Mixing Food Education With Dance

Nutrition education has become standard practice in pre-professional dance schools and college programs, but by the time students get this instruction, their attitudes and preferences about food have already been established. However, studio owners and teachers of young children have the opportunity to contribute to the long-term health of students through introducing good eating habits earlier on.

Maria DeConti, owner of Dance Step in Berlin, Connecticut, believes that children are never too young to be taught how to live a healthy life. “When you tell a small child that eating carrots and celery and lettuce is going to make them a better dancer, they’re going to try foods that they may not have,” she says. Ally Wagner, a registered dietitian who works with Cincinnati Ballet dancers and students at Dance Etc., agrees. She says that the time she spends with younger students is far more productive, because they don’t have set preconceptions about what to eat to look “dancer thin.” But how can studio owners successfully integrate nutrition education into dance lessons?

Anne Kramer, owner of Dance Etc. in Milford, Ohio, says that holding weekly or monthly nutrition workshops has been the most successful approach. “No one makes life changes with just one class. Children need a lot of message repetition,” she says. And keeping the information engaging for young students is paramount to their retention.    

At Dance Etc. Wagner kept her summer workshop as hands-on as possible by taking the kids to the grocery store, having a “Fear Factor Friday” (where the kids tried healthy foods that scared them, such as soy milk and hummus) and creating a “Jeopardy!”-like game where the kids competed against each other.

DeConti often hires Rebecca Dietzel, a biochemist who serves as the nutrition consultant for the National Ballet of Canada, to speak to her young students and dispel the negative attitudes they tend to develop about healthy foods. “With the youngest ones, I give them some guidelines,” says Dietzel. “The first is to eat real food. Then we talk a lot about what this actually means.” She explains the difference between whole and processed foods, giving examples of healthy snacks—an apple, for instance, rather than an energy bar, because the apple’s sugar is natural, while the sugar in a bar is added.

Although hiring a nutritionist is ideal, it is not practical for every studio. DeConti weaves nutrition into the fabric of her class curriculum. For her older students, she reads excerpts from health-related articles while they stretch before class, and she has the young ones make collages of healthy foods from magazine pictures. Teachers at the school drink only water and eat wholesome snacks in the hope that students will learn by example, especially if they are picking up poor eating habits at home.

“We as teachers struggle with what the parents feed their kids at home,” says Missy Lay Zimmer, co-owner of Planet Dance Cincinnati. “You need to educate the family, too, because no matter what is done in the studio, if they’re going home to chicken-fried steak every day, we’re not going to meet our goals.” Students at Planet Dance are given handouts after seminars to take home, and parents are encouraged to attend. At Dance Etc. parents accompany their children to the grocery store with Wagner, where they are shown healthier alternatives to what they normally take home to eat.

Most importantly, make sure you’re getting the right message across. For a long time, dance nutrition has been defined by a skinny-means-healthy mentality. Zimmer is thankful to see the dance world changing to make room for a variety of body types, which encourages healthier dancers. “We’re constantly promoting individuality and athleticism, as opposed to being so thin,” she says. A healthy dancer should view food as fuel and focus on meeting their body’s nutritional needs, rather than counting calories.

In each of these schools where nutrition programs have been introduced, the studio owners have witnessed improvements in their students’ energy levels and dance performances. For one of Kramer’s teenaged students, the nutrition education has even proved to be life-changing. “At just 15 years old, she had always been one of our heavy dancers and was made fun of about her weight,” says Kramer. “Because of what she learned about healthy eating practices, she has lost about 25 pounds. Her family has also made dietary changes, and they have all thanked me for bringing this change into their lives. I couldn’t be happier for them.” 

Tchaikovsky: The Pioneer of Music Written Especially for Ballet

Before the esteemed Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky started composing music for ballet, ballet music was generally not highly regarded as a compositional form of music. “Symphony music” then didn’t include ballet music. 

The earliest known ballet music compositions were by Jean Baptiste Lully, the court composer of the French King Louis XIV. But they were mostly “opera-ballets” where part of the story is told in dance (ballet) set into music. Or these ballet performances could be scenes danced out, and set to music, in between scenery or costume changes.

Ballet music started being looked upon as “serious musical composition” when ballet dancers started using ballet pumps, freeing musicians and dancers alike to use expansive space for expression. This turning point happened when the dancer Marie Taglioni danced “en pointe” in 1832 in “La Sylphide,” an opera-ballet that was choreographed by Marie’s father, Filippo.

But the child prodigy, Tchaikovsky, who mastered the piano by age 8 and wrote his first composition at age 4, was not encouraged to pursue music. His father, a mining engineer in the industrial town of Votkinsk, Russia, wanted him to become a lawyer. From the age of 10, Tchaikovsky was sent to boarding school in St. Petersburg and entered the civil service at 19. But the mundane routine of everyday life was not for him. In a letter to his sister Sasha, Tchaikovsky wrote that he couldn’t continue “to receive a salary for my entire life under false pretenses” and that he “must sacrifice everything to develop what God gave me in the womb.” By age 22 he had enrolled at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. After graduating, he moved to Moscow, where he excelled as a music theory professor for over 10 years before garnering enough patron funds to focus solely on a composing career. While his status as a composer grew, it wasn’t until Tchaikovsky began conducting his own works in his late 40s that he established himself and gained the attention of the Imperial Russian Ballet.

He was first commissioned to collaborate with Imperial Theatre ballet master Marius Petipa on the well-received, opulent The Sleeping Beauty (1890). This artistic collaboration flourished, producing The Nutcracker (1892) and Swan Lake (which was originally composed in 1877 for the Bolshoi Theatre, and later revived by Petipa in 1895). But The Nutcracker was particularly challenging for Tchaikovsky. It was difficult to finish, and finding inspiration for the characters was a struggle for him, even though Petipa gave him orders for each scene, detailing the number of bars and appropriate feeling for the music.

