1. art and entertainment
2. dance

studio Talk
A Supplement to
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Editor
Karen Hildebrand
Designer
Amy Kelkenberg
Research Assistant
Suzannah Friscia
Celebrating
National Dance
Week
Copy editor
Sonje Berg
SR Vice President
& Group Publisher
Amy Cogan
212.979.4862
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Jessica Sarlo, 212.979.4853
REGIONAL ADVERTISING
MANAGERS
Rebecca Breau, 212.979.4871
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281.246.1602
CEO, Peter Callahan
President & COO, Carolyn Callahan
Sr. Vice President/Administration
& Treasurer, Anna Blanco
April 25–May 4
A
lot of effort and attention goes into the 10 days of
National Dance Week each year. It’s a great way to
raise the public profile of the art form we’ve devoted
our lives to. We stage flash mobs and kicklines, and we invite
potential students into our studios for a glimpse of the incredible discipline required of a dance artist.
Yet, when one can now see dance on television nearly every
night of the week, is National Dance Week still necessary? I
think so—and perhaps more than ever. For one thing, it gives
us a chance to set the record straight: A work of dance art
can be much more than four minutes of flash and emotion on
“So You Think You Can Dance,” and most dance teachers are
nothing like Abby Lee Miller! So we encourage you to consider
what you and your studio can do to elevate the conversation
and educate the public. It’s also a great way to market your
own activities within your community.
www.nationaldanceweek.com
In this issue of Studio Talk, we pay tribute to National Dance
Week with four stories that will inspire and inform your work
every day of the year.
Sr. Vice President/ Finance
& Operations, Gerard J. Cerza Jr.
—Karen Hildebrand, editor
On the Cover:
Broadway dancer LaMar Baylor
leads a dance class in Rwanda.
Photo by Miki Powell, courtesy of Rebecca
Davis Dance Company
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Stage Presence 101
Heidi Latsky teaches performance skills
T
o the plaintive sounds of Handel’s aria from Saul, 19
dancers slowly carried folding chairs across Steps on
Broadway studio at the start of choreographer Heidi
Latsky’s If. After setting down the chairs, some of the dancers
slid to the floor while others rose in arabesques or walked
in circles. They devised more elaborate combinations as the
piece continued, until the exhilarating close when they suddenly went from wildly different moves to absolute stillness,
seated on the chairs. The assembled crowd sat spellbound. In
only a few classes over a couple of months in Latsky’s course
in performance skills, these students had learned how to grab
an audience and hold its attention.
“Most people assume that you are born with great stage
presence,” said Latsky recently, after finishing a rehearsal of
her company, Heidi Latsky Dance, in a Manhattan studio.
“But that isn’t true. It can be taught and you can learn it.
They say you can’t teach charisma but when someone is com-
pletely his or her self, you become fascinated with them. The
Steps students proved it.”
A small, blond curly-haired woman with a lot of energy,
she learned her performance skills through experience. Coming late to dance at 20, she felt a lot of anxiety about being
onstage. “I was an incredibly shy kid, and a nervous wreck
when I had to perform,” she says. “To get through it, I had to
become very internal and create a world for myself onstage.
I learned that it’s all about sticking to a task and staying
focused. Too often, dancers emote or impose their ideas on
their roles. Then they come across as false.”
Latsky had some good teachers. As a member of the Bill T.
Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company for seven years, she could
observe Jones and fellow dancer Seán Curran (now a choreographer and faculty member of the Tisch School of the
Arts at New York University) at work, and study how they
could simply stand there and completely engage an audience.
Photos by Eduardo Patino, courtesy of Steps on Broadway
By Valerie Gladstone
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Heidi Latsky’s (inset) students perform IF at a Steps on
Broadway event in December.
,
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Photos by Eduardo Patino, courtesy of Steps on Broadway
e
“For me,” she says, “when someone is totally consumed in
a task, I fall in love with them. I am drawn to that kind of
vulnerability and fierceness. You have to allow yourself to be
vulnerable and take risks. It’s the only way that you will touch
people. It can be scary, but concentrating on your tasks helps
alleviate that.”
