Happy Thankgoodness No Dancing or Driving Day!

Okay, I’ve been a bit remiss in writing this blog lately, I know. I told you, my other blog, Write Nonfiction in November, has been taking up most of my time. And I have to also write a post every now and then in my long-standing blog, As the Spirit Moves Me, as well. Then of course, I do have a job as a nonfiction book editor and a freelance journalist, not to mention the second job – or is it my first? – as my children’s personal life coach, taxi driver, cook, and calendar keeper. All this too say, I’ve been a bit busy lately.

Right now I’m sitting in the San Francisco Airport waiting for a flight to New York for my family’s annual Thanksgiving Day reunion. It’s the first chance I’ve had to write a post. I’ve got two things I want to tell you.

The first has to do with my last topic – holiday gifts for our dancing boys. My very talented daughter, who recently changed her mind about what she plans on majoring in when she gets to college (she’s a junior in high school) from fine art to costume design, has come up with a line of T-shirts for dancing boys/men. (Finally, she has taken my advice and decided to take advantage of the opportunity presented by the lack of cool clothes for boys and men who dance. Given her fashion/costume/art ability, she’s a prime target to develop this line of clothing, especially since she lives with such a boy – much to her dismay a lot of the time.) So, hopefully just in time for the holidays, she plans on introducing “My Brother Can Dance” shirts and (also hopefully) sweat pants. We’ve already got possibly four T-shirts in mind. Julian is vetting out the sayings and the art work and providing Ariel with a model. Given that we will be away until the 29th, the designs won’t be available for viewing or pre-orders until sometime during the first week in December. We hope to offer an introductory price to allow for Priority Mail shipping costs, so you can get your shirts by Christmas or Chanukah. When we get back, we’ll figure out how fast the printer can print the shirts, get shipping costs, etc., and show you the designs!

The second thing I want to say is very short: Happy Thanksgiving! And Thankgoodness that we parents of dancing boys don’t have to drive for a few days, because no dancing will be happening over the holiday! Of course, I will be sewing on white elastic on black ballet shoes for the Nutcracker Scene 1…but I can handle that. And I’ll be on an airplane…but I’m grateful for small things. Have a very happy Turkey Day!

Holiday Gifts for Guys Who Dance – Got Any Ideas?

Okay, Julian just got a notice that the studio/company is doing Secret Santas – gifts costing about $30. (The budget has gone up from the days when we bought Secret Santa gifts for $5 or less for the kids on his dance team.) I’ll reserve my feelings about this to just two comments. First, we’re Jewish…but I’ll leave that alone. Second, and here’s what I really want to say on the topic, what type of gifts can you get guys who dance – not that we need to worry about this? I mean really? (We’ll probably have an easy time finding dance “stuff” for a girl.)

This happens to be a pet peeve of mine. There are few if any dance clothes out there for boys. And after that, you might be able to purchase a new pair of dance shoes or a dance bag (if it’s neutral enough) to give as a gift to a male dancer. You could purchase a ballet barr (not a Secret Santa item, mind you), I suppose, or some Pilates bands. Music always works, but it’s not too creative.

If anyone has great ideas for gifts for dancing guys, please post some comments and let me know. And if you have great links for dance gear or clothing for guys, do the same. I’ll create a resource here. I’ve been meaning to do that, but I’ve found little in that way so far.

The holiday season is fast approaching. If we want to purchase dance-related gifts for our twinkle-toed sons, we better put our heads together and come up with some unique ideas…or some good resources.

 

Note:  After quite a bit of effort, my daughter has come up with the perfect gift for boys who dance, especially those who take ballet class. Check out her line of three t-shirts at http://www.purespiritcreations.com/My-Brother-Can-Dance-Boys’-and-Mens’-Dance-Related-T-Shirts-and-Dance-Wear.html! Hopefully there will be more to come at a later date.

Who Needs Him Anyway????

I just received the December issue of Dance Spirit Magazine, and I found myself intrigued and just a bit outraged by an articled titled “Who Needs Him Anyway, A Close Look at All-Girl Partnering.” I showed it to Julian, who stuck out his lower lip in a big pout of dismay.

While at Ballet San Jose School he was too short to do much partnering. He’s finally getting tall enough at 5′4″ to possibly partner some of the girls at Teen Dance Company this year. So, the though of a trend towards girl-girl partnering was a bit depressing to him, to say the least.

