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Small Ballet School vs. Large Ballet School?

Tuesday, January 25th, 2011

Every since Julian received that merit scholarship two weeks ago, we’ve been discussing the merits of the ballet school he now attends, City Ballet School in San Francisco. It seems that New York City Ballet tends to give out merit scholarships to kids they would like to see in their school, the School of American Ballet, and company members most often come out of the school. In fact, only five company members currently have not come out of the school from what I was told.

So, would it behoove Julian to go to SAB this summer and, if offered, to attend the school next year? This question may seem a bit premature, but we considered the same last summer about American Ballet Theatre, although he didn’t get in to JKO. And we considered it about San Fransisco Ballet School. In fact, many of the girls and boys from City end up going to SFB at the highest levels simply so they can get considered for the trainee program there, which is an entree into the company.

Here’s our conclusion: A small school like City offers a boy like Julian more benefit than a large school. He has learned more and had more opportunity in a shorter amount of time because the school is small and he gets individual attention. For the first three months he had private 30-minute lessons as part of his weekly routine four days a week. He was cast in some great roles for the Nutcracker and got individualized attention for learning these roles. He has been chosen to do Youth American Grand Prix numbers with some of the best ballerinas in the school because he is one of only two boys. (He was the only boy until recently).

At a large school he might get lost in the pack. If he wasn’t chosen as one of the “special” ones, he would never get special attention. Even then, he wouldn’t get the kind of training and attention he gets in a small school.

I asked Julian if he would choose to got to SAB, ABT or SFB if given the chance, he said, “No.” I agree. He couldn’t be in a better place right now. Even if he has to audition to get into a company, should he choose to go into a company rather than to college, he will learn more and be a better dancer by staying in a small ballet school.

The only thing missing from the school is the competition and camaraderie of other boys. There is something to be said for having at least a few more boys–and some that are better–with whom to dance.

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Dance Stores and Studios that Don’t Meet Dancin’ Boys Needs

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

OMG! When you really need a dance belt, you can never find one. A dance store should not call itself a dance store if it not going to carry dance belts in all sizes and in all styles. I mean really…to show up at a store in dire need of a dance belt fast and to find they have only small sizes in full bottom…that’s not a dance store.

I told a store clerk that today in no uncertain terms. You can be sure we won’t return there ever again.

I know I’m preaching to the choir here. Dance stores do not carry items for boys. That’s just a fact. But really. Give me a break.

Okay…I’ve ranted. As you may have guessed, we had a minor (well…not so minor) issue with a forgotten dance belt.

On to other things. I apologize for my neglect of this blog. Life has just been crazy and driving the hour and 15 or 25 minutes to San Francisco every day has not helped. Yes…that’s how long we are in the car (one way) to get Julian to City Ballet School. It’s well worth the drive, though. He is loving the classes and the (basically) private lessons with Yuri Zhukov. He says he has improved immensely in just a few short weeks. He’s also very excited to be partnering some of the best dancers there for the school’s Nutcracker as he takes on the role of Cavalier and Snow Prince.

I think the decision to move into a full ballet program at this point was a good one. However, I must say that I’m happy that he has contemporary classes twice a week, so he won’t lose that totally. I miss him doing tap and hip hop occasionally. And I’m very sorry he isn’t doing modern.

I’m going to put something out there for those readers who are dance teachers or administrators of dance programs: I suggest you really pay attention to the needs of your male dancers. When they come to you and say, I want more ballet technique or more opportunity to work on the “guy ballet stuff, ” or my interest lies in break dancing or in modern or in classical partnering, LISTEN. Don’t stop there, though. DO SOMETHING. Studios lose their boys when they don’t cater to their needs.

I can hear the rumblings: “Why should we cater to their needs? We shouldn’t have to treat them like they are special.” Listen up…again! The boys are special. And there aren’t that many of them. If you don’t want to lose the one or two really good male dancers you have, cater to them. Give them what they want. Otherwise, they will go elsewhere to get it…which is what Julian did this year.

Next post…I promise…the first in a series with choreographer and dancer Joey Dowling.