In his studies of Tchaikovsky, musicologist Roland John Wiley documents that the emotional turmoil faced during this time might have provided the composer inspiration for Act II. For instance, Wiley believes that the “death-defyingly serious adagio music of the grand pas de deux” was Tchaikovsky’s hidden homage to the loss of his sister Sasha, since it bears a close resemblance to a melody in the Russian Orthodox funeral service. Tchaikovsky also used special chords and sounds to denote the distinction between the magical and everyday elements, like the celestial tinkling sound for the Sugar Plum Fairy.

Because The Nutcracker was unconventional for its time—the mimed first act with child leads and the lack of a plot resolution didn’t follow the elite Imperial Ballet formula—it received mixed reviews and disappeared after its 11-show 1892 debut. It would only resurface as a ballerina showcase from time to time. It made North American appearances in the early 20th-century tours of Russian ballet companies, but it didn’t officially premiere in America until 1944 at the San Francisco Ballet. And in 1954, George Balanchine transformed the ballet into an American Christmas tradition. “Balanchine used to say that he wanted people to be able to come to New York City Ballet, and even if they didn’t care what was going on onstage, they could close their eyes and love the music,” says Andrews Sill, assistant music director for NYCB. “And with Tchaikovsky you can do that.”

Tchaikovsky’s 3 compositions, “Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker (considered the most profitable ballet by most ballet companies performing it),” signaled the advent of ballet music to being regarded as “serious works of music composition” by a major symphonic composer starting late 19th century. These works are considered classical (or interchangeably “romantic”) music - where the ballet choreography in its classical genre is its illustration in the art of dance.

Unlike the less-complex scores for the Romantic story ballets of the 19th century, Tchaikovsky ushered the classical ballet form into a new era where the score no longer served as background music to the dancing. Instead it supported the dancing, heightened dramatic depth for each individual character and enhanced the overall experience. “Tchaikovsky is the one who broke the mold of the relationship between music and dance,” says Jonathan McPhee, music director and principal conductor for Boston Ballet. “Without him we wouldn’t have Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring or the Ballets Russes.”

Modernism as a style in ballet music is also seen in Sergei Prokofiev's works, including "Chout, Le pas d'acier, The Prodigal Son, Romeo and Juliet, and Cinderella."

“Ballet Mechanique,” (1924) is also considered groundbreaking in the field of ballet music. Its use of jazz music to depict dancing moving objects on film, has been very memorable, from among the works of George Antheil, who’s also known for his other avant-garde works. This development signified the divergence of music used in ballet, into the use of jazz and the modernist genre of ballet music. The dancer Harriet Hoctor is also recalled for her work in George Gershwin’s 1937 “Shall We Dance” film, where Gershwin used both jazz and ballet music among other music genres. Ballet music, influenced by jazz genre, is best exemplified by the movie “West Side Story” (1957) where the choreographer Jerome Robbins collaborated with the composer Leonard Bernstein.

Presently, new works on choreography by various artists continue to favorably illustrate old works of music. Some artists work on the influence of old music by long deceased composers. A sample of these includes Ottorino Respighi’s “La Boutique Fantasque” (1919).

Some ballet music have been arranged from compositions made for other purposes. They include John Lanchberry’s arrangements on the music of Frederic Chopin (“A Month in the Country”), Franz Liszt (“Mayerling,” “Dracula”), and Felix Mendelssohn (“The Dream”). Most maybe categorized along the “romantic” genre of music.

However, certain ballet music from old sources have been arranged and illustrated with choreography in ballet. Arranged from old music compositions, the ballet music has gained prominence for sheer lyrical power of its melody, and its expressive illustration in ballet. Among the most popular of this kind of collaboration has been Alexander Glazunov’s “Les Sylphides,” (which has no discernible plot, whatsoever) using Frederic Chopin’s piano music, and provided with choreography by Michel Fokine. Watch a YouTube video here. This illustrates how music has successfully come into terms with ballet, so much so, that both are considered essentially one and the same set of performance art that we can’t distinguish them apart now in ballet.

Some Interesting Facts

* Tchaikovsky was the first composer to use the celesta, a piano-like instrument he discovered in Paris while writing The Nutcracker.

* Tchaikovsky composed parts of The Nutcracker while at sea on his way to conduct hisCoronation March at the inaugural concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

* Tchaikovsky had a terrible fear of mice, which could’ve inspired the climactic battle music he wrote in Act I of The Nutcracker.

* In addition to his three ballets, 10 operas, four concertos, six symphonies and four string quartets, Tchaikovsky wrote more than 100 piano works. His most popular orchestrations:Eugene Onegin, 1812 Overture, Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture and Symphony No. 6 (“Pathétique”).

* Some of Tchaikovsky’s music later inspired Balanchine to create original ballets: Suite No. 4, Op. 61, in Mozartiana (1933); Suite No. 3 for Orchestra in Theme and Variations (1947); and Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 75, in Allegro Brillante (1956).

Swan Lake music clip. The London Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Andre Previn, truly captures the essence of the score that Tchaikovsky wrote - The particular emotion of the dance inspires the music as they blend to tell the story. Listening to the music, you can picture the dance. This is Part eight of the ballet, which includes:
Act I:
IX. Finale (Andante)

The Blending Worlds of Ballet and Ballroom

There it is: that invisible line in the sand that typically divides ballroom studios from other types of dance studios. On the surface, it makes good business sense. After all, the two are distinctly different—one typically caters to adults, one to kids, one partner dancing, one mostly solo. But what happens when the lines get blurry? A lucrative crossover, according to Kim DelGrosso, co-owner of Center Stage Performing Arts Studio in Utah.

“At any given time, we have ballet, breakdancing and ballroom going on in our studio,” says DelGrosso. “A child who might only be paying for one class ends up paying for three because they decide to do other dance styles; it grows your program. It brings in more income because you can sell more classes to parents. I probably have 25 teachers, and they’re all working nonstop.”

