the Haaretz newspaper in Israel, he asserts that his career in criticism is not a “fallback or a second career – it’s [his] first choice and [his] unique skill”.

Dance criticism has allowed Brian to combine his loves for communication and dance, which he first cultivated as an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego.

Brian didn’t grow up dancing and first started engaging with the art in college. He took hip-hop, jazz, modern, and ballet classes and ended up becoming very involved with the dance community at UC San Diego. In a Criticism & Aesthetics class, Brian’s professor told him that she believed he could make valuable contributions to the dance world with his writing. Thus, criticism became a valuable part of his dance background.

“This was the first time I understood that dance writing could be an actual career. It was an eye-opening experience.”

Soon after graduation, Brian started making connections in the dance writing world. A local publication, SanDiego.com, asked him to write occasional reviews of performances for them.

Brian used this experience to apply for and receive a National Endowment for the Arts which allowed him attend a three-week institute at the American Dance Festival (ADF) on dance that dance writing.

He then met the editor of Dance Magazine at a dance festival and started sending articles to her in order to build a relationship with the magazine’s community.

Brian is a member of the Dance Critics Association and attributes this connection to opening many doors for him, including getting an article about an Israeli dance company published in the New York Times.

Brian works to “write about how arts and culture overlap with politics, science and social issues”.

This is something he has been able to explore a lot in his current position with Haaretz.

“I’m interested in writing about dance that is accessible to non-dance fans, that treats it as something worth discussing in society. To do that, we have to expand our field of vision and write for different audiences. I’m most excited when I get to write about dance for a non-dance publication or use dance to talk about Middle East politics or gay and lesbian issues.”

Learn more about Toya’s tutus and read Brian’s latest criticism.

Alissa’s own undergraduate career is coming to a close but that doesn’t mean her engagement with the dance world is ending.

I’m excited to see where my own “alternative” dance career takes me and what opportunities I find and take in the coming months.

Author information

Alissa Anderson

Alissa Anderson is a lifelong resident of Jamestown, New York. Currently in her senior year at Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin, she is majoring Dance and Comparative Literature. Her choreography has been featured in the Beloit College December Dance Workshops during Fall 2011 and 2012. Additionally, she studies both Spanish and Portuguese and spent a semester abroad studying environmental sciences in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, Brazil. After graduation, she plans to pursue a career writing for the arts and to continue her study of the Portuguese language.

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This plea often comes from a studio owner when the work to be done exceeds hours in a day.

Now more than ever as the demands on your time and the cost of owning your studio increase it is key to hire staff who are effective and efficient at getting the job done. When your office runs smoothly, it gives your studio space to be successful and grow.

Here are some tips to help you find and hire the ideal office staff who to help free up your time so you can focus on what you do best. In doing so, you’ll find you have the money to pay your staff to work on what they do best, too.

#1. Determine the type of office help you really need.

If your passion and talent ultimately lies in artistic direction, you may want to stay in that role and find the right office staff to help you manage the day-to-day business.

You can stay involved, informed, and be the manager without having to do each task yourself.

This important step is often overlooked or rushed when the perceived need is general office help:

Before you begin a search, take time to write down a specific list of the tasks and responsibilities for which you need the most help in managing your studio.

Do you need someone who has more of a bookkeeping and accounting focus and will post fees for tuition and costumes, register students, handle all accounts receivable and payable? Does this person need to have dance studio management software skills or experience?

Or, do you need someone who will interact with students and faculty, answer questions about class placement, coordinate meetings, and deliver all studio communications? Are you looking for someone who is more of a project manager to keep the events such as your recital, dance competitions, or performances organized and on schedule? Is it imperative that someone have an understanding of how a dance studio works and runs?

When you take time to get a clear understanding of the skills and experience needed to carry out those duties you will be more effective in searching, screening, and hiring the right office staff.

#2. Take inventory on your unique skills to determine what to automate or outsource.

Only you can be you. It is important to determine your core strengths and interests and assess where your time and talent best serve your business.

Once you are clear on the top three to five core areas in which you excel and enjoy doing you can then look for ways to automate and simplify the way you are running your office.

During this step, studio owners often discover that they don’t necessarily need a person sitting at a desk for 40 hours a week, but instead must streamline office processes or leverage technology to their advantage.

Are you maximizing your registration and billing process with tools such as online registration or automated billing software? If you have been the friendly face collecting tuition, it might be time to make the transition and position it as an exciting improvement that will benefit students and parents. This allows your students to do business with you while you sleep and your commitment to providing quality dance education builds trust in your judgment.

Consider outsourcing tasks that may not be the best use of your time such as bookkeeping, graphic design, costume management, music editing, and facility management/cleaning, to name a few. These tasks can all be done at a competitive affordable rate when you take time to match your specific needs to the work at hand.

#3. Find the right person for the job

Hire slowly, fire quickly is a phrase often used in business. It is also relevant for how to approach finding the right, trustworthy, reliable person to help run your dance studio office.

In any scenario a proficiency in word processing, attention to detail, customer-service focus, and strong computer/technical skills are paramount today.

Where to find potential candidates

• Ask for referrals from current parents, teachers, or alumni who may know someone who could be a good fit.
• Your local chamber of commerce has a business directory of members who offer bookkeeping, accounting, and small business services.
• An employment agency will pre-screen candidates for you with secretarial or office management skills. The benefit to fee-based services is the freedom of bringing someone in on a trial basis or temp to hire.
• If you need bookkeeping help specifically, search for a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor in your area via their database.

If through referrals and networking you don’t find the right person, you can also place an ad on your website, in your local paper, or for free on Craigslist.

How you write your ad can help you uncover someone with attention to detail, an important trait in an office staff person.

We’ve found that putting various questions in our job postings to be very helpful in our hiring process.

“Tell me why working at a dance studio is your ideal job.“ or “When replying with your interest tell us your favorite color.”

Embed this type of question within the ad. If they fail to answer, it will help you immediately weed out the people who did not take the time to thoroughly read your post.

#4. Be prepared to train and lead your office staff

Dance studio owners often get frustrated by their staff’s inability to just ‘know-what-to-do’.

This is usually a result of a lack of written policies, procedures, or systems in place.

As the owner and leader of your business it is important to always be training your staff as there is no substitute for the experience of doing the job within the culture of any given studio. No two directors run a school exactly the same.

Take inventory of what tasks, roles, and responsibilities are the right match for a staff person’s unique skills and talents.

Once you have that clear list you can truly maximize their time on the job.

If your personal unique talent and skill is in resolving problems that arise with students and parents then that’s what you should be doing, don’t delegate that to someone else.

If posting updates on Facebook, collecting overdue accounts, or organizing is your office staff person’s strength that’s what they should focus on.

Your office staff will shine when they are well trained and given the responsibilities they are best qualified to manage.

Leverage everyone’s skill set will help your office staff put their best foot forward, meanwhile bringing your dance studio to the next level.

What are your challenges in the office staffing process?

Author information

Suzanne Gerety

Suzanne Blake Gerety is not only the very busy mom of two young children but is the owner and co-founder of DanceStudioOwner.com, and the Vice President of Kathy Blake Dance Studios. She is a regularly featured contributor in various pieces for Dance Teacher Magazine including, "Ask the Experts", business articles, and has presented live workshops at Dance Media's Dance Teacher Summit New York City. Suzanne experiences the ups and downs of studio ownership too, which is what inspires her to help studio owners and teachers keep their passion for dance alive as they grow their business. You can connect with Suzanne on Twitter @SuzanneGerety and at DanceStudioOwner.com.

Photo courtesy of Jamiesrabbits

We put our content and concepts together like brick and mortar and present for all to see and judge.

Judgement is often based on aesthetic or taste, usually informed by exposure, and it tends to limit the conversation to “like” or “dislike”. This also emphasizes performance, as a product, to be of more importance than performance as a learning experience. In the scope of the educational experience, particularly in the arts, this is important but it isn’t the whole story.

Our goal, instead, should be to guide and instruct performers and audiences in how to evaluate the quality of a product beyond an actual performance- including how to lead to performance and advance beyond it. But how do we best determine what those include?

Here are some basic points to consider:

What is being assessed?

The layers I examine are: program philosophy, performance goals (by groups of grades such as K-4, 5-8, 9-12), teaching methods, class achievement, and individual student growth. I tend to think of this series like a keyboard with progression occurring whether I am moving up or down the keys.

To me, it is important to be adapting all layers as more information, or data, is gained. I have a hard time doing this with areas in isolation, such as strictly focusing on class achievement without taking into consideration individual student growth or performance goals for a group of grades.

Hopefully, you see this as a layered project that cycles as everyone involved spirals into advancing levels.

What will be done with the data?

Will you alter content and delivery? Make practical adjustments to schedule and structure of day, reflect on personal skills, determine strengths, weaknesses and how to support both?

As in anything else, it is important to choose thoughtfully as to what will be challenging but also achievable. This can be a good exercise in prioritization. It can also be a good reminder of how process can work for you. When creating, we often accept that trial and error helps us identify problems to be solved. I don’t think most artists consider the creative process to be one of distinct success or failure but one of give and take, shifting here and there.

Assessing programs and the growth of students and teachers should strike a similar chord. It isn’t necessarily about passing and failing, but keeping the momentum building. This can speak to major changes that need to occur or fine detailing.

You may find yourself really exploring the grey area of what is required to make meaningful change. In my world, this tends to include identifying methods for additional support of instruction or groups of students, determining key points and times for intervention, possibilities for enhanced focus or more advanced differentiation. Sometimes we can be so worried about assisting struggling learners that we forget to challenge advanced learners. Challenging the accelerated students may also serve as a motivation for those that aren’t quite at that level.

Who does the assessing?

We all understand the food chain: District administration to building administrator to teacher to student. What if we treated the feedback we obtain from students just as importantly as we do from our superiors? How would our perspective really shift and how would it change what we do and how we do it? If the community of the classroom has been a specific area of focus in your teaching goals, it is natural that this element be included. Not only that, it truly reinforces to students that you care about what they have to say and view your own adventures in education to be ever-evolving.