The Steps students learned enormously from Latsky. “She
told us that we should have drama in our bodies, not in our
faces,” says Ivonne Ackerman. “Of course, it takes time to
remember technique and counts and steps all at the same
time. But she was able to unite the whole class and we could
move as a group and never lose our individuality.”
Adds Jennifer Converse, “She asked us to make our own
phrases, showing how very minimal movement could have
great impact. We toned things down and they worked better. But her teaching wouldn’t have been so effective if she
hadn’t been so warm and passionate and always willing to
help us.”
Since developing expertise in the field of performance,
Latsky has been spreading the word, for several years teaching actors at the School for Film and Television in New York,
and at workshops around the country. She offers similar
opportunities to dancers who perform with her company,
like Jen Bricker. “Heidi completely changed me as a performer,” she says. “When I met her I was an aerialist and
an acrobat. She taught me how to be a complete performer, to show emotion and to be vulnerable onstage.
She expects a lot of you. But she also has a lot of patience.
It was the best decision of my career to work with her.”
Valerie Gladstone writes about dance for the New York
Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, and has
published the book A Young Dancer: The Life of an Ailey
Student, with photographer Jose Ivey.
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Link this into your studio management
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Enable them to sign up for an auto payment program. This will get
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Children of the Fidesco
Rwanda orphanage take
dance class with Baylor.
Reaching Out
LaMar Baylor takes the transformative power of dance from
The Lion King stage to an orphanage in Rwanda.
By Lauren Kay
Photos by Miki Powell, courtesy of Rebecca Davis Dance Company
F
or Broadway dancer LaMar Baylor, art is an opportunity
to serve. “From day one, I was taught to dance with a
purpose,” says the former member of Philadanco, who
currently performs eight shows a week in the ensemble of
The Lion King. “The goal is to get on that marley and touch
someone’s life. Every company I’ve danced for, everywhere
I’ve been, that’s the goal.”
In 2011 he found a new way to fulfill this desire. He traveled to Rwanda as part of the Rebecca Davis Dance Company outreach program in Kigali, where he taught children in
need at the Fidesco Rwanda orphanage. And now, he enjoys
the rare privilege of choosing the inaugural recipient of an
annual scholarship created in his name—funded by his diligent efforts.
When Davis first traveled to Rwanda in 2008 and saw the
horrific damage there firsthand, she was inspired to expand
the mission of her company. “The 1994 genocide claimed
over 800,000 lives in Rwanda over 100 days,” says Davis. “It
touched every corner of the country.”
There, she saw a way to use her art as a tool for reconciliation. “Dance has the ability to eliminate ethnic differences,” she says. “When our teachers demonstrate pliés or
pirouettes, it’s exactly the same for every child, regardless of
whether he is Tutsi, Hutu or Twa.”
Rebecca Davis and
LaMar Baylor
In 2011 she suggested Baylor (who at the time was a member of Philadanco and had danced with RDDC when he was
in college) accompany her on one of her visits to Rwanda.
“That was the most humbling experience of my life,” he
says. “I became a changed man from that trip alone.” For
three and a half weeks, Baylor and Davis taught modern, hip
hop and jazz to children and young adults at the orphanage.
Many of the younger children, between ages 6 and 13, had
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The LaMar Baylor Scholarship will send one student every year to boarding school.
lived on the street selling drugs, and were prostitutes or alcoholics. The older 14- to 22-year-olds were genocide survivors,
and many had lost their families.