Her versatile approach also churns out well-rounded dancers ready to take on Hollywood, Juilliard or wherever their dance paths lead them. Among the long list of notable alums are “Dancing with the Stars” pros Chelsie Hightower, Julianne and Derek Hough and Ashly Costa (Kim’s daughter), as well as “So You Think You Can Dance” stars Ashleigh and Ryan Di Lello.

“If you look at these dancers, all of them made it so far because they had mastered all the dance forms,” says Louis van Amstel, also a “DWTS” star and close colleague of DelGrosso’s. “Unfortunately, not that many studios do the crossover; they may dabble in ballroom, but not like Center Stage, where each department is equal.”

Looking to change that and follow in Center Stage’s trailblazing footsteps? Follow the story of DelGrosso’s success.

Creating a Crossover

Some might call it serendipity, but DelGrosso thanks geographic proximity for Center Stage’s venture into the ballroom world. Located in Orem, UT, the studio is situated 15 minutes away from Provo-based Brigham Young University, which she calls a “huge ballroom mecca.” The studio had already been operating for about nine years when DelGrosso first bought into it in 1989 along with Derryl Yeager, but ballroom wasn’t yet on the collective radar.

“Center Stage had always been a very well-known ballet, jazz, hip-hop and tap studio—until we hired Rick Robinson from BYU and he asked my daughter Ashly, who was 12, if she wanted to do ballroom,” says DelGrosso, who now co-owns the studio with Alex and Robin Murillo. “I didn’t know a thing about ballroom, but we decided to go ahead and find Ashly a partner.”

DelGrosso’s daughter became the first of several Center Stage students to start training and competing in ballroom, and with very few youth and junior American couples on the circuit at the time, DelGrosso says it was a fortuitous move. “It was basically us and some Russian couples in New York and San Francisco—we were on the ground level of getting kids dancing,” she says. “In Europe, there were hundreds of young couples, but America didn’t really have anything.”

DelGrosso soon enlisted ballroom gurus and BYU guest teachers Corky and Shirley Ballas (parents of “DWTS” star Mark Ballas) to develop a curriculum for Center Stage. Around the same time, DelGrosso spotted a young Louis van Amstel at the world championships in Miami and immediately wanted to collaborate. “He looked like he had dance training, not just ballroom, and I said, ‘I want you in my studio,’” she says. “We wanted our kids to be able to cross over, so we brought him in to train our young couples.”

Trips to England for high-profile competitions like Blackpool Dance Festival followed, along with the formation of a competitive ballroom team. DelGrosso’s other children (she has eight) also got in on the act, garnering awards at competitions, including Blackpool and the National Ten Dance Championships. But it wasn’t until Ashly and van Amstel were recruited for “Dancing with the Stars” in 2005 that Center Stage’s cachet—along with general American interest in ballroom dance—exploded, says DelGrosso.

“None of us were prepared—it brought the entire world into our backyard,” she says. “Many of the pros have come out of the studio because we had the foresight; there were only a handful of us who understood how ballroom and dance should cross over. We didn’t know what the boundaries were. We only knew it felt good.”

Versatility Is Key

Today Center Stage is a large performing arts complex with nine studios, a black box theater and 600 students. The business is divided into six departments, each with its own director. Alongside its six ballroom companies for dancers from 5 years old to collegiate are 11 amateur jazz companies, 2 ballet companies, 4 vocal companies and 6 hip-hop companies. (“We work out the schedule so kids can be in two to three different companies,” DelGrosso says.)

DelGrosso’s senior company performs in a wide variety of venues—from the competition floor to industrials to events and galas. “I started getting producers calling me and asking me to put together shows for them,” says DelGrosso, who eventually formed a production company to field the requests. “By the time our dancers are 18, they have hundreds of shows under their belts.”

The reason? Unparalleled versatility. “We’re the only studio they can cast with 100 people that are stylized,” DelGrosso says. “Our show consists of 10 dance numbers choreographed in different styles; these kids can partner like mad.” For select shows, she’ll call on working alumni or boldface names like Maksim Chmerkovskiy to join the mix. “Corporations are willing to pay big bucks for these people,” she says.

That carries over to studio profits, of which ballroom is a significant portion. Of all classes taught at Center Stage, ballroom brings in 30 percent of the income and comprises 75 percent of all private lessons. (Alongside her staff, DelGrosso often brings in prestigious coaches and choreographers like van Amstel to work with couples.) The privates also lead to another major income stream: studio rentals. DelGrosso rents space for $10 an hour per couple, and as many as eight couples and coaches might share the same room at once. “The rental income once you get the ballroom thing going is just so huge,” she says.

Add in other streams like ballroom retail sales and private consultations with DelGrosso, and the end result is impressive. “The ballroom end of our business has been very lucrative for us,” she says. “There is three times the money to be made in ballroom than any other dance form, hands down.”

Another boon for the studio has been the ability to attract boys. According to DelGrosso, some classes actually have more boys than girls, and the plethora of male dancers has the domino effect of helping to book more performances. “If I have an industrial, they’re so impressed because we have boys who can put on a show with substance,” she says. “We do scholarship quite a few of our boys, but we’re able to because they are great advertising for us.”

As far as DelGrosso is concerned, studios that opt to cross over are entering a relatively untapped market. “There are a gazillion amazing jazz/ballet/hip-hop dancers, but I can count on two hands the number of cross-trained dancers in the U.S. who can do any style—including ballroom—as well as anyone else,” she says. “Do I think every studio needs to have ballroom? It depends on the town. Do I think every dancer who wants to work in this market needs to have exposure to ballroom? Yes.”

Van Amstel agrees. “The biggest thing is keeping an open mind—that’s where it all starts,” he says. “If you’re a studio owner who says, ‘No, my studio is contemporary and we only want to excel there,’ you don’t live in 2012. It starts with the teachers.”

Learning the intricacies of ballroom can be a challenge for even the most trained dancers. How can you help your students be successful? Louis van Amstel of “Dancing with the Stars” shares some advice.