What does the test look like?

Tests don’t have to be about about pencil and paper, nor must they feature audition-like quick studies. Think about offering students a range of opportunities to demonstrate what they know, as well as how they know it. And again, think about the process. Perhaps the steps for obtaining new information is just as, if not more, important than memorizing terms and steps.

My students maintain portfolios that draw from the three categories used in the National Benchmarks and Standards for Dance by the National Dance Association:

Create

In this, we use composition to demonstrate knowledge as well as perspective. Composition has a its own place within the dance experience but don’t be afraid to use it in less conventional ways, too.

When viewing dance to support a discussion of history or theory, I often ask students to write notes regarding their observations and connections, but then I ask them to dance their notes when it comes to class discussion. This allows us to not only have a very quick snapshot of what the student “took” from the video, we also see how their thoughts connected to ideas from other conversations, dances, processes, or images.

Perform

Performance, or presentation, offers a traditional approach for any performance-based art form but what if you change the expectations. What if students create an entire dance but instead of presenting the dance, they present their research that helped them arrive at their dance. What if, for at least one unit, they never actually present the dance. Think about what this tells them about the value of investment in a process.

For students that may not have a rich movement vocabulary to draw from, consider allowing them to open their definitions of dance. What if they filmed varying types of human (or non-human) movement in multiple contexts and presented an emotional narrative, utilizing tools of composition, in a dance setting. Just think of the conversations that could be stirred!

Respond

What if students responded to the “video dances” by writing, drawing, or dancing their sides of the debate of whether the videos could be defined as dance, why or why not, what would be required in order to be considered dance (or not).

What if students create a dance response to Martha Graham’s Letter to the World, or a current day recession-inspired sequel to Paul Taylor’s Black Tuesday? Or maybe students write letters to choreographers, inquiring about their works, their processes, their lives, their inspirations.

What is the real test?

The data should provide a portrait of where we are in the path toward our objectives and should reflect the overall program philosophy. I find the following criteria useful:

• developing a community within the classroom
• advancing technical ability and progression
• nurturing creative ability and progression
• bolstering of higher order thinking skills
• improving awareness of social justice, global citizenship

How are you assessing progress in your classroom?

Author information

Heather Vaughan-Southard

Heather Vaughan-Southard is a dance educator and freelance choreographer based in Michigan with rich teaching experiences in higher education, K-12 public schools, and private studios. With an approach of teaching dance as a liberal art, she draws from her experiences dancing professionally in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles to create experiences that move beyond the boundaries of a studio, producing well-rounded, thinking dance citizens. She is author of the blog EducatingDancers, where she chronicles her perspectives on dance and dance education. Heather holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Michigan, BFA in dance from Western Michigan University, K-12 Dance Certification from Wayne State University and is the mother of two small children whom never seem to stop moving.

Today Janet Jerger, the founder of Dance Teacher Press gives tips on preparing children for dance performances and recitals.

Your young dancers can perform their recital dances without help, and they can be evenly spaced while doing it.

Image by photoloni

You may find this hard to believe, but I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Studio owner, Shelly Smetter has been teaching the youngest of our dancers for 35 years and her students always perform with confidence.

I know, that you know, that knowing dances and keeping proper spacing is part of every good show, not to mention part of learning to be a good dancer. But I also know you, as a teacher, sometimes struggle to make it happen for your students.

Each Spring I attend recitals in our area, and each year I notice pre- and early primary school children dancing with their teachers or assistants on stage. I see moms and dads and grandparents struggling to get a good view of their precious dancer, who keeps disappearing behind some other grandparent’s precious dancer.

Here is Shelly Smetter’s recipe for success with this loveable, but challenging age group:

Set a temperature of consistency.

With discipline, prepare and plan ahead.

Finally, follow these steps faithfully:

Subtle Space Training

Remember, lines are still new to your youngest dancers and do not come naturally to most children. Assign dancers to their spot in a line at the start of the first semester to get them acquainted with this formation. To keep things fair, exchange lines front to back during your classes.

Give new assignments to students for the second semester. These are their recital lines. Make a thoughtful plan for your line-up so you won’t have to change it later.

During class, as your students practice their steps, they will invariably clump up. Shelly solves this problem by consistently moving through the class, returning children to their spots as she encourages, “Good job, you kids did a really nice job remembering the step.”

When students have finished a run-through of their dance, she gives corrections like, “Reach your arms out straight on count eight,” all the while, gently guiding them back to an evenly spaced line.

What Shelly does not do, is harp on spacing.

Making Their Mark

Surely, you may be thinking, Shelly uses an elaborate system of floor markings to ensure students keep their spacing intact.

Not at all. No numbers. No color-coded GloTape. No hearts, stars, or colorful characters.

During the first part of the year, use eight, brightly colored Styrofoam plates and write the numbers 1-8 on the back of them. Position them “downstage” below the mirror in the studio. Stand each child in the front row in front of an assigned number. Place the children in the back row within ‘the windows,’ or spaces between each front-row dancer.

After a few weeks your students will be able to find and keep their spacing without the plates.

When the children begin again during the second semester with their new recital places, bring out the plates again until the children don’t need them any longer.

Photo courtesy Toddler Approved

Transitioning to the Stage

As mentioned, there are no elaborate floor markings needed in the studio or on stage. That’s not to say there are no floor markings at all.

In fact, Shelly uses two Xs on the floor at the studio, recreated with tape on the stage of the theater.

One small X is at center stage. The student in the class who is center of the second line (or center line, if more than two lines) tends to gauge herself by this mark. It is also thought of as the center for circle formations. Another small X is placed center and very downstage, almost on the apron. In the studio, this is right below the mirror.

These two center markings are adequate as guides when the rest of Shelly’s spacing system is applied.

As for the adjustment to a mirror-free stage, covering the studio mirrors has proven most effective. Little ones often are disoriented when turned around to face the back of the room and precious time is wasted in this practice.

How or with what to cover your mirrors will depend upon your space. We’ve used newspaper and shower curtains. Some studios opt to permanently affix curtains to the wall or ceiling.

Either way, it’s a good idea to cover your mirrors at least 2 weeks before the performance.

Entering In Style

Recital entrances are a coordinated effort.

Shelly makes lists for stage parents/helpers that give the line order for the first line, second line, etc. of students, and whether they are stage right or left. These helpers are instructed to put the children in their lines while still in the dressing rooms and walk the children backstage in order. Dress rehearsal helps teach the mothers about stage right and left.

For students under 6 years old, plan a black out or dimmed lighting and walk children to their places on stage. Make sure the first line is spread evenly and the second line stands in “the windows”. With one helper leading the front line and another leading the back, the children arrive quickly in position and the show can move along.

For second graders (ages 7-8), a blackout is no longer needed. Let the first line enter on their own, followed by the second line for a more accurate formation.

The way the children enter may vary based on the style of dance being performed. Tap dancers might walk on with hands on their hips, while ballet students may do a polka step to the music or run to their places. Whatever the choice, keep it simple.

By third grade (8-9 years old) your students will have mastered entering into an evenly spaced formation. At this age, any step could be used to get them to their spots.

photo by James Emery

Sure Of Their Steps

Kindergartners (ages 5- 6) are very capable of performing a tap and ballet dance of two or 2 ½ minutes each. Older students may be able to handle a slightly longer dance.

Begin learning the dances about 20 weeks before the recital. For an end-of-May performance, this means starting right after the New Year.

Teach one 32-count combination every two weeks. The first week is for introducing the combination, which is reviewed and practiced some more during the next week. Every other week you will be adding to their dance.

Most dances will include about eight, 32-count phrases. If you do the math, that allows 16 weeks for learning the dance and four weeks for polishing it, practicing the stage entrance and exit, and possibly protocol for the production finale.

Will every dancer’s performance be flawless? No.

Will some classes need an occasional hint from the wings? Sure.

However, Shelly’s methods really do get the children out on stage, performing the dance on their own, and looking well rehearsed by recital time.

Now you can give your students this gift of confidence, too.

How do you prepare your little dancers for performances?

Author and illustrator Janet Jerger is passionate about sharing her love of ballet with students.  As a dance educator in the Midwest for over 30 years, Janet has thrived on encouraging her students to be their best.  As the ballet mistress at Shelly’s School of Dance she has enjoyed creating story ballets to showcase her students such as; Sleeping Beauty, Peter Pan, and Alice in Wonderland.  As the owner of Dance Teacher Press she has enjoyed creating educational teaching tools such as;  books for students and teachers, dance posters, ballet and tap flashcards, coloring sheets, bookmarks and more.

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Guest Contributors

Dance Advantage welcomes guest posts from other dance teachers, students, parents, professionals, or those knowledgeable in related fields. If you are interested in having your article published at Dance Advantage, please see the following info on submitting a guest post.

Which one is right?  Who do you listen to?

This article will give you some pointers on what do to in this situation, and explain why this happens in the first place.

© Mark Olich

There Are Many Kinds of ‘Right’ in Ballet

It is easy to think that ballet is an absolute, with ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ being the only two options.  Yet, this is not quite the case…

1/ The Major Ballet Schools:

There are 5 major ‘Schools’ of ballet; the French School, the Italian School (Cecchetti), the Russian School (Vaganova), the Danish School (Bournonville), and the English School.  Each of these Schools can be considered different ‘methods of ballet’, each with their own (equally correct) rules about technique and style.

Many rules are the same across all the major Schools, but there are also some big differences. Because of this, depending on the training your teachers have received, they may use very different vocabulary from each other, or like movements performed in very different ways.

In addition to the 5 major schools, also worth listing for this discussion is the American ‘Balanchine’ style of ballet, as introduced by the great choreographer George Balanchine. Whilst not strictly a different method or ‘School’, the Balanchine style is a particularly distinctive, and is prevalent in America.

2/ Ballet is an Art:

Ballet is not exclusively a physical exertion, it is an art form.  Because of this, different individual teachers (and indeed dancers, choreographers, critics and other experts) often hold their own (sometimes opposing) opinions on the aesthetic/stylistic components of dance; from how a step is executed, to the style of port de bras, to how you hold your hands.