Baylor and Davis focused on how they could “use dance
as a vehicle for self-discipline, confidence and respect,” says
Baylor. “In dance you learn about etiquette, and there’s a
sense of self-discovery.” Though the language barrier was
challenging, the experience was a good demonstration of
the boundary-crossing power of dance. One particular success story is that of Ssali Eugene, an older student, who stood
out for his talent and intuitive understanding of dance. Baylor conducted a two-week intensive for Eugene and other
advanced students who now run the program between
Davis’ trips. “He was having a hard time finding work,” says
Baylor. “But once he became a teacher he was given a salary
and is now able to help himself and his family.”
“LaMar is a demanding teacher,” says Davis. “He doesn’t
set lower standards for children of disadvantaged backgrounds. I think this is essential to helping them rise out of
poverty and become self-sufficient. In LaMar’s classes, these
children are told, ‘You can be the best, but you have to work
ever so hard to achieve it.’ This sets up a challenge-based
environment where kids can become highly motivated.”
The program initiated by RDDC also includes an IT skillbuilding component, run by four permanent Rwandan teachers. Developed by a web team as a vocational-skill–building
lab, the idea was that while dance builds self-esteem, the IT
classes help the participants find jobs. “IT and basic computer
skills are in high demand in Rwanda,” says Davis. “A child
that learns to type can be hired as a typist and our top students are learning e-mail and Skype.”
Though his performance schedule prevented Baylor from
traveling to Rwanda in 2012, his commitment to the cause
never waned. When Davis asked him to return to Rwanda this
past Thanksgiving as the cultural ambassador for RDDC, she
mentioned that a scholarship was in the works—and would
be in his name as an outstanding artist and role model. He
was thrilled, but he wanted to take the idea further, choosing to raise the funds himself. “I asked all 2,400 of my social
media friends for a dollar, starting far before the trip and
running through Christmas,” he says. Baylor set his goal at
$1,500—and raised $1,625.
The LaMar Baylor Scholarship will send one student every
year to the area’s best boarding school. As the first recipient,
Baylor chose Mugisha, a 12-year-old dancer who’s been in
the program for 18 months. “I call him the ‘quiet storm,’”
says Baylor. “During class, he stands in the back, but he
incorporated all the information with amazing facility and
an interesting quality. For me, dance is an outlet to remove
myself from the outside world. And for these kids, for the
time they’re dancing, they’re not suffering. They’re learning, being challenged and working with their peers.”
Lauren Kay is a dancer and journalist in New York City.
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Dana Hanson of Pacific
Northwest Ballet School
and pianist Yelena Golets
Find Your Groove
Three ways to teach musicality
M
usicality enables dancers to groove to a beat, follow a delicate melody or syncopate their movement with nuanced accents. There are many ways
to improve your students’ ear and make musicality part
of the classroom conversation. Here, three teachers share
the benefits—and challenges—of using a live accompanist, musical props or recorded music. All agree that music
and prop choices should be simple and supportive, so they
don’t overpower your dancers’ own sense of rhythm. And
of course, your approach will vary depending on the style of
dance and your students’ ages.
Live Music
Swells of live piano music fill the studios at Pacific Northwest
Ballet School on any given day. Live music has long been
preferred in dance class because of the flexibility it allows.
If the music just isn’t clicking with dancers, an accompanist
can adjust the tempo or tone on the spot. But working with
a live accompanist poses unique challenges. PNB School
faculty member Dana Hanson recommends, “Be very clear in
your timing when you set your exercises. Sometimes I might
say, ‘I want less music.’” Minimal melodies allow dancers to
create rhythm instead of just mimicking it. For example, if
the pianist plays one chord for four frappés, dancers must
sense the phrase’s length and keep the beat for four even
strikes. “There should be very simple, straightforward music
at the barre and, in the center, just really danceable music
that’s in simple phrases.”
And if students’ dancing becomes too even or robotic,
nothing gives an instant boost to their musicality like a pop
tune on the piano—as long as it’s not too distracting. “I had
somebody play Justin Bieber once. If a song is too current,
the kids start to fall apart,” says Hanson. She suggests The
Beatles, Gershwin or Porter for their melodic yet syncopated
sound.