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Posted in dance attire, dance studios, Keeping Boys in Studios, Nutcracker, Teachers | 2 Comments »

Still Dancin’ Up a Storm in New York City

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

Julian began his final five days of dance classes today. We started off at Steps on Broadway, where he saw several girls from ABT and a boy from Complexions. As we were leaving, he ran into one of his best friends–a boy from ABT. The dance world is small. I was surprised to see that Julian was not the only kids who had decided not to take a break after the intensive.

He did one less class than expected–first, he forgot his tap shoes and we had to return to the apartment to get them, second, he has a pulled muscle in his abdomen that has been bothering him. So, three classes seemed enough for today. Last year he took 4.5-6 hours of class a day…another week of self-inflicted intensive. He’s gearing up tomorrow, though, and it looks like he’ll be focusing on ballet, theater jazz, tap, and hip hop with a little contemporary thrown in for good measure. A well-rounded program, no? I’d have stayed away from ballet, but he was told to improve his technique, so…And it looks like we’ll be buying a Steps class card after all and not using up all of the Broadway Dance Center card after all.

Teachers Julian plans to take class with at Broadway Dance Center and Steps are:  Sue Samuels, Luam, Kelly Peters, Wilhem Burmann, Alexander Tressor, Camille A. Brown, Barbara Duffy, Ray Richard Pierlon, and Ray Hesselink. Check them out! Today he took with ABT Soloist Craig Salstein, Tracie Stanfield, and Cartier Williams (who replaced Michelle Dorrance, one of Julian’s faves from last year…but most of the hoofers are at tap festivals at this time of year).

By the way, Julian tried out his new tap shoes, the Jason Samuels by Bloch, which Jason Samuels Smith designed, and he loves them. Bye bye Miller and Ben’s. We loved supporting our Israeli tappers and tap shoe designer/producers, but Julian says these shoes are comfortable, soft, light, airy, and sound great. He had no blisters after an hour and a half of barefoot tapping the first time out with them tonight.

I hope some of you made it to Central Park for this event tonight. One thousand ballerinas were expected to gather and break a Guinness World Record by simultaneously standing en pointe for one full minute. This was a benefit for the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club performing arts program, with 100% of the $10 suggested donation goes to the program. (Sorry I didn’t publicize this earlier; I had no Internet connection most of the day and only found out about it this afternoon.) I would have liked to have seen all those ballet dancers on point for a good cause. We didn’t make it. Julian had a tap class at about that time at Broadway Dance Center. Maybe if we’d been going up to Steps…

That’s it for tonight.

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Choosing A Dance Program For My Preschool-Aged Son

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

For ages I've been asking my fellow dance blogger Nichelle Strzepek to write a guest post for me. She finally complied and wrote something absolutely perfect!

Since Julian is already 16, I tend not to think about the younger boys. Nichelle, on the other hand, has a three-year-old son she is just thinking of starting in dance classes. She, therefore, decided to write about giving a young boy his start in the dance world. And who better to write about this but a dancer, dance teacher and mother.

Choosing A Dance Program For My Preschool-Aged Son
By Nichelle Strzepek

My son is about to turn three, and as a dancer and dance teacher I’ve been doing some searching for a dance class for him in the Houston area (where we live). Of course, I have some ideas about what I am looking for.

I am fortunate to be involved in the dance community here, but finding a great preschool dance program is not as easy as picking up the yellow pages (does anyone do that anymore?) or searching Google. Particularly when searching for a young boy, it is not even as easy as asking your mommy friends.

Oh, my mom pals have dancers in the household. They tell me how much they and their daughters love “Miss Suzie’s Dance Expressions” where they dress up in tutus each week, twirl around with magic wands, and practice princess walks.

Evaluating the options

Right now, my investigation is focused specifically on the preschool program at a dance school. In the back of my mind is the prospect I may be looking for a place in which he might continue his study; however, starting him off on the right foot means addressing what his needs are now, not necessarily what they’ll be when he is nine or thirteen (sometimes you can find it all in one place, sometimes not). Should he decide dance is something he’ll continue, we can always reevaluate the options depending on his level of interest.

As a dance teacher, dancer and mom, these are three things I am looking for:

1. A program that teaches creative movement principles

Why? Because it is playful education.