Start Solo

For studios just venturing into ballroom, van Amstel suggests offering a class for individual dancers that focuses on footwork, timing and exercises that help develop ballroom skills across the spectrum. “Because there are often more girls than guys and we’re dealing with a variety of levels, it’s a better approach to start them solo,” says van Amstel. “No one feels left out or has to worry about partnering.” (Check out his LaBlast DVD set for ideas and inspiration, available at www.lablastfitness.com.)

Match the new style to an existing strength.

Ballet dancers often have the hardest time mastering ballroom body position. “Their centers of gravity are usually way too high,” says van Amstel, referring to the grounded, leg-centric nature of ballroom dance. “Hip-hop or tap dancers might actually have an advantage because the gravity happens below the legs in those genres.” Van Amstel says that many trained dancers also struggle with the lightning-quick foot speed of many ballroom styles.

To help dancers transition more smoothly, he suggests starting with a style that complements their strengths. For instance, contemporary dancers might align well with the slower style of rumba, “so they can articulate their bodies more,” whereas hip-hop dancers might enjoy the raw, strong energy of paso doble.

Taking the First Step at Your Studio

To test the waters for offering ballroom at your studio, both Kim DelGrosso and Louis van Amstel suggest offering a one-time master class with a seasoned professional (either a “name” like a well-known “SYTYCD” or “DWTS” alum or an accomplished ballroom dancer from your community). “A great way to make money is to start with workshops and see what the interest level is,” says DelGrosso, who recommends making the workshop attendance mandatory to be sure you’ll cover expenses.

As she sees it, it’s not just a good idea, but almost an obligation to expose dancers to ballroom. “Even if it just stays on the workshop level, every competitive studio should introduce their dancers to ballroom to some degree,” she says. “Ballroom isn’t going away—vocabulary and basic understanding of the rhythms are valuable for any dancer who wants to work.”

For those looking to take a bigger step, DelGrosso suggests bringing in a professional to develop a ballroom program. She cites her daughter Afton DelGrosso-Wilson’s success with Arizona-based Dance Connection 2 as one example. DelGrosso says studio owners shouldn’t be afraid to approach top talent: “Some of the teachers who may seem inaccessible—Maks, Chelsie, Derek—they all need to work and can come in and start a program for your studio.”

Motivating Dance Students by giving them Words to Live By

Over the years I have become attached to a handful of inspirational sayings that I like to share with other dancers, teachers and students. I have posted a few of them on studio walls, where they have remained for years; I write others on the classroom mirrors and rotate them as needed. 

Make Excellence Your Habit.

This advice holds a permanent place on my studio wall. If I could live by only one saying, this would be it.

An irritated parent once said to me, “You expect these kids to be perfect!” I replied, “Yes, and if I don’t, they will get nowhere close to that!” It is a rare thing for young people to work toward personal excellence. Sometimes their time is spread so thin that they become mediocre at several activities and fail to feel the satisfaction of doing their best at anything. The unique setting of the dance classroom calls for discipline and personal growth, which can inspire young people to show their best.

Everyone brings a different natural ability and aptitude to the dance classroom. Those who work to their maximum potential are demonstrating their own excellence. This thought brings me to my next favorite saying.

Let No One Outwork You.

If dancers work as hard as possible in every class, they will become the best dancers they can personally be. Although teachers should never compare one student’s physical aptitudes to another’s, holding each to a personal level of excellence promotes a good work ethic. The desire to work hard is a gift they give to their dance friends. When teachers and students put out their maximum effort, they become the strongest of dance families and achieve their goals together.

I try to give students realistic goals that will help them develop their work ethic, since some feel overwhelmed with certain tasks. For example, with dancers who are working to improve the height of their extensions, I tell them that if every day I placed one square of bathroom tissue onto a pile, it would take quite a while for anyone to notice a change in the pile’s height. But eventually the stack would become a tower, at which point it would be difficult not to notice it and ask its purpose. It would become quite impressive, just like the result achieved by a dancer who lifts her leg higher in each class, even if the difference is as incremental as the thickness of one slice of bathroom tissue. Eventually that tiny change will add up to an amazing accomplishment that might take years for others to notice but will be sure to impress eventually.

The fable of the tortoise and the hare also illustrates this concept wonderfully. I have had many hares in my classes, but it is the tortoises that have changed the quality of the studio.

You Control You

Most people, especially teenagers, prefer to listen to no one but themselves. Teachers offer suggestions, but their words merely fly around the room unless the students pull the information inside their heads and decide to effect a change. An advanced student’s best teacher is often the one inside his head. No dancer becomes outstanding until he accepts responsibility for his own training. Students must move their own bones and muscles, hear and feel the music their own way, and store what they think is important until the next class. They must recognize that the image in the mirror is of their own making. Once they feel that they are in charge, amazing things can happen.

At the beginning of class, I ask my students to take a moment to consider why they came and what they hope to accomplish, and to set a personal goal for that class.

Lead By Example.

This goes back to my dear mother, who often said, “Do not tell people what to do; show them.” If you want your students to be on time for class, do not start class late. If you want your students to be focused in class, stay on track yourself. If you want students to show progress from class to class, make sure the class is structured in a way that allows them to feel the connection. If you want them to be nice to each other, be kind to them.

This slogan should also apply to your students. Every year at recital time, as students are learning their entrances and exits, there are always one or two students who cannot resist the urge to shout, “Go!” or push the student in front of them to get them started. I remind them that the polite thing is to lead by example. For example, if they begin to run in place at the right time, their dance friends will notice the reminder that it is time to get started.

Take Risks

Encourage your students to dance full-out at all times. It may not always be pretty, but dance is physical, and unless dancers push the boundaries they will have no concept of how far they can go. Watching a dancer take risks and stretch each movement to its fullest is an exciting experience for the audience. This bravery extends to the direct emotional contact a dancer must establish with the audience.

Watching a safe dancer can be like watching a beautiful figurine inside a snow globe: It is lovely but completely untouchable. A dancer’s job is to affect the audience in some way. Whether it is to make them smile, laugh, think, or cry, dancers must learn to connect with audiences and let them feel as if they too are dancing.