For example, English ballerinas are often criticised by their American or Russian counterparts for their dancing being too reserved, yet many who champion the English style feel American and Russian ballet is often too flamboyant and ‘showy’ – it is all a matter of cultural influence and personal taste.

Crucially, as with all artistic debates, there is no right or wrong, there are only different opinions.

3/ Individual Interpretation:

Every teacher is shaped by their own training and experience, and their own personal abilities and personality.  Their teaching style will be influenced by the experiences they had as dance students, and their observations of other teachers.  Their understanding of correct technique and their opinions on teaching practices and methodology will have been formed from a conglomeration and amalgamation of everything they have learned throughout their career.  Because of this, in a way, there are as many different types of ballet as teachers teaching it.

© Gene Schiavone

What To Do: Vocational Dance School

Part of training to be a professional dancer is to learn to be versatile and flexible – to be able to comfortably and safely jump from one style of ballet to another.  Not only is this crucial to any freelance dancer, but also ballet company members who may, in a day, have to rehearse anything from ‘Swan Lake’, to ‘Elite Syncopations’ or even ‘Chroma’.

For the most part then I would suggest to any pre-professional dance student to accept, even embrace the differences, and learn everything you can from each of your teachers. Perhaps ask them which School’s methodology they follow, as this can be useful information for later in your career, and can help you separate out the different variations in your mind.

Overall, simply try to remember the preferences and expectations of your different teachers, and adapt accordingly for each class; keeping an open mind, and learning everything you can.

© Mark Olich

What To Do: Private Dance School

Like the vocational dance student, you also have the option to simply accept different teachers’ expectations and adapt accordingly to each class.  However, depending on your situation, you might choose another course of action.

What if your teachers are from different Schools?

If your teachers use different terminology for the basics, such as arm positions, directional numbering, or arabesques, then it is a good bet that your teachers are from different Schools.  If this is the case it might be worth asking your teachers which School they are from, and if that is why they prefer a step done ‘like this’ when your other teacher prefers it ‘like that’; this way you can confirm whether the variations are related to their School, or personal preferences.

To most students I would recommend trying to master multiple methods if you have the opportunity, as this can be both an enjoyable challenge and a great learning experience.

However, if you are finding learning more than one method at the same time is somehow detrimental to your overall progress, I recommend you talk to your teachers about it.

What if you don’t know why they have different expectations?

There are potentially hundreds of reasons why you might be asked to do something differently in different classes, some examples including:

• You are studying for two different Grades, and the differences are written into the Syllabus,
• The classes are supposed to be in different styles (Classical, Romantic, Neoclassical, Contemporary etc.),
• The movement itself can be performed in different ways depending on the music/choreography/mood of the piece,
• Your teachers have both been taught differently how to correctly execute a movement.

If you are unsure why your teachers have different opinions, the easiest option may be to simply ask them.

Also, remember that teachers working at the same school may be unaware they are teaching different things, and sometimes it can be good for differences to be pointed out and discussed so that your teachers can decide together what to do.

Remember: Even professional experts sometimes disagree with each other, in all fields of life.

© Mark Olich

What if you prefer one teacher’s way of doing things vs the other?

If you are told to do something in one class, and you think it has improved your work, it makes sense to keep hold of it and do it like that every time, in all your classes.  You may find that your other teacher completely agrees and just hadn’t gotten around to teaching you ‘that bit’ yet.

If, on the other hand, you are in the second teacher’s class and they do not approve of the changes you have made, it can be tricky to know what to do.

If the debate is over an aesthetic issue (the style of a movement, or how you use your eyeline etc.), it might be easiest to just swap between styles from class to class, presuming you are happy to do so, again learning what you can from each.

However, if the debate is over an issue with technique, it may be helpful to ask both teachers to further explain their method, and why it is the ‘better’ option.

Armed with this information you can best choose your next course of action:

• To continue to swap how you dance between classes.

• To discontinue study with one of your teachers.

• To request further information / do some research before making a decision.

There really is no correct answer to this.

Your choice should take into consideration whether or not your teachers are in disagreement about a fundamental element of classical technique e.g. use of turn-out, or posture, and whether it is causing conflict in your physical development.

© Gene Schiavone | Dancer: Yekaterina Kondaurova

You should consider how you felt about your teachers different explanations and opinions – don’t be afraid of using your own judgement, and forming your own opinions.  Did you feel satisfied by your teachers’ explanations?  Did they make sense?

Your decision should also be reflective of how strongly you feel about the situation.  After all, while it can be useful to question and think about your teachers methods and opinions, there is no need for drastic action (such as confronting a teacher, or leaving a class), if you are happy to continue as you are.

It may be wise to talk to your parents before deciding what to do.

Long-range Learning

No matter what stage you are in your career, or how old you are, here are 5 key pieces of advice for all dancers:

1.  When looking at videos, photos and performances by other dancers, remember how broad-ranging ‘ballet’ is, with all its variations, before offering judgment.

2.  Remember that your teachers are human beings, with their own idiosyncrasies.  Remember that they too can make mistakes, but that you can learn from those just as much as everything else they bestow on you.

3.  Always be respectful, but at the same time don’t be afraid to ask questions, or to challenge something you do not agree with.

4.  Absorb the best from all your teachers, but don’t be afraid to discard anything that doesn’t work in favor of something you have learned from another teacher.  Take only the best forwards with you through your career.

5.  Always keep an open mind; be prepared to change your mind in light of new evidence, and stay always open to new information.

Have you run into discrepancies in your training?

How have you dealt with it?

How have your teachers handled it?

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Angeline Lucas

Angeline Lucas is a freelance dance writer, teacher and lecturer based in England. She has been awarded Registered Teacher Status with the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) and is an Approved Teacher of the Council for Dance Education & Training (CDET). Angeline trained at Northern Ballet School (NBS) and holds a Certificate of Higher Education in Dance Education, validated by RAD and the University of Surrey. Previous roles have included working as head of department, outreach coordinator and curriculum manager, and she also has experience in dance research and arts administration. Angeline has taught and lectured at various private dance studios, schools, colleges and on community programmes, and is considered to be a dedicated, experienced and enthusiastic teacher. Angeline’s greatest passion is classical ballet, and is devoted to the advancement of the art form, the promotion of accessible high-standard dance education, and facilitating the achievement of her students.

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I’m a freelance dance teacher. Let’s face it, freelancing isn’t easy; adding up many pieces to equal a full time job. Actually, scheduling everything is a job in itself, but that’s another blog post for another time.

When people ask me how I make a living teaching such a niche age group – toddlers and preschoolers – I break it down:

1. It’s what I have always wanted to do and so I’m determined, but it wasn’t always that way.

2. It’s what I am known for. Maria? Oh, she teaches babies to preschoolers.

3. I have an umbrella (some people may refer to it is a brand). You might have heard of it — Maria’s Movers.

When I first started teaching in NYC I was what I like to call a “floater,” floating from place to place just doing my thing.

I did anything and everything I could to “make it.” I set guidelines for myself, but only after I’d learned the hard way that it was needed or I would go insane.

One year I was doing crazy things like traveling across city boroughs twice in one day. That, my friends, was not fun. But I loved teaching so much that I was willing to do it. Plus, I knew that what I was doing would bring me to what I am doing now.

Even though I was seeing about 200 kids per week, I still didn’t feel like I belonged to any of the communities I freelanced within. What helped me most was building my own umbrella, a place to call home. Now that umbrella guides what and where I will teach.

If you are looking to build an umbrella for yourself, here are some ideas to start with:

If you want to teach young kids, work with children wherever you can.

One day, no joke, I dressed up in a cow costume at an ice cream shop for a kid’s birthday party. Another semester I taught cooking. I taught gymnastics and art. I scooped ice cream and traveled at least 2.5 hours a day on the subway everyday. Whatever it was, I made sure the experience I was getting was with little ones.

Failure = Opportunity

I was on track to being a public school dance teacher, but for some reason I couldn’t pass just one test (the dance one!) to get certified. I took it four times and still couldn’t pass it. At the time, I felt like a failure. Later, I realized it was a blessing in disguise, because teaching early childhood is what I am meant to do.

Be patient while it builds.

It takes time to build a house, and it takes time to build an umbrella too. I have been in NYC for almost 8 years, 2 of those years were for graduate school. Just this year, I am able to pick and choose my schedule and actually say “no” to teaching cooking and dressing up in a cow costume. It takes time, probably even more time than you think.

Be willing to go there.

Maybe you have to travel a little further to get to a job that would be inline with your ultimate goal. I say do it. You can always drop it later if needed but, who knows? It could be the best job you ever had. Weigh your options and then take a risk. Being known for teaching a specific niche means you have to find an opportunity first!

Word to the mothers.

I truly believe that moms of kids in my classes are equally important to building my umbrella, especially in NYC, but word-of-mouth works anywhere. With so many choices for kids these days, Moms with good things to say about you and your teaching makes your umbrella bigger.

Think outside the studio.

Think about other places you can teach and spread the love of dance to young children.

1) Homeschools – You could add this into your day, and traveling to them makes it all the more fun. Co-ops are often looking for qualified teachers.

2) Libraries – Story time loves movement teachers.

3) Basements or playrooms – In the summertime I go to playrooms and basements and teach dance. It’s not a dance studio, but it doesn’t matter. They just want to move!

4) Preschools – Not every child has the opportunity to dance outside of school. It could be very fulfilling to approach preschools and teach dance/movement during their school day.

Creating an umbrella, your own brand is empowering. I’m not suggesting you need a blog, or even a website (although you should have one), but I am suggesting that you think about what your umbrella (or brand) might look like.

I have been wanting to write this blog post for a very long time. I hope it inspires you to find your niche, whatever it may be, and work to position your own umbrella.

What I love so much about my umbrella is that I get to choose what goes under it.

Are you a floating teacher? Do you have an umbrella?

Do you have advice to add on building and maintaining an umbrella? I would love to hear!