The article discusses the fact that this a more modern approach to partnering:

“Traditional male/female partnering fits into stereotyped gender roles, where the woman is light and delicate, and the man is strong and powerful. Unfortunately, this is the 21st century, where girls can play soccer or cheerleader, be a science wiz or a homecoming queen. Same-sex partnering melts the traditional mold into something cool and current, where girls can be strong and beautiful at once.”

Okay, so that is true; I admit it. And at TDC, there is same-sex partnering going on…out of necessity. They’ve only got two boys. But still…as the mother of a male dancer, I’m going to take a stand and say, “I like opposite-sex partnering.” Call me traditional if you will. It’s romantic. It’s beautiful.

That said, I don’t mind the modern and contemporary choreography that uses both. But let’s not push for same-sex partnering. (Not that this article did, by any means. I’m being a bit over-reactive.)

I will say that the article had some good advice on using the legs in a plie when partnering, especially when lifting or catching flying bodies. And it discussed emotional differences, which are definitely there between the opposite sexes as well. Therefore, the article does have some good advice even for boys. I might mention, it does not talk about same-sex partnering as boy-boy….just girl-girl. Interesting.

You might find the cover story of Dance Spirit interesting as well. It’s about hoofer Dominique Kelley. He has become very successful not just by tapping but by using all his dance skills. Seems he’s a pretty well rounded dancer. At Ballet San Jose School we used to get mixed messages. Dennis Nahat told me in an interview for my book on mentoring boys that a dancer with some additional skills, even the ability to tap, was a more valuable company member. Yet, he and ballet mistress Lise LaCour both said that at some point Julian would have to give up tap and all other forms of dance he was studying and focus on ballet if that was the dance form he wanted to pursue. When I said he wanted to take more jazz this year and asked for time off to do that, LaCour refused. She didn’t think it would make him a stronger ballet dancer. (Well, you should see his muscle tone after three months of modern, contemporary, jazz, tap, and ballet – not to mention Pilates.) Anyway, that’s when we took a hike to TDC. Back to the point: Kelley seems to be living proof that being a jack of all trades gets you work. He’s been around the world as a tapper on tour at the age of 12, been in movies, on Broadway, and so much more…and not just tapping his way from gig to gig either.

So, I won’t be encouraging Julian to focus only on one form of dance any time soon. I do think it’s great to find one area you want to be really great at, and to let the other areas be your “lesser” forms. But, by all means, learn them all and be good at them. It seems to me that that is the way to a busy (which means successful) dance career.

Be Careful What You Ask For…

First, let me comment on the comment from last post concerning competition. This is a hot topic. Competitions have so much going for them, and so much going against them. I want to say one thing: They shouldn’t be about how many rhinestones are on the costume. They should be about technique and performance. Period. Even Julian said that he didn’t understand why you even got judged on your costume. He’s right. I’ve seen some of the best senior performers compete in simple dance clothes that showed of their body and their lines. And that’s what competition should be about. Lines, bodies moving correctly. Technique. Of course, you have to be a good performer. If you get up on stage and fall to pieces, no one will notice your excellent technique. The two go together. But who cares about the costume. And those booty shaking numbers and skimpy, lingerie outfits on 6 year olds…give me a break. That’s not dancing. And, as far as I’m concerned, it’s far from technique.

Okay, onto today’s real message: At Julian’s performance review we asked that he get to work on the “boy stuff.” Well, be careful what you ask for; you just might get it. He’s been working not only on Thursday’s with Mark Foehringer in the advanced ballet class ( just Julian and Mark while the girls get on their pointe shoes and then with the girls while they are doing pointe class) but also on Tuesdays in the advanced ballet class on jumps and tours and that sort of thing. On those nights, Julian comes home exhausted and the next day he can hardly walk when he gets out of bed! He’s working so hard.

Yesterday, Mark showed him some videos of a guy doing some really hard moves during a ballet (Swan Lake maybe) and told him that this was something he’d seen Ramon Moreno, principle dancer at Ballet San Jose (who Julian has danced with and taken lessons from) perform. Then he asked Julian to do it. All the while as Julian jumped, Marke yelled, “Higher! Higher!”

Julian smiled as he told me all of this. He isn’t unhappy that he has gotten what he asked for.  And I guess Mark isn’t unhappy with Julian’s performance to date either. Or at least that’s Julian’s assessment of the lessons.

Unfortunately, between hip hop choreographers coming in, Thanksgiving break, and a tech week for Nutcracker, he won’t be doing the “guy stuff” with Mark (at least not on Thursdays) for almost a month. I guess his body gets a rest.

Is Competition Good for Technique?