Creative movement is an actual discipline like ballet or tap. It often gets mislabeled in dance institutions, but creative dance is not simply a series of pretending games or free dancing to music. It is a systematic and thoughtful curriculum that involves the guided exploration of concepts, the building blocks of movement, as well as structured improvisation.  I want to emphasize again these words: guided, systematic, thoughtful, and structured… like any good school, actually.

A class might be described as facilitated rather than taught because the class leader is providing opportunities for children (or someone of any age) to discover and experiment with dance skills (the ‘primary colors’ of ballet and dance technique) and concepts like tempo, movement quality, spatial organization or relationships, and emotion.

Heady stuff for a preschooler, right? But no! When done right, it is exactly like playing. Babies decipher their world through investigation. They explore shapes, sizes, textures, patterns, and other foundations of higher level thinking, through play. We all do, really. It is the best way for your preschooler to learn.

Because it addresses a boy’s particular need to really move.

I have taught creative dance to young boys and girls and, as you know, boys in general just love to move. They are active and like going to extremes.  Boys flourish in creative movement because wide ranges of skills are addressed. Dancers move slow AND fast, light AND strong, smooth AND sharp. It turns upside-down what most, even by the age of three, think about dance: that it is only ever graceful or elegant or pretty. When these little guys experience that dance is also powerful, exuberant, and even funny or sinister I see the wheels turning: “This is dance? Cool!”

Because it will prepare him for all the places he’ll go.

Parents seek out dance instruction for their kids for a variety of reasons but these usually fit along a scale between preparation for a future career and “just” a fun or artsy activity or pastime.

I cannot think of a better gift to give my son than a window of opportunity that is off the scale.

  • A playful and powerful learning experience that will engage his mind and body,while also preparing him for social interaction and schooling (turn-taking, patience, self-expression, critical thinking and problem solving).
  • An activity that empowers him to move athletically and innovatively at the same time.
  • And should he want to continue in his movement and dance education or career, a solid foundation - like an empirical sense of good technique, self-regulation and motivation, curiosity, and a love for moving – to be built upon.

For something like that, I’d be willing to drive a little further or pay a little more, frankly.

2. A school without pink walls

I’ve talked about this on my dance blog, and I know this has been mentioned before in the comments here on My Son Can Dance as a somewhat minor requirement when seeking out dance schools. This is high on my list for a reason, though.

I am using “pink walls” as a bit of a catch-all. A studio’s pink walls equivalent might be princess themes or anything that unnecessarily genderizes dance. Pink is a fine color and for the moment, pink is actually among my son’s favorite colors. However, a school that is “painting their walls pink” is either hoping to appeal to only one demographic or it has never really crossed their mind that a boy might enter the establishment as a student. Either way, it is reason enough for me to look elsewhere.

It may seem like a small thing but, for boys and young men, no pink walls can make all the difference. It is about feeling welcome and comfortable in an environment.

3. A school with a teacher who has experience or specializes in working with the youngest of our movers

Preschool classes are the most demanding to teach. It requires patience, a keen sense of child development, an agility of the mind and spirit that usually grows out of experience. Great dancers are not always great educators (and visa versa).

The quote, “Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths pure theatre,” is funny and often true, but in preschool classes preparation is extremely necessary. First-year teachers should have a few years of assistantship or teacher training under their belt, allowing them to maintain control and keep children engaged.

In the back of my mind

As I said before there are a few things that, with an eye to the future, I’ll keep in mind as I search for a quality program.

  • A school whose older dancers move in a coordinated, pleasing fashion
  • A school that has sent boys through their doors in the past or has boys currently enrolled at varying levels
  • A school that has at least one male dancer on staff or encourages workshops or master classes with male teachers

My own experiences lead me to believe that movement is a spectacular way to address the whole child. Physical, mental, behavioral, and creative education, all wrapped up in a neat little package called dance. I want that for my son whether or not he is interested in ever taking dance again after this initial exposure. In fact, should I be blessed with a girl down the line… my list will be the same.

