Life in the Dance Lane

In case you were wondering, I haven’t abandoned this blog. I’ve been a bit busy…first with the Jewish High Holy Days and then with my second ACL surgery in 14 years. Yes…that fall down the stairs in New York ended me up under the orthopedic surgeon’s knife on September 29th (after a preliminary visit to Julian’s sports specialist and an MRI). I’ve been slowly recovering…more slowly than most ACL surgery patients since I had to have both the previous screws that were placed into my knee before (and the previous graft) removed before they could put in the new ones.

Anyway, life goes on in the “dance lane.” I’ve been home nursing myself back to health. I took a week off and then began doing a bit of work here and there. Then this week a big storm his Northern CA, our first of the season (a bit early), and that knocked our power out for three days. Oops. Time off for me…nice especially since I was coming down with whatever virus or flu my daughter was spreading around with her cough.

As for Julian, he’s, of course, dancing up a storm. Things are going well at TDC. He’s working really hard–still drawing on that NYC energy. He’s in all the pieces of choreography this year so far, although one choreographer probably won’t use him since he has to miss one of her sessions for a Nutcracker performance. Nutcracker is going really well. He’s very excited that he chose to once again do the San Jose Dance Theater production, since as the prince he is getting to do some great partnering. This is something really missing in his normal year-r0und training. He is also getting a few solos with some “guy” stuff thrown in. Additionally, quite a number of Sunday rehearsals are attended by Maximo Califano from Ballet San Jose, which means Julian gets somewhat of a private lesson with a male ballet dancer. He’s worked on an awesome lift last weekend, but Maximo wasn’t there to help; Julian hopes he’ll be there this weekend. Choreographer Marcie Ryken saw the lift in a Ballet San Jose production recently.

Julian is really enjoying the choreography track at TDC this year. It’s the first time he’s tried choreographing for others…or for himself really. I think the girls are really working hard doing very physical choreography–things Julian would choose to do himself. So far, however, his teachers have been happy with the progress he’s made and with the piece itself. I’ll write more about the process another time.

Other than that, Julian is doing better in school. He started out with a bang and recently lost his focus. I think a bit of being grounded has helped him regain that! He has a girlfriend now, and he has become somewhat “popular,” even hanging out with some popular jocks at the school. So, he feels he has turned a corner when it comes to his social life. However, he was sad to discover that his little group (just two girls really) ditched him at the beginning of the year. I think that propelled him into some other groups, though, and even some kids who really disliked him before are beginning to like him.

I chalk all of this up to this past summer in NYC and at American Ballet Theatre (and at Broadway Dance  Center). I think the level of confidence he developed and the degree of determination with which he returned made a huge difference in how he saw himself and how others saw him. When he was clear (or clearer) about who he was and where he was going, I think his energy changed and people started treating him differently. Not that he didn’t know this before, but his commitment was different. And they felt that.

So, all in all…things are going well in the dance lane, I’d say. I promise I’ll try to get another guest blog post up soon. I still have to transcribe my interview with Denise Wall…but I will, I promise!

New School Year, New Dance Year, New Attitude

Julian began school on Monday. This year he’s a sophomore. He seems to have a new attitude (Thank God!) about school, schoolwork and grades. In fact, one of his best friends and a fellow dancer told me yesterday that Julian is “a different person.” It seems he was angry at her for talking on the phone rather than doing homework. Last year, I guess he didn’t have a problem with that (which would explain his terrible grades). While she spoke on the phone, he put in his Ipod earphones so he couldn’t hear her her and worked. Yahoo!

Maybe the trip to New York University, which is where he says he wants to go to college (if he isn’t recruited by Rasta Thomas first — his dream job at the moment) actually did the trick. I kind of hoped that if he got excited about a program and saw what it was going to take to get into a good school he’d get his act together. I do have to say, however, that his sister did have terrible grades as a freshman as well and then did really well after that. They both probably should have been held back before starting school since they were summer babies, but…too late now. Anyway, I hope Julian’s new attitude continues.

He appears to have a new attitude and work ethic at dance as well–left over from American Ballet Theatre and Broadway Dance Center. Dance at Teen Dance Company, however, doesn’t officially start until after Labor Day. That said, Julian has been dancing just about every day. He had choreography sessions most of last week and last weekend. He has also attended all the ballet and contemporary drop in classes offered at TDC. Additionally, he went to a ballet class at Los Gatos Ballet yesterday and tonight he is back at Studio 10 for jazz.  He’s trying to stay in shape, plus he simply wants to dance.