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Maria Hanley Blakemore

Early Childhood Dance Educator at Maria's Movers

A passionate advocate for early childhood dance education, Maria Hanley Blakemore teaches ages 18 months to 6 years, 6 days a week. Maria currently designs and implements ballet programs for the young families and after school division at the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan. In Brooklyn, Maria teaches creative movement, creative ballet, and parent/toddler classes at Dancewave Center and The Mark Morris Dance Group. Maria holds a Master’s degree in dance education from New York University (2007) and a Bachelor’s degree in dance performance from Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania (2005). She also serves on Dance/NYC’s Junior Committee and is a member of the National Dance Education Organization. Maria is the founder of Maria’s Movers, a program that offers dance, movement and yoga classes to boys and girls in their early years. She authors the blog Move. Create. Educate. (www.mariasmovers.com), where she shares her creative ideas about teaching young dancers.

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Right now, I’m interested in exploring “alternative” dance careers: dance movement therapy, Screendance, costuming, and critical writing. This is the first of two posts where I look at these careers by talking to people who are currently working to pursue them.

What is my definition of an “alternative” dance career?

A person pursuing an alternative dance career is someone who is not primarily dancing with a company, teaching at a school or in a studio, performing, or choreographing for the stage.

Chelsie Batko is a student of the Dance/Movement Therapy and Counseling (DMTC) program at Columbia College in Chicago, IL.

Chelsie blogs at Columbia

She explains that The American Association of Dance Therapy (ADTA) defines dance/movement therapy as the psychotherapeutic use of movement to further the emotional, cognitive, physical, and social integration of the individual.

Chelsie became interested in the field during high school and researched dance/movement therapy for a paper her freshman year of college. She came to realize that this was the career path she wanted to pursue and combined her psychology major with a dance minor in preparation for graduate study.

Chelsie stressed to me that even though she is studying an “alternative” dance path, she has not given up dancing or choreographing.

“In understanding how I myself move, I am better able to apply the knowledge I have gained to help future clients”. In fact, the DMTC program has made her “more culturally aware of other dance forms and styles throughout the world” and introduced her to ideas such as Laban Movement Analysis and the Bartenieff Fundamentals, “as well as the psychological implications that underlie both.” She says, “My knowledge of other cultural dances can actually help me to build rapport and communication with clients.”

I asked Chelsie what clients typically seek in an appointment with a dance movement therapist and she assured me that there is not a “typical” answer to this question.

“There are many different populations in which dance/movement therapy can be beneficial. Dance movement therapists can work in a wide range of settings such as hospitals, nursing homes, schools, rehabilitation centers, and community centers. Group therapy sessions employ the use of many different methods in order to create a strong and supportive bond among all members. Through interpersonal work, the dance movement therapist can then help clients to help themselves, as well as each other. ”

Claire Bagley Hayes is a student of the University of Utah’s Screendance Certificate program.

Body Logic — clairebagleyhayesdance.com

Claire discovered Dance for the Camera when in a “Dance and Culture” class during undergrad. During this time in her education she was focusing a lot on her choreography but had also been working as a film editor for several years. Upon seeing “Reines D’un Jour” choreographed by Marie Nespolo, Christine Kung, and directed by Pascal Magnin, she knew that Screendance was something she wanted to learn more about.

As part of the Screendance program, Claire began by showing her pieces locally at a Salt Lake City venue called Sugarspace.

This is a venue where her dance company Body Logic, with whom she continues to dance as she pursues her graduate studies, has shown work in the past. She says that she has found great support for her work by building report with the community arts scene from dancers and non-dancers alike.

“These relationships and friendships buoy one’s dedication and confidence in what one is trying to accomplish and/or say with their art. By performing and supporting others in my community, I am actively spreading the good word of dance and Screendance, gaining support, and bridging art form to art form.”

Claire is graduating this spring and plans to send some of her pieces to Screendance festivals and other independent film festivals. She is also exploring mixed media and thinking of new ways to showcase the marriage of dance and film.

She says, “Currently I am working on a Screendance piece entitled “Settle Down (or French Duet)”, which is a study on the “how-to” of taking a piece meant for the proscenium theater and manipulating or re-choreographing it using film and editing techniques. This piece is meant to co-exist and reflect ideas made in the thesis I am currently writing about the use of film and editing techniques and ideas inside of live choreography.”

Both of these women have used their graduate studies to cultivate their love for dance beyond what one might think of as a “typical” dance career.

While these programs are very different, both have allowed these students to combine their love of dance with another passion.

Through talking to Claire and Chelsie, and Toya Dubin and Brian Shaefer, who I will be featuring in my next article, I’ve learned that pursuing an alternative dance career does not mean giving up your love of dance and dancing. Instead, it means allowing yourself to expand your studies in a new and exciting way.

Admittedly, these are pretty thrilling prospects to me!

To learn more about what Claire and Chelsie are up to, visit Claire’s website and Marginalia, the Columbia College graduate blog for which Chelsie writes regularly.

Are you pursuing an “alternative” dance career?

What has your career shown you about the dance world that you might not have engaged with otherwise?

How have you used your career to expand your dance studies and connect with others?

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Alissa Anderson

Alissa Anderson is a lifelong resident of Jamestown, New York. Currently in her senior year at Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin, she is majoring Dance and Comparative Literature. Her choreography has been featured in the Beloit College December Dance Workshops during Fall 2011 and 2012. Additionally, she studies both Spanish and Portuguese and spent a semester abroad studying environmental sciences in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, Brazil. After graduation, she plans to pursue a career writing for the arts and to continue her study of the Portuguese language.

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Today’s guest, Andrew Stone, has been a reader of Dance Advantage for some time. Though typically his thoughts are reserved for our comment section, he recently requested an opportunity to share a post with you. I think you’ll find his unique perspective of interest as he considers some universal truths about ballet and dance.

I’ve been doing partner dance for a while, but recently I took on my greatest challenge: ballet at 50+.

Andrew dances with a partner

It doesn’t need to be said that there are not a lot of 50-something guys in a beginner ballet class, but there I was, among a group of women who ranged in age from teenagers to women in their 40′s. I was the oldest.

My first reaction (after a cringe of embarrassment), was to observe what a varied group they were. If you have done a lot of partner dance you can spot the ‘good ones’ without them telling you anything. The posture, and the habit of pointing the foot (yes, good partner dancers unconsciously do tendu as well) give it all away.

The serious dancer, in whatever form, is marked for life — the balance, the posture and the flexibility cannot be hidden.

Some of the dancers were very good indeed, but others were not so flexible, and some of the teenage girls had clearly never done any serious dance at all.

All this was taken in with a brief glance of the studio.

How was anyone going to manage a class like that?

So, we all marshaled up at the barre. I could sense all eyes were on me.

There was a look of surprise from the teacher and from the better students. I passed the test comfortably. The old guy could lift his legs.

In partner dance, unfortunately, there is no pressure on the dancer to have a good range of movement and flexibility.

At the start, they don’t tell you that you need to learn chest isolations if you are to lead in Argentine tango, or that balance is essential for those fast turns in the Viennese Waltz.

As you get better, you realize it’s an absolute requirement, but as a beginner, it is not something you are encouraged to focus on.

Ballet is different — strength, agility, flexibility and balance are everything. It’s pointless learning anything until you have them, hence the relentless and very productive drilling at the barre.

I finished each class feeling like I had run a marathon and came to the next class with a little better balance, and a little better flexibility. I was learning to work my body.

A fabulous experience that teaches a core truth.

The basic skills of ballet are an absolute requirement to perform well in any form of dance. It should be the starting point of all dance classes, but I think most teenage boys would run a mile if told that had to learn ballet before dancing with a girl.

Those basic core skills are, however, also shared with the martial arts. Most Argentine tango dancers will tell you that anyone trained in Akido can go from beginner to intermediate in just about one class. Akido’s focus on shared balance, smoothness of movement and connection means an Akido fighter already has all the basic components to make a good Tanquero.

Lost in translation

As we neared the end of my ballet course we got into a little pas de deux work, which was fascinating. My experience from Argentine tango and West Coast Swing easily transferred to pas de deux. Clearly, my teacher knew about connection and how it worked, but teaching it was a different story. I found myself saying, ‘You’ll get the idea better if you do it this way’.

Similarly, at another event, I met up with one of the women from my class. This was a lady with many years experience in ballet, and I invited her to try Swing dancing.

Astonishingly, she could not improvise steps and she could not follow a lead, though by all accounts she was a fine dancer. I’ve encountered the same with an international-level ballroom dancer who froze completely when faced with a different dance structure and the challenge of improvising to music.

So here’s another universal dance truth:

You can’t dance if you can’t adapt.

Ballet is all about physical skill, intense physical skill, but if you can’t use that skill and ability outside of the ballet paradigm, you haven’t learned dance. You’ve learned ballet, and nothing else.

Alongside my ballet lessons, I was acquainted with a recently retired concert ballet dancer from Eastern Europe, a region devoid of the complex psychological and practical ‘safety nets’ to be found for retiring dancers in the UK and USA. She had taken the shock, the ‘little death,’ very badly and her boyfriend asked me to speak to her.

She couldn’t understand why an old guy like me would want to do ballet when I knew I would never be any good at it. The whole concept of dancing for the sake of dancing was beyond her.

What she didn’t see is that dancing has more than one dimension. There is a world of dancers outside ballet. There is a world of dancers outside ballroom. There is a world of dance outside Argentine Tango.

She saw her body as a tool. Something to be used like knife or a hammer. When it was broken, it was broken, and nothing could bring that back.

But it’s not your body, or physical skill that makes you a dancer; it’s the way you use those skills and what you use them for that makes you a dancer.

How do you feel about Andrew’s observations?

What other universal truths regarding ballet or dance have you uncovered?

We’d love to hear from all readers, but especially partner dancers who’ve done ballet or visa versa!

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Dance Advantage welcomes guest posts from other dance teachers, students, parents, professionals, or those knowledgeable in related fields. If you are interested in having your article published at Dance Advantage, please see the following info on submitting a guest post.

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Arts-integration treats each discipline equally.