About the Author

Nichelle Strzepek spent over 16 years as a dance instructor, teaching ballet, jazz, modern, tap, creative dance, and theatrical dance in private studios, community programs, and at a public university. Her students, ranging in age from 3-63, have included beginners as well as advanced movers. Since the birth of her son in 2007, she has funneled
her enthusiasm for dance training and education into her role as creator, writer, and editor of DanceAdvantage.net. Nichelle continues to perform and pens articles and reviews covering the dance scene in Houston, Texas where she resides with her family.

http://danceadvantage.net

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Posted in dance studios, Teachers | 6 Comments »

Dancin' Boy Issues: Post #2

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

Okay…finally back after a brief hiatus. Sorry about that. I can’t even remember what all has happened since my last post…A Chorus Line is over. We are on to Spring Concert rehearsals. Anyone who follows me on Facebook can see Julian’s solo from A Chorus Line. Someone posted it and I shared it. I’m not sure how to post it here.

Tomorrow I take Julian to get his driver’s permit. Can you believe it? We’ll see if he drives as well as he dances.

We have our apartment rented for the ABT Summer Intensive. I splurged on a great place on a street we know very close to Union Square. We purchased our airline tickets yesterday. Whoo hoo!

Okay, on to today’s subject: how to start boys dancing on the right foot. Someone commented that their son had started in ballet and quickly stopped. A few years later, he and his brother wanted to begin again. She was wondering how to give them a good start so they would continue. She had found a class with one other boy in it, but she was concerned about pink studio decor and such.

Boys at teh San Diego Academy of Ballet Center. (Courtesy of the The San Diego Union-Tribune, LLC)

In my experience–and that, of course, is just with my son and talking to as many other mother’s of dancin’ boys as I could find–the pink walls and pictures of girls in tutus don’t matter much if the boy is having fun and truly engaged in class. I believe that young boys need more than ballet to keep them interested in dance. So, I’d seek out a traditional ballet, tap, jazz combo class to start them off.

Here’s the thing: Boys like to move. They enjoy jumping, running, tumbling, and such. Ballet requires a lot of very concentrated standing at the barr doing precise movements. This usually doesn’t fall into a young boy’s repertoire.

Julian did a combo class for two years. Then he branched out into a full ballet class, a full jazz class, a full tap class. He also explored hip hop. He always enjoyed ballet enough to stick with it, and his teachers stressed the importance of having ballet as a foundation. After just a few years of dance, he joined a competitive dance team. The studio required the members to take ballet class several times a week. After two years on the team–when his technique began to suffer–he opted to enroll in Ballet San Jose School and focus on ballet. Three years later he decided he wanted more than just ballet again and joined TDC to expand into contemporary ballet and modern. (I tell you this just because it seems to have worked for Julian; I also know other boys who took similar paths or danced in many styles and continued dancing through college.)

I once wrote an article for dance teacher magazine about how to entice boys into the dance studio. The consensus was that boys usually don’t want to just do ballet. That said, a rare boy feel compelled to do only ballet.

If you can find a male teacher, of course, that’s super. They make great role models for the boys. It’s tough to find this though.

If you can find a studio with boys’ classes or more boys, that’s super. I know Ballet San Jose School recruited a lot of boys recently, for instance. There are a lot of boys at The Rock in Pennsylvania.

However, these are serious ballet schools. You have to have a child who is ready to buckle down and get serious about their ballet studies to enroll in these schools. If they aren’t ready, they’ll be turned off as quickly in these top-notch schools as they will in a bad one.

Keep track of your son’s attitude about class. Ask lots of questions. Watch through the window during class. Be his advocate. Change studios as often as you must until you find the right one. Assure him that you are doing what is necessary to make sure he finds the best place to learn how to dance and to dance well. It’s your job as a parent to foster his interest in dance. It’s so easy for these special boys to lose interest and to give up on their gift.

Don’t give up hope. Just do what it takes…even if it means driving an hour or more each way to the studio. Rest assured, you wont’ be the only parent to have taxied your son long distances to makes sure he had the right environment in which to learn and the perfect teacher to inspire him to dance.

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Posted in Attitude, Ballet, dance studios | 4 Comments »

Denise Wall On Raising Dancin’ Boys (Part 3)

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

In this third, and last, part of my interview with Denise Wall, owner of Denise Wall’s Dance Energy in Virginia Beach, VA, and coach of such star dancers as her own sons Danny Tidwell and Travis Wall (Travis is also a star choreographer), she offers tips on raising boys who dance. (To read the first part of this interview, click here; to read the second part, click here.)

Tip #1: If your son has a true passion and calling, be alert and protect them from and help them with teasing from peers and from societal pressures.