The Power of Props
Creative movement classes are the perfect platform for
introducing musicality to even the youngest dancers. When
teaching concepts like beat, tempo, rhythm and movement
Photo by Lindsay Thomas, courtesy of PNB
by Madeline Schrock
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quality, Beverly F. Spell, developer of the Leap ‘N Learn curriculum for early childhood dance education, turns to props
and games. For tempo, she’ll have youngsters place their
hand over their heart to sense the steady beat. Then they’ll
run around, stop and notice how it quickens. Later, she’ll add
in tiny maracas, having students keep time as they dance.
Rhythm sticks are also great for sharp, accented movements like marching. “Every time their foot steps down,
they tap the sticks,” she says. Plus, these instruments keep
the whole class engaged when you’re working in groups.
Let half the class march while the other half stands to the
side, keeping time with their rhythm sticks.
For slower, less percussive movement, Spell recommends
scarves or rhythm rings, a Leap ‘N Learn product that’s a
plastic bracelet with attached satin ribbons. Have children
rock side to side as they bend and stretch in second position, while swinging their prop to sense the even, looping
phrasing. The youngest dancers can rock a Beanie Baby in
their arms instead, Spell says, since they’ll be familiar with
the slow, easy tempo of rocking a baby to sleep.
Carefully Crafted Playlists
While you may grow tired of what’s in rotation on your
iPod, Adriana Durant says the consistency and familiarity
of recorded tracks allow students to cultivate an interplay
with the music. As lead dance teacher of a new program
at Nicholas Senn High School in Chicago, she says, “I’ll
use the same playlist for a good three to six weeks. Once
they know the music, we can dig deeper into it, and, therefore, we dance. I stress different accents and syncopations
in the music. If I keep changing it, they have a lot more to
negotiate.”
Plus, she says the set timing of recorded music lets her
students know if they’re cutting corners. If someone consistently finishes a phrase early, it’s often due to quick, tiny
preparations. For a modern phrase, “if you’re early in the
music, it’s because you’re not using your legs,” she says,
reminding them to build in time for deep plié preparations.
Durant also experiments with duration, peppering her
phrases with surprising timing. “Instead of every movement taking one to two beats, we’ll do something that
lasts one beat, then six, three, two.” She’ll put accents
in unexpected places, like an explosive jump on count 1
instead of 4. Since many of her students are beginners,
she says, “it teaches them to value all of it.”
Madeline Schrock is the managing editor of Dance Magazine and Pointe.
Photo by (L to R): Benjamin Spell, courtesy of Leap ‘N Learn; courtesy Now & Next Dance Mentoring Project
Beverly Spell’s rhythm rings help children sense the even musical phrasing as they bend and sway; Adriana Durant says the set
timing of recorded music lets dancers know if they’re cutting corners.
12
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AM
Students of Hartford City Ballet
relax between classes.
Bringing the Ballet Home
A former student reinvigorates classical dance education in Hartford.
By Andrea Marks
Photos courtesy of Hartford City Ballet
I
t was nothing short of tragedy for the local community
when in 1999 the Hartford Ballet and its school in Connecticut crumbled under a burden of debt and closed
its doors after 35 years of business. The news hit former
student Dartanion Reed especially hard. His freshly signed
trainee contract was declared null and void with the closure.
“I was devastated,” he says. “I had been planning my life to
join Hartford Ballet, live in Hartford, dance in Hartford and
retire in Hartford.”
Not a man to hesitate for long, Reed traveled to New
York City to audition for American Ballet Theatre’s summer
intensive. He was accepted and went on to dance for five
years in the ABT studio company and corps. Then in 2005,
he decided it was time to bring ballet back to Connecticut’s
capital city—and that he was just the man to do it.
With his wife, dancer Keiko Nakamura of New York Theatre Ballet, Reed mined his New York City connections to
start a pickup performing group. But within two years, they
had shifted their focus to education after it became clear
that ticket revenues alone weren’t enough to cover operating expenses.