The goal of each arts integration is to treat each discipline thoughtfully.

The theme of my academic year has been arts integration.

Although it has always been an area of focus in my teaching, particularly in K-12 but also at the college level, this year has led to some further distinctions for me.

In general, there are some big misunderstandings and roadblocks to authentic, integrated learning:

• Most people think that arts integration is applying the arts to the process of learning material that seems best suited in a core classroom.
• Most people think that if they make a dance “about” something explored in a core classroom, it is arts integration.
• Most people don’t know where or how to begin the conversation with a colleague so that co-teaching is a possibility.

Arts integration needs to meet the needs of both (or all) disciplines being integrated in weight, meaning, and of course grade-level teaching standards.

Perhaps the best way to describe arts integration is to highlight how it tends to exist.

The Kennedy Center offers a perspective similar to this:

Discipline Specific Learning

Generally, when you are making a dance- including one with a “theme” or “meaning”, you are engaging in the creative process and instructing about dance-making, editing, and technical/performance coaching. You may have “borrowed” the theme from a story being read in Language Arts class but that does not make it an integrated experience.

A dance-integrated approach: Create a dance with ideas borrowed from a book being read in the Language Arts class. Explore the structure of the book and craft the dance through a similar structure or process of structuring. Consider the language, the form, the arch of the book. Draw comparisons to how this could be done in dance and guide the students through the process. Research how the author engaged in the writing process and the reflection process by finding articles, interviews, other writings based on the author’s opinion or feeling about the work. If possible, use what the author would have done differently to edit the dance inspired by their work. Interview the students about their work with the dance and allow them to edit reflectively.

Art… integrated. Design by the Ink Society

Arts-Enhanced Learning

Have you ever sung a song about the 50 states? Did you learn anything about music?

No.

Did you learn about the states?

Yes.

The lack of gained musical understanding is why this learning is enhanced with the arts and not integrated.

An example of this might be learning the cultural dances of a specific group of people without analyzing how and why the dance came into existence.

A dance integrated approach: Why is the emphasis of weight pulled up, or grounded with deep stance? How does the movement vocabulary reflect the work of these people or their spirituality? What are the gender roles within the dance and how do they relate to social norms of the time this dance was created? Is this dance still in common use and if so, when and where? What does this say about the shift in culture and social rituals?

Don’t stop at language arts!

Yes, Language Arts and Social Studies tend to be great entry-points for arts integration but think about the processes, ready to be explored and demonstrated through movement, involved in science (Newton’s Laws about forces and motion, cycles of plants/life/water, energy and electricity), and math (angles, accumulation/de-accumulation, sequencing, patterns).

How does one start to talk about co-teaching?

Decide if you will be co-teaching or parallel teaching as you integrate subject areas and connect thinking.

• Co-teaching means that you will both be present and contributing to the teaching/learning process.

• Parallel teaching means that you and your partner will tackle these subject areas in separate spaces at separate times.

Both require planning and a clear map of how you will present the material.

For me, co-teaching is always more satisfying and offers students more immediate connections between disciplines and beyond.

Remember to be patient, however. As with any collaborator, communication must be clear and your potential as a team will develop over time and with practice. This relationship, too, is a process to be enjoyed and explored.

Here are some additional resources for your quest to authentically integrate:

ArtsEdge: Arts Integration information by The Kennedy Center

Keyarts: Inclusive arts education

Dance Advantage, September 2012 Dancer Speak: Rethinking How We Talk About Dance

Dance Advantage, July 2012 Simon Sinek Tells Dancers to “Start with Why“

Dance Advantage, June 2012 Historical Documentaries on DVD Help to Fill a Void in Academic Dance

How are you integrating?

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Heather Vaughan-Southard

Heather Vaughan-Southard is a dance educator and freelance choreographer based in Michigan with rich teaching experiences in higher education, K-12 public schools, and private studios. With an approach of teaching dance as a liberal art, she draws from her experiences dancing professionally in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles to create experiences that move beyond the boundaries of a studio, producing well-rounded, thinking dance citizens. She is author of the blog EducatingDancers, where she chronicles her perspectives on dance and dance education. Heather holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Michigan, BFA in dance from Western Michigan University, K-12 Dance Certification from Wayne State University and is the mother of two small children whom never seem to stop moving.

This hit close to the mark when I first got a job teaching college students how to exercise. Quite frankly, I was terrified.

Though my teaching resume was fairly substantial even at that time (nearly six years ago), the bulk of my experience was teaching ballet to pampers through pre-teens. What did I know about teaching college?!? Or exercise?!?

At first, I didn’t see a correlation between teaching kids how to dance and the world of academia, but when you’re offered a steady job with steady pay and benefits, you fake it ’til you make it.

Six years ago I traded my chiffon skirt and slippers for sweats and gym shoes…

As it turns out, those 10+ years with the littles, a group that many dance teachers would agree are the most challenging (but also most rewarding… right?),  have come in exceedingly handy. The past several years spent with my 18-and-ups have allowed me to appreciate the time and experiences I had with my littles.

Teaching is teaching, regardless of age, and I’m continually surprised by the similarities between toddlers and higher ed. Littles are just small people, so you can, for the most part, teach them the same way that you would any other population.

The biggest notable difference from teaching college students is that the three-year-olds get scheduled potty breaks… otherwise, the rules are pretty much the same.

There are a couple of things that I gained from years of teaching small children that have become invaluable to me as a faculty member at the University of Illinois. In hindsight, these are qualities that not all of my colleagues possess (did I say that out loud?) and frankly sometimes I think we professors could benefit from a little face time with some littles.

The main takeaways from teaching kids, for me, were patience, self-care, thinking on my feet, and connecting with students.

1. Patience

It can be frustrating when you feel like your students aren’t “getting it”. When this happens, I practice patience and consider that it might be me who is not getting it.

Miscommunications are a challenge, not a problem, and often an indication that the instructor needs to change her approach. Consider alternative ways to give the students access to the information.

Using metaphors and analogies works at ALL ages.  Now instead of pretending to be clouds and blooming flowers I compare excitation-contraction coupling to speed dating and tell them to be Kate Winslet on the Titanic when they stretch their pectoral muscles in the pool (“Jack, Jack, I’m flying!).

In marketing, writing, and speech, we follow a rule of three: if you give information in three different formats, the target audience is more likely to remember and respond to it. People learn in three different ways, and from three types of cues: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (practice).  Addressing all three learning styles helps insure that the students are on board. The rule of three can apply to repetition too. Do something three times, for three consecutive classes, or three consecutive weeks (or all of the above) and it’s more likely to stick.

2. Taking Care of My Body

There’s a reason that the majority of dance instructors who teach small children are young: it’s exhausting. The same goes for Group Fitness Instructors.

Both are somehow pegged as entry level jobs, but to do either of these jobs well takes a highly skilled, imaginative person and a boat load of stamina. No matter who your students are, teaching class after class (a typical day for me is six in a row) takes a toll on your body.

I often find myself disobeying the rules of good training by demonstrating without a proper warm-up, or always using my dominant side, or not drinking enough water. Full-out demonstrations all the time just aren’t possible when you teach six classes in a row, and it gives an unfair advantage to my earlier classes that get me while I’m “fresh”.

As time goes on and I get older (and smarter) the way that I approach teaching a class has changed, but the student experience hasn’t. My students often comment on my schedule, saying “I don’t know how you do it, Lauren!” Some days are more tiring than others, but generally I’ve worked out a way to totally exhaust the students and barely break a sweat.

My favorite master of littles, Maria Hanley Blakemore, gave some great suggestions last month on how to save your stamina, and I give my own thoughts here on the the importance of not demonstrating everything all the time (spoiler: it’s not just about YOU).

3. Thinking on My Feet

If you’ve taught before, you know that things don’t always go according to plan. Besides teaching my own students, I also teach others how to become fitness instructors.

My advice is always to plan more activities than you think you’ll need, and be prepared to throw everything out the window. Equipment goes missing, groups are unevenly numbered, someone’s got an injury you have to accommodate for, the stereo breaks….. in short, s(*$ happens.

The difference between a good teacher and a great one is how they cope and give the students a positive and seamless class even under the worst of circumstances.

4. How To Connect With Students

For littles, connecting could mean getting down on their level and playing freeze dance, or using a Dora the Explorer CD.

For me, it means Ke$Ha on the stereo and references to Spring Break in Daytona. Be it a coloring page about the circus or a Pinterest board of inspirational quotes, the point is to meet your students where they are.

Respect is mutual, and though I can come across as silly and nonchalant, it’s clear to every one of my students that I take their training seriously.

I know all 300 of their names, I ask about their lives, and invest enough in them that they know I have their backs. Because of this, they work their butts off for me. The photo of smiling, happy college students above was immediately after they ran a 5K in 42-degrees and light rain… and I didn’t hear one complaint.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter that I didn’t know anything about college students or exercise.

I figured out a few years into this that I wasn’t hired because of my extensive knowledge of step aerobics; I was hired because I have the ability to learn new things, adapt and communicate effectively.

These are qualities that transcend age and subject matter.

Occasionally, I may only be a chapter ahead in the textbook but I have many tools in my toolbox, and I learned them in front of the harshest of critics: three-year-olds and their parents.

Do you teach college students OR littles?

What have you learned from your students?

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Lauren Warnecke

Dance writer, educator, and freelance everything at Art Intercepts

Lauren Warnecke is a dance writer, educator and freelance choreographer/producer based in Chicago, IL. She is a contributing author at 4dancers.org, danceadvantage.net, and The Huffington Post. Lauren holds degrees in Dance (BA, ’03) and Kinesiology (MS, ’09) and is currently a full-time Clinical Instructor for the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Lauren owns and operates Art Intercepts, a platform for dance-based discourse that is steeped in evidence-based learning and practice. She is a certified ballet teacher through the Cecchetti Counsel of America’s Midwest Counsel, a certified personal trainer through American College of Sports Medicine, and blogs in her spare time about travel, food, and various foibles at craftylauren.com.