For me the teasing is the biggest thing, and the issue of dancing is not a sexuality thing. Dancing is an art. That’s why you have to educate the people around them so they understand that your son’s dancing is an art and a passion and has nothing to do with sexuality. For me that’s the biggest thing.

Be aware that when little five, six and seven year olds are teasing your son, they aren’t saying the “gay” word, but they are saying, “You are a wimp because you dance,” and this is in the same category. That’s just the beginning of what will come later.

The mental abuse is the hardest thing for the boys to deal with, and it can lead someone leaving their passion behind. Then what happens is in their 30s they feel like something is missing in their lives. I’ve seen this situation: Male dancers danced as teenagers and gave up dancing. You run into them in their 30s, and they are doing drugs. I think when you dance and it is your passion, you get on a natural high that is unbelievable. When I would dance, the high I would get from it would make my hair stand up. Now I get it though teaching. You can’t get that from anything else. These boys who leave dancing behind because they can’t handle the teasing or whatever try to get the same high unnaturally. I’ve seen it happen time and time again. Something is missing in their life, and what they lost is dance—the ability to live their passion—because they allowed society to make them go another way.

So, parents need to help them stick with their passion for dance despite the teasing and the pressures of society.

Tip #2: Find teachers that train boys to dance like boys.

In other words, make sure they dance with teachers that don’t train them like they train the girls. A lot of technique is the same, but a lot of it is different. Guys need to dance like guys.

Teachers have to say, “This is the girls choreography, and, guys, you are going to do this instead.” A lot of teachers don’t take the time to do that.

Also, teachers need to not dress the boys like girls.  I would cringe when I’d judge competitions and see the same leotard used on girls also used on the guys with just the addition of pants on the guy.

Parents have to go out of their way to make sure their sons have male teachers in their life and are getting trained differently. Parents need to be aware of what training their kids need. I watched how the male teachers at Debbie Allen’s Dance Academy were training the boys.

Parent of boys can’t just say, “This studio is around the corner from my house, so I’ll throw my son in there for dance lessons. They need to be aware of who’s working with their children. This is true for girls, too, but it’s especially true for the boys. Parents need to be aware of how the dance teachers treat and train the boys; they need to be sure they are being trained as male dancers.

Tip #3: Know that male dancers have different physical issues than female dancers.

Even though this can be true for girls as well, I see it with boys more. They have huge growth spurts. And when they grow like that, their muscles and tendons don’t grow with their bones. For this reason, a lot of times you deal with tendonitis in teenage male dancers more than with girls. Girls tend to grow a little here and there, but guys tend to grow two or three inches in a month it seems. You hear about growing pains, and it’s true. Their bones grow and the tendons are pulling because they haven’t caught up yet.

When teaching passés, I had trouble getting them higher on the boys. I finally realized this was because their calf muscles are bigger. When doing a passé, you want to go down the sit bone, down the hamstring and down the knee to have the passé supported. When the calf comes in and closes off the area behind the knee, this actually prevents them from being able to accomplish this, though. They have to press their muscle in the upper leg fast enough to support their passé before the calf muscle closes off the “cave” [the area behind the knee]. If they don’t accomplish this, the “boulder” [the calf muscle] closes off the “cave” making it impossible use that upper leg. Even dancers like Jason Parson’s have experienced this. I was at the New York City Dance Alliance finals, and Jason told me he was having trouble doing pirouettes. I said, “Let me tell you about your big boulder,” and his passé went right up.

A lot of boys also tend to grip their buttocks when doing an arabesque, and that’s why their legs won’t go up. At one point Danny’s arabesque was amazing. Then while he was on tour with So You Think You Can Dance he said, “I don’t know what’s happen; I’ve lost my arabesque.”

I said, “Let me see you do it.” He was gripping his buttocks, and this was stopping him.

Guys they tend to grip more, because they are men. They’re trying to be butch. What they need to be doing instead is lengthening out to do a movement. I would say that’s a big thing for them physically. They need to be told, “Don’t grip through movement. You don’t engage a muscle by gripping it; you lengthen it out.”

This concludes my interview with Denise. At some point maybe I’ll go back over the material I have that didn’t make it into my Dance Teacher article and post it here–I had way more information than I was allowed to include. In the meantime, I hope these three posts were helpful.