In retrospect, Reed can see his youthful arrogance. “I
was still thinking I could conquer the world,” he says. “We
thought the community would respond, and we would be
rich beyond our wildest dreams. We thought we could fix
the ballet overnight.” The Hartford City Ballet is now a preprofessional training program 300 students strong, with a
public school outreach program to identify and recruit future
enrollees. Yet, after eight years, Reed has only begun building the ballet community he originally envisioned.
Reed started the school in a 2,000-square-foot space in
the low-income neighborhood of Parkville. With an outreach
program modeled after the Hartford Ballet program that had
introduced him to ballet, Reed made weekly visits to local
schools, teaching class and auditioning students for fulltime training. To cater to the city’s black population (Reed
himself is the son of an African-American father and German mother), he included an emphasis on African-American
influence in dance history.
The school outgrew the space within a year. After moving
into a converted auto dealership 12 times larger, enrollment
grew so rapidly that Reed and his small teaching staff had
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to put the outreach program on hold to keep up with regular classes. Pre-professional students took ballet, character,
conditioning and pointe. Many were in the studio every day
after school from 4:00 pm until 8:30 pm. But the space
lacked showers and locker rooms, and one section of the
building was still servicing cars. “It didn’t feel like you were
in a dance studio. It felt like you were in a converted Hummer dealership,” Reed says.
Turns out, there was a bolder plan in play and Reed was
about to get a long-awaited breakthrough. From the beginning he’d had his heart set on reclaiming the still-vacant
building that had housed the former Hartford Ballet in the
heart of the city’s downtown area. In fact, he says he petitioned to get the space so aggressively the Greater Hartford Arts Council issued a cease and desist order. “I wasn’t
allowed to go near the building,” he says. “They didn’t
think a former student could revitalize it.” A recent change
in the building’s ownership paved the way for another shot.
This time Reed’s proposal was accepted. Hartford City Ballet
moved in before Thanksgiving 2013.
With soaring ceilings and seven expansive studios, the
space was designed for performing arts education. There is
a closed-circuit TV monitoring system in the office for parents and a study area for students to finish their schoolwork, which is an important aspect of Reed’s training philosophy. “They can’t take ballet class until their homework
is done. Period.”
With the move, Hartford City Ballet will renew its presence in public schools. Residencies at three institutions
begin this spring, and there is a Salvation Army shelter
within walking distance from the studio, which Reed hopes
to work with. (The school sponsored a master class for the
home’s children before Christmas.)
In 2012, Reed was certified in ABT’s National Training Curriculum. Curriculum designers Franco De Vita and
Raymond Lukens were on staff at the original Hartford Ballet, and Reed had worked closely with De Vita as a teenager. He remains in touch with his former teacher about his
work in Connecticut. “I want to keep that bridge between
ABT and Hartford,” he says. “You have to keep talking to
people. They have to know you exist.” This spring, he plans
to bring a group of students to New York City for a master
class, a tour of the Metropolitan Opera House and an ABT
performance.
“He has a lot of energy and he really wants to build
something,” says De Vita. “He needs to go like he has been:
quite slow. But like we say in Italy, when you go slow you
find a way.”
Heeding his mentor’s wisdom, Reed has shelved for now
his plans for a professional ballet company. The school produces two shows a year that are cast by open audition.
Many drop-in students try out and enjoy the experience so
much they enroll in classes full-time. More interested in nurturing homegrown talent, Reed rebuffs the idea of bringing
in professionals to perform major roles. “I don’t rent, I don’t
hire and I don’t ask anybody for favors,” he says, his youthful brashness still in evidence.
“I think coming home really sets us up for success,” he
says, referring to the school’s new quarters. “Now we can
start to do what we tried to do once upon a time.” Andrea Marks is an assistant editor for Dance Teacher.
Photo courtesy of Hartford City Ballet
Reed (foreground)
completed the ABT
National Training
Curriculum in 2012.
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