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I’m perplexed, even a little bit mad. How is it that I didn’t know then how much I would miss it, or how much effort it would take to start rebuilding all my carefully honed muscle memories? How inconsiderate of my younger, silly self!

Over the past seven or eight years of taking adult ballet classes and maturing, dare I say, from an open-class shy Newbie into an open-class debonair Sophisticate (watch me as I stride into the studio and know exactly where to drop my bag!), I’ve witnessed many class Newbies come and go.

One of the constants has been this:

Newbie approaches the teacher at the beginning of class, or the end (perhaps as a way to “explain” their “performance”), and says, “I’m [insert name] and I studied ballet when I was young, but this is the first class I’ve taken in over [insert multiple of 10] years.”

Newbie then apologizes for how “poorly” she did, or she might ask the teacher if there’s an easier class for her to try, or she might laugh about how “things aren’t what they used to be.”

Photo by Quinn Dombrowski

Most teachers will respond to the Newbie with some combination of the following statements, delivered with extra pep for reassurance: “Welcome! You did great! I can tell that you’ve had formal training before. You should stay. There are all kinds of levels here. It’s an open class, so just do what you can. It always takes time to get used to a new studio and a new teacher. Don’t worry if you feel like you can’t keep up. Your muscles will remember over time.”

You know what? It may not feel true at the time – especially if you have the misfortune of picking a first class that happens to be extra-crowded, or a class full of leggy teenagers with no hips to speak of and banana feet by their ears who are stampeding by you in every center combination. But it’s all true.

For Newbies who aren’t exactly new to ballet, I offer ten tips and reflections below, in case my own experience can be of help to others:

1. I’m sorry to report that the dancewear you wore in high school probably doesn’t fit you anymore.

When I first had the brilliant idea to start ballet again after 10 years, I was so excited that I immediately called my mom and asked her to ship me my stash of old dancewear. “Everything! Priority mail, please!”

My old leotards, tights, warm-ups, skirts, Sanshas, Chacotts, jazz shoes, some very aged wads of lambs wool: I patted myself on the back for having the foresight to keep it all. When the package arrived, I stripped and pulled on my trusty old black camisole leotard … nothing fit.

Silly me, I didn’t realize that even if we stop growing taller, our body shapes keep changing after high school and our proportions keep shifting, while once pliable fabrics get old and stiff (try not to dwell on the sad symbolism). Even my shoes, so lovingly broken in, were too small, the elastics, no longer elastic.

I had to find new dancewear that actually fit, which leads me to my second tip…

2. Shopping for dancewear is fun and you may need to restrain yourself.

The market for dancewear has much improved in the past ten years. For starters, there’s this new thing called the “Internet,” where, if online reviews are to be believed, even hairpins for buns have made astounding innovative leaps.

As an adult ballet dancer – and this is one of the most liberating things about being an adult ballet dancer – you are free to wear pretty much whatever you like. In many classes, you won’t even need “dancewear” to dance. Ballet shoes, fitted and purchased at a real store where possible, would be the sole non-negotiable investment in my mind.

Still, it’s possible to spend hours and hours (trust me, I know) browsing sites looking at dancewear and scrutinizing obscure sizing charts, and figuring out your “girth.”

Do indulge in some new things: feeling like a dancer makes a difference in your dancing. But, you are hereby warned that it’s easy to spend a lot of money very quickly, so self-restraint is advised, particularly as you are exploring new classes and observing what other adults are (and aren’t) wearing to class.

3. Don’t expect too much in your first class.

If you’re like me, you’ll settle into your first plié combination with a smug sigh of relief: “I remember this. Ha! I can do this!” You cambré forward and back and you can’t go very far, but hey, it’s your first day back after [insert interval of 10] years! Ballet classes sure haven’t changed much! You feel pretty good in your tendus, but where did your arches go?

Your degagés: a little sluggish, but passable. Rond de jambe. Not so “rond.” Rond de jambe en l’air? Did you even do these when you were little?

A balance in passé, and your calf starts cramping. A développé? You start thinking stormy thoughts. Why is your leg so low? Can’t it go any higher?? A balance in arabesque. You feel a dull ache spreading in your lower back. Penchée? Alas, not so different from your arabesque, which was really not so different from your degagé, come to think of it… Grande battement.

Ouch to the front, side, back, side, and TURN! Fast piqué turns on the diagonal? Easy! But forget about going more than once on each side. You’ll be too busy groping your way along the perimeter of the studio, your head still spinning, trying to look as if nothing’s wrong.

Rest assured that this is all normal. And expect some exquisite muscle soreness the day after.

Photo by Quinn Dombrowski

4. About those piqué turns… you might need to learn how to spot again.

As a child, I was a fearless turner. When I returned to ballet as an adult, I was surprised to discover that, on top of everything else I’d “forgotten,” I could no longer spot effectively. It takes some time to re-learn (I’m still working on it), but know that this, too, improves with time. Remember that your eyes must actually focus on something for the spot to work.

5. Let your memory motivate you, and then move on.

After a long break from ballet, you’ll inevitably be haunted by memories of what you used to be able to do. The disconnect between what you think you should be able to do and what you can actually muster up now will be frustrating. For a very long time, you might be focused on “closing this gap.”

One day, you’ll suddenly realize that you’re no longer focused on the gap. Instead, you’re working solely with what you’ve got today and challenging yourself as you are now – and that’s a marvelous thing. You recognize that you are no longer exactly who you were a decade, or two or three decades, ago. You are now capable of altogether new balletic feats.

6. Don’t worry that other people are watching you.

It’s natural for Newbies to feel self-conscious in a ballet class where at least one whole wall is a huge mirror (and you’re wearing a leotard for the first time in recent memory).

Don’t waste any energy wondering whether anyone’s watching you. Trust me, everyone is too busy watching themselves and fixating on their own imperfections. Or, they will be watching that one dancer in the room who has incredible extension and/or who is truly mesmerizing to watch. (If that’s you, sorry, you’re out of luck: yes, people are watching you!)

Also, sad but true: in many open classes, even the teacher will rarely be watching you that closely. But that’s another topic for another time.

7. Your feet will cramp.

If your feet haven’t had to point for a few years, they will be unhappy and they will make their unhappiness known by cramping up on you at the most inopportune times. Try massaging your sole over the pedestal of a free-standing barre during class, or over a tennis ball, or even a hard golf ball. Any little ball or sturdy cylindrical object will do. I’ve even used a rolling pin.

8. Anticipate some confusing language.

The names of steps that you hear now may be different from what you heard in your previous dancer life. When in doubt, just ask (after class, if you can).

9. Anticipate some confusing corrections.

The best open class teachers acknowledge that there are different schools of thought around how to execute specific steps, and some will even take the time to explain the origins of those differences. Other teachers will simply demonstrate or ask you to do the steps a certain way, which may be different from how you remember learning them.

Go ahead and try different ways of doing things. It may well be that what ends up working for you now is different from what worked for you before. Don’t be afraid to ask the teacher afterward about it and do your own research on the aforementioned “Internet.”

Books work, too.

10. Accept the support of the wild world of “adult ballet”: it is a generous and giving community.

“Adult ballet” can sound a little strange. Even a little indecent. But it’s a beautiful thing. Who knew that there were so many inspirational blogs out there, written by bona fide grown-ups who have discovered and rediscovered the beauty of ballet? I’ve come to understand and appreciate that adult ballet dancers are a special, quirky breed unto themselves.

There are so many different kinds of us from so many different backgrounds, but we are all brought together by the love of an art that we are more than happy to keep practicing, even though we know that true mastery is out of reach in our lifetimes.

We think dance is one of the most achingly beautiful things that humans can do, and if what we see in the mirror falls short of what we see in YouTube videos or on stage, or in dance magazines or books or even calendars – well, at least we’re dancing!

What could you add to this list?

What are some of your concerns or questions as an adult beginner or beginning againer?

Kathy Lu studied ballet as a child and wonders why she ever stopped. She is now an ardent “adult ballet student” with bunions whose favorite open class haunts are Jose Mateo Ballet Theatre in Cambridge, MA (where she used to live) and New Haven Ballet in New Haven, CT (where she lives now). She misses her old pirouettes. If anyone finds them, please let her know.

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Guest Contributors

Dance Advantage welcomes guest posts from other dance teachers, students, parents, professionals, or those knowledgeable in related fields. If you are interested in having your article published at Dance Advantage, please see the following info on submitting a guest post.

Five years ago I signed up for a blog at wordpress.com. I thought it might be a way to stay connected to the dance world and give me somewhere to share my knowledge of dance with students and teachers while I raised my then infant son.

I thought I would do this in my “spare” time.

The joke was on me.

You moms out there know that spare time when you are starting a family means late nights. It also means a lot of one-armed cooking, cleaning and, in this case, blogging!

You bloggers know that spare-time effort in blogging gets you a blog full of stuff that no one is finding or reading.

I was partially right, though. Blogging has kept me connected to dance in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I’ve enjoyed and have experienced great personal reward as a result of sharing my knowledge and receiving what readers and other writers have shared with me.

Five years later, I’ve acquired both skills and insights into blogging, the Internet, marketing, and relationships that I did not have before. So, as part of my 5th Blogiversary celebration, I thought I’d share some of that with you too!

I asked Twitter followers to submit their questions about blogging. I am answering three of these ON CAMERA. Not my favorite place to appear, but I’m taking one for the team.

Question #1

@danceadvantage Growing it?… getting enough viewers for advertisements and profitable blog

— Kamaria(@KamariaDailey) March 21, 2013

This video covers four essentials for growing a blog plus gives straightforward insight into what kind of traffic it takes to attract advertisers and some insight into what bloggers can generally expect to be paid for advertising. A lot of people don’t like to talk about this stuff. I’ll admit nothing is concrete and this is by no means comprehensive but being vague won’t help you, so here goes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNCxtyjvmXM

Question #2

@danceadvantage I am my own worst critic, so most of my posts get written bt don’t get published. How can I stop worrying what others think?