I had hoped last summer to get Julian into a room with her for a private lesson. It didn’t work out. I still hope that maybe this summer when we are in New York again at the same time we might be able to make that happen. I’m sure even an hour with Denise would benefit him greatly. If anyone can explain to him how to better use his muscles to improve his dancing, it’s Denise.

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Posted in Changes due to puberty, dance attire, dance studios, Dance Tips, Denise Wall, social issues and friends, Teachers, teasing, use of muscles in ballet | 3 Comments »

OMG! Home 2 Weeks and No Time to Write!

Saturday, August 15th, 2009

I have to apologize to any faithful blog readers! I have been back from New York City from two whole weeks, and I have not had a minute to write a blog post. In fact, I should be working on a column for Movmnt magazine or editing for a client right now, but I figured I better right something soon or no one would bother continuing to read this blog!

Re-entry into normal life in California was a bit odd for Julian and I. We really found it quite odd to be back home after seven weeks in the city. That said, life was not normal. My stepson arrived just one and a half days after we got back, and Julian immediately went back to taking evening classes at Teen Dance Company.  Plus, we had to juggle my daughters internship schedule, which took her in the opposite direction to the University of California-Santa Cruz; TDC is in Mountain View in the valley. Between doing things with my stepson and reacclimating to driving every day and every which way, my work began to pile up. It was a bit crazy.

The first full weekend we were home, Julian received a text message from a fellow TDC company member asking if he was auditioning for Mark Froehringer‘s Nutcracker in San Francisco. Well…we had thought about doing so, but it wasn’t on my radar…at all. In fact, I haven’t been using my daytimer at all. So, we jumped up and showered and drove like a bat out of hell into San Francisco.

Now, the woman who choreographed the Nutcracker Julian was in last year has already been emailing us as well. She’d like him back, although at 5’7″ or more, I think he’s a bit tall for Fritz. (She says he can do more this year; last year he also did the Russian dance.)

Give me a break, though…summer’s not even over and we are thinking about a performance that happens in December. And for Julian, it’s another hard choice: Dance with friends or dance with a professional company. (He was asked to do some awesome partnering during the audition in San Francisco…) For my husband and I, it’s also a hard choice: an hour and a half drive to San Francisco every Friday and Sunday from mid-September until mid-December. (And I was all excited that my daughter is giving up swimming, which means we finally have Friday’s free, since TDC doesn’t have classes on Friday.)

Anyway…back to NYC. I promised to tell you about the great teachers Julian danced with there, in case you should happen to find yourself at Broadway Dance Center. Some of the ones he liked the best were guest teaches, however. By far, he enjoyed contemporary classes with Slam the most. Slam, otherwise known as Salim Gauwloos brings to his teaching and choreography not only his technical ballet training but also his experience as a dancer with Madonna. Yes, he was a big MTV star and her touring dance partner. Yet, he now choreographs for the likes of ABT and the Orlando Ballet. Julian took three classes with him, and loved his choreography and working with him. It didn’t hurt that Salim noticed him and commented on his technique, even using him to demonstrate in the second and third class. (Sorry…had to brag a bit.)

Staying in the contemporary vein, he really enjoyed a class with James Tabeek, who was in the 1st national tour of the Broadway show Wicked,  and appeared on Broadway in Taboo and Beauty and the Beast.

Julian took two jazz classes with BDC favorite and staple Sheila Barker. He adored her class and her. She came out and gave me a hug and a kiss just for being Julian’s mother! (By the way…I got a hug and a kiss from Slam as well, which I think I enjoyed more.) He worked super hard in her class and she corrected him a lot. I highly recommend her class to anyone wanting to take jazz. (By the way, I think I mentinoed that Julian took two Broadway jazz classes at Alvin Ailey with Sue Samuels, mother of tapper Jason Samuels Smith. They were fabulous as well, and I highly recommend her and a trip to Alvin Ailey if you can make it. However, she teaches beginner classes at BDC.)

On to hip hop, which Julian had the most fun taking at BDC. He tried several class, always looking for “old-school” hip hop rather than “MTV” hip hop. He loved classes with Bam and Leslie Feliciano and Kelly Peters. He also enjoyed one with Luam, although that wasn’t as old school as he enjoys. These classes were all packed…I mean packed. Luam’s class had 72 people in the studio at one time. (Again, he was sorry not to take Jared Grimes class, but he was away.)