I’d like to write a short post based on a comment by Nichelle Strzepek at http://danceadvantage.net.   She read my last post on making boys dance slowly to learn the basics, and said the following:

“I have found it particularly difficult to impress the importance of learning to do things correctly with competitive dancers (again, my experience in this realm has been at recreational schools that compete). It seems for these students the eye is too often on the prize and not the work it takes to get there. I also think we live in an instant gratification culture and it becomes increasingly challenging to get kids to see the value in working slowly and methodically.”

In my experience, focus on competitions can, indeed, take away from technique. We saw that happen to Julian. Plus, for the last few years, Julian’s teachers have encouraged him not to compete. They said that the time spent learning dance routines took away from time spent perfecting technique. (Not to mention that the judging at competitions is not always so great, but that’s another whole subject.)

When Julian danced at Dance Attack Los Gatos, one year they would have a recital and the next year they would call their “technique year” and not have a recital. This allowed teachers to focus on technique all your long rather than stopping mid year to teach choreography and focus on all the stuff that goes into putting on a show. I thought this made a lot of sense, and Julian learned a lot more during those technique years.

I think he learned a lot about performing while he was on the Dance Attack Los Gatos performing/competition team, but after the second year we actually thought his technique had gone down hill. That’s when we pulled him out and enrolled him at Ballet San Jose School.

So, for whatever it’s worth, here’s my two cents worth: I think competitions have their place, especially for boys, who tend to really like competition. They also help kids learn how to perform. That said, I do think they can take away from technique, even though to win at a competion you really should have to have good technique in your performance. I think the focus gets put on the performance over the technique, though.

Now, in a perfect world. your son’s (or mine’s) performance or competiton routine  should require him — or rather his teacher should require him — to have perfect technique before he gets up on that stage before the judges.

Getting Boys to Dance Slowly When They Want to Dance Fast

Julian has been working really hard in all his dance classes, and this week he began taking the pointe class on Thursdays, although he is not doing pointe but rather “boy stuff.” I watched his jazz class on Wednesday night at Studio 10, and I was amazed at the progress he is making there. And Julian informed me that he feels great in all his classes at TDC.

However, I heard Keith Banks telling him to find a middle road between not trying hard enough and trying too hard, and Mark Foehringer told Julian that he is being kept in that “lower” modern class and the one “lower” ballet class so he can be slowed down (different from “held down or held back”). The reason for this is simple: His teachers want to be sure he gets the fundamentals, the basics, and doesn’t get hurt.

We are not something new. At Ballet San Jose School, Julian pushed to be moved up in levels, but Lise Lacour held him back telling us he still needed to get some technique down and build muscle. When he tapped with Anthony LoCascio, Anthony kept him in the lower tap class even though Julian was perfectly capable of tapping with the more advanced class. Why? Because Anthony wanted him to tap “clean.” He wanted to be sure Julian learned the basics and got the fundamental technique correctly before he moved on.

Here’s the issue at its core: Julian, like most boys, likes to move fast. He gets the step and wants to move one. He doesn’t want to perfect it. He wants to go on to the next movement. In dance, just like in other things in life, it’s important to do things well. And that’s the lesson here. In dance, you have to move slowly and make each movement perfectly before you can go on to the next one. (That’s why ballet dancers spend so much time at the barre doing the same movements over and over again, isn’t it? Practice makes perfect.) Or, maybe more correctly said, you can go on to the next one, but you have to keep going back to the first one and repeating it until you get it right each time. Then, you can move on…or up, as it may be.

Boys like to move fast. Julian walked at 9 months. He was trying to stand from the time he was tiny, hanging onto my fingers and pushing on his little legs until he was upright. Movement is his way of being in the world. It’s hard to slow him down, but slow him down his teachers must, even if he doesn’t like it. And that’s the lesson he’s learning.

Surprisingly, he has decided it’s an okay lesson, and, as I said, he’s working hard and moving forward by leaps and bounds in spite of – or maybe because of – his teachers and his determination to improve. He sees this as moving up, but the words are just different. All that matters is that he’s getting where he wants to go…fast or slow….he’s getting there.

Dance Evaluations and Lessons Learned

It’s amazing how far a little bit of communication goes to soothe concerns, ease bad feelings and boost your sense of well being. As you might have guessed, Julian’s evaluation at Teen Dance Company went quite well and helped not only him feel better about what he’s doing there and how his teachers are dealing with and viewing him, but it made his dad and I feel a lot better as well.

 

No, we didn’t storm in and ask that he be treated like a prince, and they didn’t offer to treat him like one either, but it turned out okay all the same. And they gave us 30 minutes rather than 15 minutes, as scheduled.

