Giving students, teachers, and parents an edge in dance education
If your child is asking, investigate the reasons she wants to take a new or additional dance class. Costume style, choreography, musical accompaniment, or maintaining friendships may be no less valid or less important to her than the desire to enhance her skills. Dance should be fun, too! Do not devalue or brush away these motivations, they are part of the equation.
It might seem silly at first to get on the floor with your child and roll with her. You might think she already knows how, but movement is a layered experience, which means we relearn the same concepts over and over.
“One day I got together with one of my students and we decided to experiment with the camera in the studio. Out of all the photos from that day the featured photo is one of my favourites. I have been enjoying experimenting with dance and photography over the past three years and I look forward to learning more. Dance is my passion. Directing girls in front of the camera is my new form of dancing.”
“I realized that there were many girls that were my age that had just recently started ballet, and had to take class with a whole room full of girls who could do over-splits, triple pirouettes, and could lift their legs to their ears. I began looking at ballet blogs, and reading ballet books, but I could never find exactly what I was looking for. I felt like I needed 10 years of ballet training within a couple of weeks. Things like class etiquette, recital how-tos, and special stretches to boost my extension. I could only imagine that there were more girls like me looking for the same things.”
![[Photo] Three girls in black tutus strolling the sidewalk in Albuquerque, NM](http://danceadvantage.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/tutu-walking-588x391.jpg "tutu-walking")
Dubbing these “Random Acts of Dance,” Randy describes the journey through Albuquerque’s city streets. “We started our Sunday morning at a Starbucks Coffee located at the Albuquerque Uptown mall to plan our day. We then took the photo shoot to a local park, and then ended up on Central Ave. (old Route 66) where the girls changed into jeans, and colorful pointe shoes to finish up the day.”
The studio I work at has three studios – one large and two small — as well as a small theatre space that seats about 100 people. The two smaller studios and the theatre space have an upright acoustic piano, and the larger studio has a baby grand piano. I actually prefer to play on the upright acoustic pianos as I find their tone more appealing – not to mention the fact that I can get more emotion out of these pianos!
The action of the head is important but do not forget the role of the eyes in spotting. It helps to spot something like a photograph, painting, or word and really SEE the SPOT on each TURN. If you are using your head properly but still getting dizzy, it is probably because your eyes are not focusing. You need to get the head around with enough zing (see above) to have time for this, though.
The very first ballet class I played for was a big surprise, because I had no idea what to expect or what would be expected of me by either the teacher or the dancers. I walked into the studio and the first person I saw was the teacher (who seemed to me to be very old), holding a lit cigarette in one hand and a cane in the other!
![[Photo] Dancer Austin Meiteen in Dance Institute's Mr. Curiosity, photo by Rene Michaels](http://danceadvantage.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/MrCuriosity-Austin-266x400.jpg "MrCuriosity-Austin")
“From my perspective as a dance photographer, it’s about capturing the passion in the moments during a routine that translates the music visually to the audience through dance. A picture is worth a thousand words.” Of the young man in the photo above, Rene adds, “Austin does a great job of transferring his passion visually in this shot.”
![[Photo] Dancers from World Hip Hop Championship in red and black](http://danceadvantage.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/HipHop-International2.jpg "HipHop-International2")
Back then, hip hop wasn’t about derogatory comments, threats, and how much money you made. It was about family and belonging. It was about taking your world and making sense of it…through dance (b-boying), through music (DJing), through art (graffiti), through words (MCing). THAT is where your philosophy needs to come from.
![[Photo] New Houston Ballet Soloist, Melissa Hough in rehearsal](http://danceadvantage.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/MelissaHough-266x400.jpg "Melissa Hough")
“When I became more serious about which direction I wanted to focus on, I auditioned for the year round program at Kirov Academy. I lived at the school for four years, while still taking my jazz, tap, lyrical classes and participating in competitions, and working on summer correspondence courses so I could graduate early. I also took some voice lessons, because for a long time I wanted to be on Broadway, but during my time at Kirov I decided I wanted to go for it- try to be a ballerina. My (Russian) teachers never thought I’d go very far in a ballet company. They felt I was more suited for contemporary, which at the time I was.”
Expecting a certain outcome puts your mind in a place and time other than the audition and you’ll need to have your head in the present tense to do well. Clear your mind and dance because you love dancing, not because of the pot of gold that may or may not be at the end of this rainbow.