I’ve already covered tap; check older posts for information on that. Julian really didn’t do any tap the last week — and no ballet. He had done those two art forms for six weeks. He stuck with contemporary, jazz and hip hop that final week in New York.  And he had a blast and got great feed back from almost all the teachers at BDC. He kept up in even the most advanced classes, and his newly-improved technique was noticed. So, overall, a success all the way around.

Plus, he returned home without injury. The heel issue healed up and never  came back.  He never had another bout of dehydration. Success.

This week he completed six hours of dance per day again. TDC had its annual summer dance intensive. He also took a master class at a local studio taught by Sonya Tayeh of So You Think You Can Dance fame. We had met her in New York City. He had his picture taken with her, and it’s now his Facebook profile photo. How cute is that?

The TDC intensive culminated on Friday with auditions for the company. Unfortunately, a few of last year’s members didn’t return, but we have some great new dancers who auditioned and made it into the company. The company is still a bit small, but we hope to gain a few more in the next few weeks or in December. (If you know any teens in the Bay Area – CA looking for a great studio that focuses on dance as an art form and on contemporary, modern and classical ballet, please send them to TDC for an audition. They can still join the company, although they might not be in all the peformance pieces this fall.) The kids also study tap, pilates and a little jazz and hip hop.

Julian is in the company again, and he made it into the first three pieces of choreography, so he is very happy. He will miss a few of his friends who didn’t return this year, but he actually has a few friends joining him from other studios that he knows. So, I hope it will be a great year for him.

Today he’s in the studio all day learning choreography fo ra modern piece. Tomorrow the same. This week, he will miss most of the tap festival in San Francisco to attend choreography sessions at TDC instead, but we might get a few classes in if he’s lucky. It had been our plan to attend most of the week.

Oh, and I’m waiting for MRI results on my twisted knee from that first weekend in NYC. So, think some positive thougths for me!

Okay…that gets you up to date. Off to a running start. I never even got a chance to catch my breath.

Next, a post not from me but form someone from Julians distant past…and then one from Denise Wall!

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Posted in dance studios, Nutcracker, Resources, summer dance programs, Teachers, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Last Day in New York City

Friday, July 31st, 2009

As I write, Julian is enjoying the last 30 minutes of his last class at Broadway Dance Center, an old-school hip hop class. He’s taken so many great classes the week, I can’t begin to even write about them — at least not right now. I’m too exhausted! I can’t imagine how he isn’t tired, but then again American Ballet Theatre’s intensive put him into some superb shape.

He danced for three hours on Monday, five on Tuesday and six on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. He’s taken tap, hip hop, jazz and contemporary classes. No ballet…enough of that after six weeks, but he was super happy to find some turns in his contemporary classes. We’ve been very happy with the instruction at BDC. I’ll write more when I get home about the particular teachers he enjoyed. And he and I were both happy to have him complimented in all his contemporary and jazz classes. It seems his classical ballet training is paying off.

So, tomorrow we get back on a plane and head home. Back to normal life, whatever that is.

I’ll elaborate a bit more on our experience when I’m back on home ground. Right now, I’m going to watch Julian do some hip hop, something he rarely gets to do in California.

[By the way, thanks for all the great comments I've received since in NY!]

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Meeting Debbie Allen and Experiences at DADA

Sunday, April 12th, 2009

We took off for LA on Tuesday morning, skipping dance on Tuesday (and a Passover seder on both the first and second night — Wednesday and Thursday – of the holiday) so we could make it to UCLA for a tour by afternoon. That was the start of three days of intensive college tours primarily for my daughter, although Julian did get a brief tour of UCLA’s dance program and of California Institute for the Arts dance program on Thursday as well. University of Southern California, our Wednesday tour, doesn’t offer a dance major, so he went off to Debbie Allen Dance Academy (DADA)  instead.

While UCLA offers a unique world arts and culture approach to dance, which didn’t interest Julian because it wasn’t technical enough for his tastes, Cal Arts is interesting for anyone wanting to come out as a triple threat. The school doesn’t offer a musical theater track, but in addition to dance, students have the opportunity to study drama and voice. Unfortunately, Julian didn’t feel this dance program was for him either. Of course, he’s just a freshman at the moment. He has time to decide. I just thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and let him tour these schools at the same time as his sister.