 

As I’ve said previously, we’d been feeling like he wasn’t “appreciated,” but, in fact, it turns out he is. (We should have known.) And, it seems, he’s cared for as well. We were shown by Mark Foehringer the exact issues he’s working on with Julian and why. We were given more information on why the modern teacher, Brian Fisher, doesn’t yet want to move Julian up to the higher class, and it’s not just that Julian doesn’t know enough modern technique either. (After all, he’s only been studying modern for two months.) He’s actually concerned Julian might get hurt if he puts him in the higher class. (I suppose the fact that he goes 110 percent when put with the “better” kids and doesn’t actually know what he’s doing 110 percent of the time could lead to injury.)  Everyone wants to be sure Julian is doing things correctly and not moving forward with bad habits that later will be hard to break or that will cause him to get injured. (This speaks to the subject of moving slowly rather than quickly, something boys don’t like to do, which I will address in my next blog post.)

 

No one was jumping up and down and telling us how excited they were to have Julian in their company, but I suppose they can’t do that. They have to treat everyone equally. (Okay, I’m trying to be nice and play devil’s advocate to some extent here. I still want them jumping up and down, because I have, after all, brought them a boy, not to mention a boy with a fair amount of talent.) They did seem to indicate that they were pretty happy to have him with smiles and nods but no outright words when I said something that gave them a chance to actually do so. I’ll take that.  

 

As for the actual evaluation, they told us Julian is doing well overall. And all the teachers enjoy having him in their classes. (And why shouldn’t they? He’s a pretty pleasant chap most of the time, unless you’re his mother hassling him about his bad grades. Then he becomes something quite the opposite.) And many of the issues they saw with his dance, such as tight hips, lack of flexibility and problems with control of his back, they mostly attributed to the huge amount of growing he seems to be doing. (I think he’s grown about six inches in the last four months.)

 

The really great part was that Mark was able to give Julian specific things to work on and accomplish so he can move up to the next levels in ballet. One, interestingly, had to do with musicality: actually doing his barr work with the music in mind. For example, not popping out of a plié but actually coming out of it with the music.  Also, Darlene Castro-Easterling, who serves as the Pilates and tap instructor, said she will give Julian special stretching and strengthening exercises. Mark also will give Julian special stretching exercises.

 

Additionally, and this may be the best part of the whole meeting, when I brought up the fact that Julian is not getting to practice the “guy” ballet moves he already knows, nor is he learning any new ones, Mark jumped on this and solved the problem. While the girls are putting on their point shoes on Thursday nights, Julian will get 10 or 15 minutes alone with Mark to work on the “boy stuff.” Then, instead of being in the other “lower” ballet class that night, he will stay and do ballet with these girls, who are the really serious ballet students in the company, and Mark will carve out time for Julian to continue working on things that boys need to learn, such as partnering. Yahoo!  How the class will be structured for him is a bit up in the air, since all these girls are on pointe, but I’m sure it will be fine.

 

So, we left with Julian feeling pretty good about things in general. He even said that after hearing Mark explain to him in more detail some of the thing he needs to correct in ballet, he understands better and feels more inclined to go to him after class and ask for that type of explanation again. That’s a great lesson in and of itself: knowing that a bit of one-on-one time with a teacher so you can get an explanation about a correction can help you correct it more quickly.

 

And mom and dad felt better, too. We felt that the teachers at TDC are looking out for our son, not just now but in terms of helping him develop as a dancer for the long haul, and that they enjoy and appreciate him. And they were responsive to his needs. We were told to trust them…I guess a bit of trust is a good thing, too.

 

All is well here…for now. 

 

(Note: During the month of November I write and manage a blog called Write Nonfiction in November – http://writenonfictioninnovember.wordpress.com. It’s both a blog and a challenge to nonfiction writers, myself included, to start and finish a nonfiction writing project in 30 days. As you can imagine, between working on my own project and blogging – although I do have guest bloggers this year – this endeavor takes up a lot of my time. And I do also work as a freelance journalist and nonfiction book editor during November…life and work and driving kids to and from dance and swimming go on.  So, if my posts in this blog get a bit less frequent this month, please understand and be patient. Don’t go away and not come back! I’ll be writing more often again in December. And if you come here and don’t find anything new to read, you can always find me at http://writenonfictioninnovember.wordpress.com or at http://purespiritcreations.com/wordpress, although that blog also will be taking a back seat to Write Nonfiction in November for the next 30 days.)