— Fouette Dancewear (@FouetteDance) March 23, 2013

You can overcome what I’m calling publisher’s anxiety by changing the way you think. I give some advice on stopping negative thoughts and also describe blogging in a way that will hopefully ease any reservations you have about just doing it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKocITBs5fA

Question #3

@danceadvantage happy 5! How to expand and keep the integrity?

— Vicki Crain (@rogueballerina) March 23, 2013

It’s better to give than receive but if you are providing a valuable resource, it’s not unreasonable to want to expand your blog in ways that earn income and compensation for your services. Your blog isn’t exactly your business, but blogs are a great tool for reaching potential customers. If you are hoping to expand into advertising or paid content, it’s still very possible to blog with honesty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1RtmiNEXeY

Question #4

@danceadvantage would you recommend a general dancer to blog about dance or their own dance journey?

— Tom (@t0mat0) March 21, 2013

Tom said that he’s waiting to pull the trigger on a blog that will serve multiple purposes. I gave my answer to him via Twitter and said,

“Experimentation is ok. You may gravitate toward one or another as you find your voice & readers respond. Whether informational or personal, let the blog reflect who you are.”

No, I’m not going to start blogging about blogging instead of dance…

But if you like these or have other questions for me, do let me know in the comments!

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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Nichelle (admin)

Founder/Editor at Dance Advantage

Nichelle Strzepek began Dance Advantage in 2008, equipped with a passion for movement education and an intuitive sense that a blog could bring dancers together. She has written about 100,000 words on dance and dance training each year of its existence. Nichelle holds a BA in dance and is an instructor with more than 17 years experience. She covers dance performance in the Houston area as a freelance writer and balances daily life as a mom to two young children. In June 2012, Nichelle presented the whats, hows, and whys of blogging on a panel at the annual conference for Dance/USA, the national service organization for professional dance, to better equip artists and companies for engaging their audience and new readers through online communications and content.

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Why not creative movement?

For whatever reason, this year I have been asked to do approximately 1,000 (ok, 8) birthday parties. The birthday child loves my ballet class, but wants to invite girls AND boys to the party. It’s always a concern of the parent that if it’s too much like ballet, the boys won’t be interested. I assure the families that it will be a dance party, using props, imagination, and music!

In honor of my birthday this month, and since I have spent the last 5 weekends in a row teaching parties, I thought I would share some ideas I have been using when my students families hire me to do a birthday party for their child.

I will admit, parties are not my favorite thing to teach, but when the guests of honor are my students, it makes it much more fun!

The Logistics:

Space

Do you have a space you can use at a studio or center? If not, you will have find a place to rent. I usually leave it up the family to find the space. Tell them what you need for in terms of space, like a clean dance floor, and an empty room that will fit all of their guests. If you leave it up to them, then there is no disappointment in the space later on.

Time + Money

How much time will you spend doing this party? Will you be teaching only the dance portion or will you cut the cake as I like to do? Are you on set-up and clean-up duty? Did you have to buy special birthday music? All of these come into account when you set aside time for this birthday party and are considering what to charge the family.

Dance Party Ideas

These ideas work for ages 3 -6 year olds and are roughly a 45-minute party.

Share The Rules

When you are teaching class week after week, your students know the rules, but at a birthday party not all of the guests know the rules. To make sure everyone is safe, explain the rules quickly through a story. I pretty much make them laugh right out of the gate so they’ll connect with me.

I say “Hi, my name is Peanut Butter” and they burst out laughing. Once this happens, I’ve got em’.

I ask them to put on their listening ears, their watching eyes, and look in their pocket for a marshmallow. The marshmallow is in case it gets really loud and we have to eat one, or walk on them to be quiet.

Decorate The Party Room Dance

Blow up balloons, paint the walls with stripes and polka dots, add confetti. Gather ideas from the kids and decorate the room for a dance party. Maybe you need a disco ball or streamers? Hang mobiles or splatter the paint (with a spin).

I like to use scarves for this part, you can dip the paint with the scarves and do lots of reaching to paint the walls and the ceiling.

Where else can you put the paintbrush (scarf)? Between your toes or on your elbow? Get creative by using different body parts.

Freeze And Move

Everyone loves freeze dance. I always ask what their favorite song is and use that. I like to spice up the freeze dance by adding words. While they’re “frozen,” add a word: boogie, jump, reach, shake, the possibilities are endless.

Then, it’s really fun to add two words together. For six year olds you could try three words. It’s exciting to watch them explore the movement, and take on the challenge!

Here is my Freeze Dance playlist:

Smooth Criminal – Michael Jackson

I like to Move It Move It – Madagascar

A Friend Like You – Fresh Beat Band

Holiday Road – Lindsey Buckingham

Footloose – Kenny Loggins

Travel On An Adventure

Maybe you want to travel to space, or the jungle, or under the sea? Maybe the birthday child has a favorite place they like to go.

Wherever we travel, we always see banners that say “Happy Birthday (insert child’s name)” I say, “Wow! The sharks know that it’s your birthday!” They get a tickle out of it.

The more people that know about the birthday child’s special day, the more exciting it is. Find a way to incorporate it!

Leaps

So far we have had a lot of listening and following directions. You can throw this in at anytime if you think it’s needed.

I have 4 long ropes I call “snakes.” I get everyone to one side of the room and then tap them when it’s their turn to leap over the snakes. I’m sure you will find that some parties guests will be great “waiters,” but others will just want to do it all at the same time. As longs as you can manage their safety, I say go for it.

Sometimes it’s just lovely to play some music and give them a task.

Make The Birthday Cake

Get everyone to the floor and make a straddle. Then, add whatever the children say they want in their cake to their recipe. Applesauce? MMMMM! Chocolate? Of course! Pizza? Sure! Stir it all up and then lay down to rest while it’s cooking. Once it’s done, decorate it with sprinkles or broccoli (no joke, a little one has said that before) and then…

Blow Out The Candles!

I first saw this idea here, and it’s my absolute favorite! I even do this in class if it’s a students birthday.

Ask all of the guests (adults too!) to make a circle and the birthday child to go into the middle.

Everyone makes a straight candle shape. The birthday child goes on the inside and blows out all of the candles with their movement. In my experience, you will have to show 3 year olds what you mean by blowing out each candle with their arms, otherwise they will just blow in everyone’s face. ha!

Once they “blow” out the candle, the candle falls to the floor. I usually do it two times around just for more fun!

Recommended Music: Happy Birthday Waltz by Lois Bram & Sharon Bram – Happy Birthday! 

A Few Challenges

1) Encourage the hosts to wait to put food out until the dancing portion of the party is over. Otherwise, you will have children and adults eating bagels in the middle of your dance party.

2) Set aside a space for “grown-ups.” If a child just wants to watch with their grown-up, they can’t sit in the middle of the floor. Well… they can, but it’s very frustrating for them. Encourage them to use the space you designate. If they want to dance with their child, encourage that too! The more the merrier!

3) What if the birthday child stops participating? Just keep teaching, they are more likely to join back in. If you stop everything for them, their guests will be disappointed.

4) Make sure the music is in close range. If you get every dance set up and then have to leave the kids to turn on the music, you will loose them.

5) Birthday parties are hard work! So much harder than teaching classes or doing choreography. Enjoy it, but know that when you take it on, it’s not a piece of cake!

Do you teach creative dance birthday parties?

Would you ever give them a try? I would love to hear your ideas! 

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Maria Hanley Blakemore

Early Childhood Dance Educator at Maria's Movers

A passionate advocate for early childhood dance education, Maria Hanley Blakemore teaches ages 18 months to 6 years, 6 days a week. Maria currently designs and implements ballet programs for the young families and after school division at the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan. In Brooklyn, Maria teaches creative movement, creative ballet, and parent/toddler classes at Dancewave Center and The Mark Morris Dance Group. Maria holds a Master’s degree in dance education from New York University (2007) and a Bachelor’s degree in dance performance from Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania (2005). She also serves on Dance/NYC’s Junior Committee and is a member of the National Dance Education Organization. Maria is the founder of Maria’s Movers, a program that offers dance, movement and yoga classes to boys and girls in their early years. She authors the blog Move. Create. Educate. (www.mariasmovers.com), where she shares her creative ideas about teaching young dancers.

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Little by little we are seeing hardwood dance floors disappearing beneath layers of synthetic coverings to protect and extend the life of the floor, and doing so is like keeping a collectible toy in the packaging – an investment, always pristine, never to be played with.  For tap dancers whose art form has evolved with wood flooring in mind this is a bit of a let down.

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You’ll appreciate the diversity in your investment portfolio when you’re older.

Modern dance studios are state-of-the-art facilities that must cater to multiple disciplines of dance, from ballet to modern to tap and even Indian kathak and Irish step dancing. However, if a small to medium sized studio only has three rooms and hosts ten different forms of dance/exercise classes, it may be doubtful that tap alone will pull the weight of 30-50% of the flooring budget to justify having a special room.  Times are tough and the expense of flooring can make or break a fledgling dance studio, but can we compromise on the health and progress of our students, young and old?

Why Marley?

For practically any form of dance, a PVC (poly-vinyl-chloride) surface has become a popular alternative to wood.  This type of vinyl flooring is eponymously referred to as “marley” after the British company that originally produced the floor covering up until 1978.

Marley is light, portable, flexible, relatively inexpensive and provides a long-lasting surface that protects the flooring underneath. On top of that, dancers love it; marley won over wood in a poll conducted at Philedelphia’s University of the Arts, where the students in the modern department were asked to try the two surfaces side-by-side.

So why aren’t we rolling out the marley in every dance studio?  For tap dancers, marley may pose a problem, as tapping on vinyl surfaces technically limits the tap dancers range of sounds and movements and causes extra wear and tear on a tap dancer’s body.

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Limitations Of Vinyl Surfaces On A Tap Dancer

What is limited is any step or movement that requires sliding, like wings. When performing a wing, the foot and leg are performing two contradictory movements – a wing requires that the body rise off of the floor by jumping, while the foot is pressed down into the floor and moved straight out to the side, where the friction created by pressing into the floor will cause a loose ankle to roll to the side of the foot creating the first scrape sound of the wing. Any move involving the ankle must be carefully considered, and the amount of pressure needed to overcome the extra friction created by sticky vinyl turns learning wings into an anxious chore for students. And we all hate chores.