In the same vein, I also use the phrase “Surprise yourself!” Do what you think you cannot. Do not question or correct yourself. Go for it!

Flexibility First.

Some people may argue this point, but if students are to excel, they must be as flexible as possible. We rarely have time in class to develop maximum flexibility in our students, so we must find ways to encourage them to work on their own. I give the analogy that my daughter would never go to softball practice without her mitt and helmet. These things are necessary equipment for her activity; without them she would probably get hurt. Flexibility is necessary equipment for dancers; they must bring it to every class.

My school offers incentives for improvements in flexibility, including the “Split Club” for dancers who can do all three splits.

Find Your Passion and Pursue It.

When people find what they love, they should move heaven and Earth to make it happen. Teachers can help students identify their passions and direct their studies in ways that will satisfy their interests. If dance is their passion, there are countless ways to develop that interest into a career. A student who loves dance and photography could combine those interests and specialize in dance photography. A math whiz with good organizational skills could manage a dance company. Painters could consider getting into set design. Those who love to sew can investigate costume design and construction. In this day of immediate Web access, teachers have the resources at their fingertips to guide students in researching all kinds of careers.

All people should be inspired to do what they love and love what they do, and teachers can play a part in helping their students make that discovery.

Have Wheels, Will Dance: The Art of Wheelchair Dancing

Mary Verdi-Fletcher remembers vividly the startled look on dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones’ face when she showed up to take one of his master classes. “I told him, ‘Don’t worry about me; I will just translate what you are doing. Don’t give it a second thought,’ ” she says.

Jones’ brief moment of panic came about because Verdi-Fletcher dances from a wheelchair.

Born with spina bifida in 1955 in Cleveland, Ohio, Verdi-Fletcher says that even as a child in leg braces, she knew she had to dance. Coming from a family of artists (her mother was a dancer and her father a professional musician), she says dancing was in her blood. She would routinely break her leg braces trying to dance. After acquiring a series of progressively stronger braces, she finally broke her leg instead of her braces. Because of that incident she was advised by her doctor to use a wheelchair.

Being in a wheelchair did little to deter Verdi-Fletcher from dancing, and at age 12, trying to emulate dance moves she saw onAmerican Bandstand, she broke a wheel off her wheelchair. As she grew up and into a career as one of the nation’s first professional dancers in a wheelchair, Verdi-Fletcher began to develop less destructive ways to use her wheelchair to dance.

A pioneer out of necessity, she not only had to overcome people’s perceptions about who could be a dancer; she also had to invent a new technique that allowed people in wheelchairs to dance. “Because I was only dancing and working with non-disabled dancers, I had to look at what they were doing and come up with translations,” she says. Part of her approach is what she calls “smooth technique,” in which wheeling the chair does not look pedestrian.

After years of proving her mettle as an independent professional dancer in the Cleveland area, in 1980 Verdi-Fletcher founded Dancing Wheels, the country’s first physically integrated professional dance company, combining disabled and non-disabled dancers. A joint venture with Cleveland Ballet followed in the 1990s, along with the additions of Dancing Wheels’ affiliated school, summer programs, and community outreach programs. As a result, numerous wheelchair, or “sit-down,” dancers have been able to take dance classes with their “stand-up” counterparts by using Verdi-Fletcher’s translation methods and techniques. Today Dancing Wheels’ integrated school boasts 984 students and its professional company, which tours nationally and internationally, employs 13, 4 of them dancers in wheelchairs.

The Approach

Verdi-Fletcher’s translations key off of several factors in the movement, such as balance, quickness, speed, and intention, regardless of the technique (ballet, modern, or others). Sit-down dancers use their arms to represent leg and feet movements, arm movements, or a combination of both.

While Verdi-Fletcher’s translations are geared typically to wheelchair dancers with a good deal of upper-body mobility, her translations can be modified to fit the needs of dancers with lesser physical capabilities. Many of her translations are common-sense interpretations of dance movements, says Verdi-Fletcher. For example, a pirouette is translated into making the wheelchair spin in a circle, jumps into popping wheelies, and a grapevine motion into a zigzag motion with the chair. The trick, says Verdi-Fletcher, is incorporating both leg and arm movements into port de bras while at the same time controlling the motion of the wheelchair.

Teaching Translation

“If you don’t know how to tap dance, you can’t teach someone to tap dance,” says Dancing Wheels School coordinator Kristen Stilwell. To that end, Stilwell—a stand-up dancer—feels that those who wish to teach dancers in wheelchairs need firsthand experience in a wheelchair in order to learn its capabilities. Learning how to move and manipulate a wheelchair is a good first step in learning how to translate dance movement to a sit-down dancer.

“Wheelchairs are like dance shoes,” says Verdi-Fletcher. “They are all different and are fitted to the person in the chair.”

Because wheelchairs are also very expensive, most sit-down dancers dance in their everyday chairs. That can mean limitations in mobility compared to a chair specifically designed for dance. Whether the wheelchair is powered or non-powered, whether it is weighted more in the front (making it harder to do wheelies), differences in turning radius, tip bars, the types of casters and wheels, the camber of the wheels—all can factor into the sit-down dancer’s range and ease of mobility.

“The chair is really the instrument by which a dancer can achieve their level of performance,” says Verdi-Fletcher. “A more capable dancer in an older chair with limited movement capabilities can be outperformed by a dancer of lesser physical capabilities but with a better chair.”

In teaching sit-down dancers, says Verdi-Fletcher, “the main focus in a classroom setting is looking at what would benefit [them].” She and the other teachers at Dancing Wheels identify the muscles being worked by a stand-up dancer in a given movement and translate that movement into a motion a sit-down dancer can emulate. For example, a plié works a stand-up dancer’s legs to build strength; sit-down dancers would emulate that motion and resistance using their arms, also to build strength. Or sit-down dancers with a broader range of mobility might hold onto a ballet barre and work one or both legs.