The highlight of his three days in Southern California was his time at DADA, otherwise known as The Academy. (Mine was probably meeting Debbie Allen herself, although I think this was a highlight for both Julian and my daughter, Ariel. We felt so honored.) Besides taking an advanced ballet class taught by Vitaly Artuishkin , formerly of  the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, he also took a men’s ballet class and a modern class taught by Debbie Allen’s daughter. However, I think what he enjoyed most was his time spent with other male dancers.

Not only was he never the only boy in the class, he did get to take ballet class with a group of boys. Additionally, when he was waiting for me to come pick him up or if I had dropped him off early, he was able to go into a studio with one or two other boys and work on break dancing moves and just “mess around” and practice with “the guys.” And these guys all spoke the same language.  They may have been discussing how to do a windmill — something Julian was pleased to learn — but when the instruction from a fellow dancer came with ballet terms. No where but at DADA would you find that, I thought, at a place where the boys are learning everything from hip hop to ballet to modern to tap to silk (that form of dance done hanging from long strands of fabric).

And, according to Debbie Allen, she knows male dancers are unique. She told me she does not require that they wear tights for ballet…at least not initially. She let’s them ease into tights as they feel ready.

Julian fared well next to the other boys in his classes at DADA. However, while his turns were shown off in both ballet classes, his inability to get his splits and his general lack of flexibility were more than apparent. I don’t know how much of that is due to his huge growth spurt — at least 6-8 inches in the last 8 months — or to something else. He’s never been very flexible. He’s never been able to do a split. And this doesn’t seem to be improving. I know his muscles and tendons can’t keep up with his bones at this point, but he’ll need to do something to improve his flexibility, and this will set him back with his placement at American Ballet Theatre this summer. (Maybe I’ll ask some experts for advice on how to help boys improve their flexibility and post it here.)

Speaking of which, my husband found an article published in the New York Times a few years ago about a boy who attended the ABT summer intensive. The reporter made it sound more than difficult: The boy suffered from shin splints, blisters and toe nails pushed into the nail bed… Yet, he danced on. I hope Julian finds it a little less wearing on his body.

According to this article, the ABT summer intensive dancers are placed by audition once again when they get there. They are given numbers and put through their paces. They then are placed by “colored” level. This seems appropriate. No special treatment, just placement by ability.

We are still looking for a sublet in New York. Prices are outrageous. I’m looking forward to six weeks of working and playing in the city, though. I remember my time working in Manhattan quite fondly.

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What Does a Boy Need from a Dance Studio?

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

After that long post yesterday, I thought to myself: What does a boy actually need from a dance studio, and does a young male dancer need something different from a dance studio than a young female dancer? To the latter questions, I answer, “Most definitely, yes.”

In fact, in many cases boys who dance need specific things from a studio. It’s not that they are so different from their female counterparts, but they do have special needs – not that they are “special needs” kids, if you know what I mean! Anyway, keeping this post short today, here’s my list of what I would want in a perfect studio for the young male dancer:

  • boys-only classes – for any and all disciplines but in particular for ballet
  • partnering classes
  • 50-50 ratio of male-female teachers
  • performance opportunities
  • competition opportunities (I’m not big on competition, but boys tend to have competitive natures.)
  • stress on all disciplines of dance
  • a full range of classes, including hip hop, break dancing, and tap (jazz, contemporary, lyrical, modern, ballet are assumed)
  • acrobatics and tumbling classes
  • a high percentage of male students (sadly, this only would constitute at a minimum 3 per class)
  • a program that allows the boys time to pursue classes necessary for their training (acrobatics) or as per their interests (break dancing or hip hop)
  • a program that supports them in being boys – dancing in a masculine way and doing masculine things (such as acrobatics, tumbling, competitions, break dancing, etc.)

 

If you find this studio, let me know. We can rent a house nearby, move our dancing’ boys in, and the mom’s can take turns being house mothers, drivers, and homework supervisors. Or we can ask the studio owners at least to set up a month-long summer intensive so we can all convene there once a year.

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