Another range of movements limited to tap dancers by vinyl flooring is sliding. Sliding has been around since tap’s heyday and has been the signature move of such tap pioneers as Raymond “Toe” Winfield, The Nicholas Brothers, and Dr. Jimmy Slyde.

You know who else loves to slide around the dance floor? Kids!

They beg me to work sliding with them across the floor. They take a a few giant steps and launch themselves across the room, after learning the prerequisites of sliding, like keep your legs bent and feet flat. As in any dance class, some students will fall, but an amazing thing happens, they get back up laughing and try again. Something has changed; the students are now at play. Totally engaged, students are laughing and having fun akin to stepping onto an icy spot and sliding around, but now it is a skill in the context of a structured art form.  And if a young tap dancer ever decides to jump into an improv circle nothing gets the “ooo”s and “ahh”s like a well executed slide in a tap combination.

eveandersson.com

Kids and sliding are like cats and paper bags -THEY SIMPLY CAN”T RESIST!

Only on vinyl flooring, none of this is possible. The risk of injury is too great. Students would tumble face-first into the ground when, expecting tap shoes to be slick, their feet come to a complete, sticky halt.  Sliding is simply not taught in any dance studio that only has vinyl dance surfaces and slides are restricted from a professionals repertoire when he/she is asked to perform on a stage covered with marley.

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Marley’s Affect On A Tap Dancer’s Sound

The prevailing theory is that a vinyl floor covering will reduce the sound of the taps, which results in a dancer having to strike the surface harder causing above average wear and tear on their body.  But does marley really eat up a tap dancer’s sound to the point of physical risk?  Let’s find out.

Now, I’m no acoustical engineer…

But Dr. James F. Yerges  is, and I contacted him at the office of Yerges Acoustics in Downers Grove, IL, to see if he could shed some light on the sound absorption properties of poly-vinyl-chloride and how we would measure it.

“The Noise Reduction Coefficient, or NRC, is a simplified or short form metric for the sound absorption properties of a surface finish. Suppose a material was totally reflective, absorbed nothing, it would have an NRC of 0.00.  Suppose it was totally one hundred percent absorptive it would have an NRC of 1.00.  If you are picking a purposeful material for that purpose [sound absorption]  it’s really of not much value if it less than fifty percent, or 0.50.  A vinyl coating over a floor would have an NRC no greater than about 0.03, so it’s really only about three percent absorptive.  A typical wood floor has an NRC of approximately 0.09, or nine percent absorptive.  So wood is actually a tiny bit more absorptive than the vinyl.”

Wow, so vinyl material actually absorbs LESS sound than wood!  But if the vinyl material itself is not the culprit in the sound reduction of tap dance, then why DO my taps sound softer when I tap on marley?

If you are standing in the studio listening to the dancers tap, you’re hearing suppression of the tap by the resiliency of the vinyl.  The vinyl is giving a little bit and absorbing the energy whereas the harder wood gives a sharp report.

So a tap dancer WOULD have to dance a little harder to create the same level of volume as dancing on a wood floor. There is still something a little off about the sound of tap on marley, like it is muffled and more subdued.  For example, scraping sounds are difficult or impossible to hear on marley.

 ”The wood floor, in that situation when you are drawing the tap across the wood, the wood is radiating that sound the way the body of a violin would radiate the sound from the string. It’s the same phenomenon.  It’s not generating energy, but it’s radiating the sound into the air so that you can hear it.”

“If you tap harder you will produce more volume, but you can tap until Hell freezes over and you won’t be able to get that same crisp, sharp report that you get from a hard surface. You can get it louder by stomping on it harder, but you can’t produce the same high frequency component. You can’t get the same sharp attack dancing on a vinyl surface as you would on a hard wood surface.”

For more information on tap dance’s relationship to frequency and other elements of sound and music, please check out previous Tapography posts Tap Is Music (And I Can Prove It) Part 1 and Part 2.

Transitioning From Wood To Marley

Tap dancing on marley may limit the steps and sounds that a tap dancer can produce, but are there actually any health risks to tap dancing on a vinyl dance surface?

I spoke with Melissa Reh, MSPT, CSCS, physical therapist and tap dancer, and she also has concerns about tap dancers dancing on vinyl flooring.  For Melissa, it is the transition from wood to a vinyl dance surface that poses a problem.

“Transitioning from a wood dance surface to a marley dance surface can be difficult for tap dancers because all of the slide you normally feel goes away. Our taps can get lodged in the marley when our brain and body expects to be moving across a smooth floor. The disconnect makes it more difficult to safely and effectively execute tap steps, especially those that require our momentum to move across the floor, like flaps, riff walks, or slides. We have to pick up our feet much more not to stick. If our taps stick unexpectedly when our momentum is really going, we are more likely to fall or get injured.”

But there is a solution to this, right?  Just have the students practice on marley and they won’t have to worry about adapting to a marley covered stage. Oh wait, but that means we can’t work on sliding and other steps.  So, the options are to train well rounded tap dancers and risk injury, or shelter dancers from popular and relevant techniques, but at least they will be safe.  Now would be the appropriate time for the obligatory, “Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the children!”

stmstudiosupplies.com

A Compromise?

There may be!  It appears that the manufacturers of vinyl floor coverings, companies like Harlequin and Stagestep, have been listening to consumers and are producing options with tap dancers in mind.

In a follow up article I will explore the cutting-edge of marley production and the lengths that manufacturers are going to make flooring suitable for tap dancers.  Are marley manufacturers on a roll, or should we roll up the marley and just give tap dancers their wood?  Find out next time in the Tapography column on DanceAdvantage.net.

Special Thanks

Dr. James F. Yerges has a Ph.D. in engineering and specializes in acoustics – sound, noise and vibration control – and works as a consultant at Yerges Acoustics in Downers Grove, IL.

Melissa Reh has a Masters of Science in Physical Therapy and is a certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, is a Senior Physical Therapist at Creative Rehab in Libertyville, IL and is the Director of Health and Wellness at Audible Odyssey in Chicago, IL.

What problems have you encountered with different types of flooring?

What solutions have you discovered?

Please share in the comments!

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Tristan Bruns

Tristan Bruns has studied the art form of tap dance with Donna Johnson, Ted Levy, Lane Alexander and Martin "Tre" Dumas and has a BA in Music from Columbia College Chicago. Tristan has been an ensemble member of such Chicago tap companies as BAM!, The Cartier Collective and MADD Rhythms. Tristan currently produces his own work through his company, TapMan Productions, LLC, which includes the performance ensemble The Tapmen and the tap and guitar "band" of The Condescending Heroes.

Photo Courtesy of Robinlou8

Even when you have the best of relationships with your students, there are days or weeks that some middle-schoolers will grunt, shrug, or ignore every attempt you make to welcome them at the door, engage them in class, or crack your latest joke.

They are middle-schoolers; it is kind of their job.

I have begun turning the tables on how we engage in our classwork. Instead of “teaching” my lesson during which I lead them through movement, impart valuable information, and allow them time to experiment with it — I have started providing a framework for which the exploration leads the lesson and everyone in the room is responsible for exploring, including me.

I have found that the their work is improved, authentic, and owned. And they see me in a different light, too. I am still guiding their experience but I am also an active part of the process, similar to how Maria Hanley Blakemore models exploration with her students instead of for them.

Throughout the process, we have been able to avoid many of the pitfalls of middle school “shut downs”, those that are emotional and those that are academic. There has been something for everyone as we have had a myriad of experiences so different leaders have surfaced for different activities.

A few things have helped:

• Visuals:
  A giant yellow sheet of paper covers much of one wall of mirrors, documenting our thoughts and our process.
• Dancers’ Choice:
  The kids were surprised when I let them create their groups. Again and again, I was asked how many had to be in a group. I took a page from their books and shrugged, offering “all I ask is that you choose to be productive so make your decisions accordingly.” For the most part, they have.
• 2 Cents:
  The students helped plan each step of our process including how much time we spent on each part.
• Music Upon Need, Not Demand:
  We only used music when we felt we needed a boost in motivation and therefore it did not drive what we were creating.
• Neutral in Style, Objective in Goals:
  Without classifying movement by style, we were able to invent movement that suited our needs and fit our criteria for limitations. The process then felt like problem-solving instead of choreographing and it took the pressure off of students intimidated by “choreography” assignments.
• Escape Routes: 
  As our experiences were enriched, our ideas and questions diversified. So the “dead air” or “dead end” that can occur when students shut down has been minimized… there is always something new to talk about.

There have been a few other changes that have made a big difference.

As I work through my classes that push me toward the renewal of my teaching certificate, I have been making constant adjustments to the climate within my room, as discussed in my article Acknowledging the Person Before the Dancer, and refining my focus in the objectives and outcomes I create for my students. (Check out this article on four teaching styles by Stacey Pepper Schwartz)

I have also been paying closer attention to how I speak to kids. Always an advocate for children, I have been sensitive to how I use my tone and how I make requests and it has been critical in my success as a teacher. Yet middle-schoolers can be a whole separate ball game from their younger and older counterparts.

Jim Fay and David Funk’s  Teaching With Love and Logic has been a particularly powerful resource for me- so much so that I have purchased the Parenting With Love and Logic, too!

How do you deal with the middle school “shut down”?

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Heather Vaughan-Southard

Heather Vaughan-Southard is a dance educator and freelance choreographer based in Michigan with rich teaching experiences in higher education, K-12 public schools, and private studios. With an approach of teaching dance as a liberal art, she draws from her experiences dancing professionally in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles to create experiences that move beyond the boundaries of a studio, producing well-rounded, thinking dance citizens. She is author of the blog EducatingDancers, where she chronicles her perspectives on dance and dance education. Heather holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Michigan, BFA in dance from Western Michigan University, K-12 Dance Certification from Wayne State University and is the mother of two small children whom never seem to stop moving.