“There are so many variables in translation that have to be put together,” says Stilwell. “It is just like the makeup of a sentence; you need the right combination of movements to construct a proper translation.

It can be mind-boggling to novice sit-down dancers when they see a stand-up dancer moving arms and legs in all directions. How can they translate the movement they are seeing? Stilwell advises those who want to teach sit-down dancers to start slowly, just as they would with any dance student. She teaches her student wheelers basic moves such as a “wheelie bump” (slightly popping the front wheels of the chair off the ground). For this move, the dancer puts her hands on her chair’s wheels, then takes them back to her hips and pushes forward to raise the chair, being careful not to lean forward and fall. Once that is mastered, the student can move on to executing full-blown wheelies.

One student in the Dancing Wheels School who is learning to perfect the art of the wheelie is 13-year-old Alexandra Martinez, a member of Dancing Wheels Junior Dance Company. Born with spina bifida and paralyzed from the knees down, Martinez has been taking dance lessons since age 5 and sees balancing in her chair as one of her toughest obstacles in learning to dance.

Martinez and her sister Gabriella, a 14-year-old stand-up dancer and fellow Junior Company member, take ballet, modern, and hip-hop classes together and help each other with skills such as spotting during pirouettes and proper partnering technique.

“Watch out for your toes,” says Gabriella, referring to sit-down/stand-up partnering. “You can get run over if you are not paying attention.”

Sit-down/stand-up partnering is not traditional counterbalance partnering, says Stilwell. There are the same trust issues, but partnering someone in a chair requires both dancers to know the wheelchair’s capabilities with regard to ease of movement, braking, turning radius, proneness to tipping, and how fast the sit-down dancer can move in the chair.

“When partnering a wheeler, you never want to take their hands behind their head because that will cause them to tip forward,” says Stilwell. “Keep their hands in front of their face so you are not pulling out their shoulders.” As a member of Dancing Wheels’ professional company, Stilwell is all too familiar with what can go wrong in sit-down/stand-up partnering and group work if all parties aren’t mindful of each other. She once suffered a concussion when a wheelchair banged into her head.

Verdi-Fletcher believes there is a mechanism of control and stability that needs to happen in sit-down/stand-up partnering. “When that doesn’t happen, that’s when you see people in wheelchairs being flipped over backwards and stand-ups being run over.”

While much of stand-up dance technique can be translated to the dancer in a wheelchair, the opposite is not always true. Some movements in Verdi-Fletcher’s wheelchair technique, such as “feathering” the chair (so that viewers can hardly see the push) and gliding, can be done only by a sit-down dancer.

The Future of Translation

The Dancing Wheels Company and School have translated techniques in ballet, modern, jazz, ballroom, and hip-hop that have given opportunities to sit-down dancers they might not otherwise have had. Verdi-Fletcher hopes to include other forms of dance such as tap, if the problem of how to affix taps to a wheelchair can be resolved.

Dancing Wheels is also applying its translation methods to teaching dancers with other disabilities, such as impaired vision or hearing and learning disorders.

Verdi-Fletcher and former Dancing Wheels company member Mark Tomasic are in the beginning stages of codifying Verdi-Fletcher’s wheelchair technique and translations. In the near future they hope to release a DVD and training manual that will allow dance teachers to integrate sit-down dancers into their classes. Some other goals Verdi-Fletcher sees for the project are to offer teacher certification in translation and wheelchair technique, and to make it possible for college and university dance programs to offer degree programs for dancers in wheelchairs.

Verdi-Fletcher’s translations have allowed her company to work with notable choreographers, including Dianne McIntyre,  Pilobolus’ Rebecca Anderson, Nai-Ni Chen, and Keith Young. While many of the choreographers the company brings in have never worked with sit-down dancers, the dancers have the tools to adapt to most anything thrown at them. Thus the choreographers have the freedom to create while the dancers take care of the translations. Verdi-Fletcher says she gets involved in the process only when a choreographer requests it.

Verdi-Fletcher’s translations have also helped and inspired others, like sit-down dancer Alana Wallace. After taking a Dancing Wheels summer workshop, she founded Chicago’s physically integrated company, Dance Detour. Other physically integrated professional dance companies include Axis Dance Company in Oakland, California; Full Radius Dance in Atlanta, Georgia; and Verlezza Dance in Shaker Heights, Ohio, run by former Dancing Wheels co-artistic director Sabatino Verlezza.

Although physically integrated dance does not have a huge presence on the nation’s dance scene, it is on the rise, offering not only its own inherent artistic value but also challenging prevailing attitudes about disability and dance. Like Verdi-Fletcher’s Dancing Wheels, the aforementioned companies and others are giving rise to new methods of translation to meet the needs of their preferred dance styles.

With translation techniques like those developed by Verdi-Fletcher and others, the door to dance has been swung wide open to those with physical handicaps, helping to build a future of acceptance and possibility for everyone who wants to dance.

For more information, visit dancingwheels.org.

Tips for Teaching Sit-Down Dancers

Mary Verdi-Fletcher outlines her teaching approach

1) Don’t think inability. First think the students can, and then determine how far they can go. If a teacher starts out thinking that the students are incapable because they are disabled, then the students will not grow to their full potential.

2) Avoid assumptions. Not everyone in a wheelchair is the same. People arrive at their disabilities from different ways such as birth defects, sickness, and accidents; their physical abilities vary greatly.

3) Always ask. Generally the best way to learn the capabilities of a student with a disability is to ask. Initially students might not feel comfortable telling you everything, but as confidence in your relationship grows, you’ll be able to learn more about what they can and can’t do.

4) Be open. Don’t be afraid to bring these students into a class. Experimenting together can prove rewarding for both student and teacher. Have an open dialogue with non-disabled students and the student with the disability (and parents, if underage) about the newness of the situation, encouraging open-mindedness and patience.

5) Seek training. As in the instruction of all dance techniques, it is beneficial to seek out a school or dance company that offers physically integrated dance training to teachers. A wellspring of knowledge has come from years of experimentation and practice in the field.

Dancing as a Metaphor for Life

Some say dancing is a metaphor for life, perhaps because dance is also universal. It is a natural phenomenon that is instinctual and pervasive in every single culture and it is a subconscious act. Every human (and many animals) naturally dance  The late Dr. David R. Hawkins, a professor of philosophy of science, childhood science education, and more, suggested that our subconscious minds are like a computer terminal connected to a giant database.

We can relate it to an artist that plays a musical instrument – s/he does not work the instrument. To work it is to direct and control each note separately – with separate conscious thoughts that are passed to the fingers – is obvious but the sub-conscious connection is not so obvious.

Dr. Hawkins believed in letting ourselves enjoy an activity, i.e., play with it, enjoy the process, have fun and let our bodies “take over,” so learning can happen quickly and effortlessly.

Our conscious mind can be a barricade to this natural mental flow between the conscious and subconscious. We need to play with routines, perfecting them, but also to let our bodies  flow and enjoy ourselves.
Play is the art and that practice is the conscious repetition to slowly develop skill – it is the database that the conscious mind can rely on to provide the balance between conscious performance and his database of the dance steps.  In life, we need to strike a balance between striving to reach goals and just enjoying the moment.

Dance and dance education, whether competitive or recreational, pave the way for young people to become responsible, caring adults. The following guides for any form of dance also apply to life.

Set reachable goals.

Be realistic about your ability. Know and accept your strong and weak points.

Do not expect more of yourself than you are capable of delivering.

Be prepared for the unexpected so that you will be able to cope. Remember, not every day will be stellar. Be prepared for less-than-stellar ones.

Every road to success has its stumbling blocks. It is important that we weigh issues in order to make sensible decisions.

Search for and find the best qualities in your opponents.

Learn to genuinely give praise for work well done by others.

Appreciate the efforts of others and in return, others will appreciate your efforts.

Enjoy what you are doing.

Have fun!

One last important metaphor is fear. When we lose our balance or miss-step during a dance lesson, our whole body often tenses up. Fear of mistakes often makes us freeze. When we experience fight or flight feelings our muscles tighten and our joints lock, sometimes even literally preventing us from taking a step. This is simply our insistence on being very conscious of every step. And this fear interferes with our learning process and progress – whether in dance or any other new learning activity in life.

Actually it’s the reason many people don’t take dance lessons in the first place. We don’t want to look silly and we’re sure we’re going to mess up, causing us to look clumsy and feel awkward.

We just need to remember that dance is a universal fact of  life, you simply cannot NOT dance in some form or another.  Don’t believe me? Just notice the next time your favorite song comes on the radio and you instinctively tap your finger or foot. Dance is within us.  It is life.

Tell Me Your Story: Expressing Your True Self Through Choreography

Ever wonder what kind of choreography makes a competition judge sit up and take notice? Just when you think you've seen it all,  a dance hits the stage that is truly innovative, fresh, and engaging.  How do you achieve this?

Peel back the layers

The following are some examples of unique, wonderful dances with a common thread: Each dance tells a story in an original, exciting way. 

My grandmother enjoyed taking familiar sentiments and twisting them for the sake of irony. She would often say things like, “A picture can tell a story, but reality is another matter entirely.” I never thought a grandmother’s casual words could provide the engine for a dance piece until I saw Behind the Scenes by Tina Finkelman of JAM Dance and Fitness in Bellmore, NY. 

This modern piece featured dancers representing a family, plus a large, empty picture frame. The idea was simple: When the characters posed within the frame, they appeared to be a happy family. But outside of the confines of the frame, their relationships fell into turmoil.

I am still struck by the astonishing impact of the central idea. The dance illuminated how relations between family members can be complicated and emotionally charged. Showing the happy poses first and then revealing the “hidden” drama outside the frame made the audience feel like we were invading this family’s privacy and eavesdropping as it fell apart at the seams. What family ever wants to reveal those private dramas? We want the outside world to think we’re perfect and happy. And aren’t all families that way? It was impossible not to identify with the piece.

Behind the Scenes wasn’t just a great example of powerful storytelling, it also featured an innovative use of a prop—the picture frame. The dancers held it, passed it around, moved through it, hung from it, stood on it, and even used it to lift each other. The frame itself became an additional character in the dance.

Behind the Scenes illuminated a familiar facet of human nature: We too often put a happy face on things, when the real story is the opposite.

Make ’em laugh

Most performers, directors, choreographers and writers agree that there’s nothing harder to do well than comedy. . Comedy in dance takes a particular brand of genius to pull off. I guess that’s why they call it the “gift” of humor.

I saw a  hilarious piece called She’s Talkin’ Again by Diane Gudat for The Dance Company, Inc. in Indianapolis. In this story dance, we follow a couple on a date. Things start out well, but the man soon makes a horrifying discovery about the woman he’s with: She talks nonstop. Trapped, he desperately (and hilariously) searches for ways to escape.

The piece takes us on an epic journey to a restaurant, a baseball game, the movies, a picnic, a bike ride (where he deliberately crashes his bike), a rowboat (which he dives out of, hoping to drown himself), various car rides, and home again, where he finally sneaks away—while she’s still talking. It’s the world’s longest date, torture for him but comic bliss for the audience.

In the recorded song, a female voice blathers on at a frantic pace for 3 minutes straight. This inspired the choreographer to make a risky choice: She instructed her female dancer to lip-synch every word in the recording. Normally I frown on lip-synching in dances; I find it confusing because I can’t comprehend why the voice of, say, Barbra Streisand is coming out of a 14-year-old’s mouth. But in this case, the choice was the right one. It was so relentlessly fast and constant that the lip-synching became another source of humor and suspense.

The dancing in this piece was atypical for competition dances—no pirouettes, grand jetés, or battements anywhere. Yet this was certainly a dance, full of detailed and specific character movement that, though difficult, looked deceptively simple. And it was presented with the sparest of elements: two stools, two terrific young actor-dancers, and the audience’s imagination. She’s Talkin’ Again was a great reminder that competition dances do not have to be loaded with rhinestones and fouettés to be entertaining.

Take a novel approach

It takes ambition, ingenuity, and chutzpah to turn a great literary work into a 10-minute dance. You can’t put the whole novel on a competition stage, so which parts of the story do you feature? Do you eliminate characters? Which ones? And how on earth do you turn an author’s words into a dance in the first place? 

One of the most successful examples of a literary adaptation I’ve seen in dance competition was a modern production number called Animal Farm. It was based on the novel of the same name by George Orwell, and choreographed and designed by Michael Perkins of the Amber Perkins School of the Arts in Norwich, NY.

It was a lavish production, with a stage full of beautiful scenery and clever costuming. Most important, the choreography and character work captured the tone, themes, and spirit of Orwell’s famous novel. It can’t be easy to adapt, in dance form, literature’s most famous satirical allegory of Soviet totalitarianism. But there it was, live onstage, and it worked.

The piece was impeccably researched. Each dancer developed his or her character in great detail, and the story was streamlined in a way that made the short dance feel like the full novel. The dance utilized the unique artistic vocabulary of the choreographer/designer. He trusted his instincts and his performers’ inspiration to tell this famous story in his own language. I bet George Orwell would have found the adaptation fascinating. I certainly did.

Simplify and electrify

There’s no denying that a stage full of scenery, a huge cast of dancers, and a dramatic story are a treat for any audience. Animal Farm worked wonderfully as a full-scale production number. But there are other ways to adapt a classic novel into a dance.

The Scarlet Letter by Michele Cuccaro of JAM Dance and Fitness took Nathaniel Hawthorne’s great work and gave it the minimalist treatment. No town square, no prison, no church. Nothing but a small group of dancers in simple black costumes on an empty stage, and one small, red appliqué in the shape of the letter A.

How did they take a big book and make it a small dance without sacrificing the power of the original story? They distilled Hawthorne’s work down to its most fundamental plot point (a community ostracizes one of its own), and built the choreography around that core action. They kept only a handful of the central characters and developed movement evocative of their relationships, then stripped away everything else. Basically, they kept it basic.

What they eliminated in scale and stuff they more than made up for in passionate, character-based performances. At every moment the story was clear, concise, and dramatic. The dance built to a crescendo that felt as dramatic and thrilling as the novel’s.

The Scarlet Letter was a terrific reminder that sometimes less truly is more. You don’t need big production values to tell a big story—you just need an idea that can act as an engine for your story. How you tell it is up to you.

Got issues?

As dancemakers, we work hard to come up with original ideas. It’s ironic that we take such pains to search in obscure places for the next unique concept when the best inspiration is often right in front of our noses. Perhaps we take for granted the issues that confront families daily. But we shouldn’t, because they might inspire the next truly original dance. Such was the case with Missing,by Lisa Pilato for Lisa Pilato Dance Center in Dracut, MA.

The piece took on the subject of kidnapping, which might seem like dangerous territory in the context of a youth dance competition. Yet this dance was a fine example of how to treat an emotionally charged issue with respect and good taste.

It was a large-scale, contemporary production piece with clearly defined characters and a theatrical approach. The dance was intense but not scary, educational but not patronizing or dumbed down. It was set to a clever blend of existing music and original voice-overs written and recorded by the choreographer and her team.

The piece featured a brilliantly versatile piece of scenery—a two-story, three-dimensional house with a working door, windows, and pitched roof. As the drama escalated, the house rotated and transformed into a massive replica of that familiar icon we’ve come to associate with missing children: a large milk carton with a picture of the child on it. It was one of the most stunning moments I’ve ever seen in a dance competition.

In a stroke of theatrical inspiration, the choreographer took advantage of the unique opportunity only live performance offers: At a key point in the piece, dancers approached the judges and handed us flyers with information about the missing girl. They looked exactly like the flyers you see attached to telephone poles. That bold, breathtaking moment has stayed with me ever since I saw the piece, years ago.

Missing was an original and creative dance production. But most important, it reminded parents of how vital it is to talk to their kids about an issue that confronts them daily. Missing engaged us—it made us think and act. What could be better?

Inspiration in unlikely sources

One of the most thrilling competition dances I’ve ever seen happened to be set to one of the most thrilling speeches ever given by an actor in a movie. The dance was called Inches, choreographed by Vlad for Vlad’s Dance Company in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada, and performed by four male dancers representing a team of football players. The “music” was a recording of the famous motivational speech given by Al Pacino as the football coach in the movie Any Given Sunday.

Audiences crave stories.The sound clip from Inches yanked the audience smack into the middle of a football stadium at the most crucial do-or-die moment of the biggest game of the players’ lives.

By choosing that emotionally charged monologue, the choreographer gave himself an instant story and an opportunity for a dance drama to unfold. But music isn’t enough and great drama doesn’t happen on its own. The dancer/players used the sound as inspiration and built on it by performing stunning football-inspired movements and moments—running plays, tackling, huddles, and one astonishing moment when they ran a pattern right off the front of the stage and back on again.

The dance celebrated a uniquely male spirit. It’s pretty rare when every dad and brother in the audience is talking about how great a dance is, with a little tear in his eye. For me, Inches wins the award as the Most Awesome Male Bonding Experience Ever to Appear at a Dance Competition. Booyah!

Trust yourself

I had a teacher who stated  "“I don’t care about these dance steps. They can easily be replaced with other steps. It’s the ideas that are important.”  Today, I always think about her wise words as I look at dances and look for inspiration to create my own. These days many competition dances are replete with look-alike steps—but they’re slim on ideas. So many dances resemble so many others that it is difficult to tell them apart. Judges often sit there wondering, “What do you think we want to see?” Here’s the answer: You.  Judges and audiences want to see you. Trust yourself, do your own thing, and tell your story.