We received an evaluation form from ABT, much to our surprise. Julian got mostly “very good” and “good” grades. (The only thing better would be an “excellent.”) He was impressed with the fact that they thought his adagio was “very good.” I thought it was funny that all his “excellent” marks were in the areas of “presentation” and “class etiquette and presentation.” Well, he does like to look good, but you can’t say, “It’s better to look good than to dance well,” when it comes to ballet. (That was supposed to be a play on, “It’s better to look good than to feel good.” If you have to explain the pun, I guess it doesn’t really work.) These areas included dress, grooming, attitude, motivation, effort, progress, attendance, and dress code.  Actually, I’m proud he scored so well in these areas, and overall, he didn’t get one “satisfactory” or “needs improvement,” so I was a proud dancer’s mom. And Julian felt pretty good about himself as well. I think he was particularly happy that in the comment’s box it said, “Good partnering skills, and that is important for a boy.” (He felt that was the most important thing he learned this summer.

So, now to put everything he learned to use this year — including that new work ethic and attitude — both in school and in the studio. I hope he manages to be successful in both places. That would avoid so many fights and issues. And it would make him feel great.

In the meantime, we are grappling (already and it isn’t even September) with which Nutcracker to do. I think I already mentioned that. We still haven’t decided. The professional one seems enticing, but with no choreography set and a “child” role, there’s no telling what Julian will be doing. Plus, it requires all that driving to San Francisco and giving up social time on Fridays (no football games and dances for Julian — and no Shabbat services for me). The other production, which Julian was in last year, offers him the chance to be the Nutcracker prince. The choreographer said she’ll give him solos and lots of dancing and partnering work…but that will all have to be set on him as well. It’s not been done that way before. Yet, it’s local and she works around his schedule. (No Friday rehearsals…whoo hoo!) It could be a mute point, though, if any of the tech rehearsal dates conflict with TDC 2nd Stage tech rehearsals in December. So…it’s all up in the air.

With that said, I’ll leave you all to ponder for me the pros and cons and possibilities. I have to go off and search out more photos of Julian dancing. We wrote dueling columns for an upcoming issue of Movmnt magazine (the issue is focused on the topic of  ”family”), and they needed photos of him dancing. I didn’t really have any good ones. (Bad mom, I know.) So, I’ve had to search some out. While extremely time consuming, I must say I came up with quite a few from both TDC’s 2nd Stage and Concert performances last year, Los Gatos Ballet’s Copellia production, and even ABT’s final summer intensive performance. (Now I also have to buy some!)

Hopefully, next week I’ll have time to post what will probably be just the first in a series of blogs based on my conversation with Denise Wall, mother of choreographer Travis Wall and dancer Danny Tidwell.  (That’s if I can get away from the photo search and column writing for Movmnt, and other miscellaneous projects, to get caught up on my editing work.)

Interview with Duncan Cooper (Part 3): Develop the Ability to Move with Emotion and Be Inspired by Dance

Amidst the hustle and bustle of tecnical rehearsals for Los Gatos Ballet’s Copellia and last-week-before-techical-rehearsals for Teen Dance Company’s 10th Anniversary Spring Concert, not to mention my daugther’s regional synchronized swimming meet in Sacramento this weekend (and my work), I’ve finally managed to finish transcribing the tape of my interview with Duncan Cooper. As promised, here’s part 3 . If you don’t remember who Duncan is, please go back to this post to read the brief bio I offered in part 1.

Continuing my conversation with Duncan from where I left off in part 2, I asked him to tell me how boys can learn to put emotion into their movement. While a good teacher helps, of course, beyond that there are some things boys can do to help them find their emotional center, if you will.

Learning to Move with Emotion

First, Duncan went back to the idea of studying the greats, but he stressed actually watching them dance. He related this to watching a superb basketball player play the game. “You can’t really understand what it is to play at that level until you actually play at that level,” he said. “No matter how much you play or learn the technique, it’s a completely different thing when you watch Lebron James or Michael Jordan or Julius Irving. They elevate the game beyond a sport into an art.” Duncan explained that young boys aren’t going to understand that until they watch Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov,  Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, or Gregory Hines.

Stirring the Desire for Greatness

I’ve often wondered how you help a child—boy or girl—develop a desire for greatness.  “You can’t expect someone to naturally be great until it is stirred within them,” Duncan explained. “A pas de deux is a pas de deux until you see two professional dancers really do it to another level. A convention is just a convention until you go to a convention where you are completely surrounded by dancers at a completely different tier and teachers that are really giving.” That’s when something stirs inside a young dancer and they also go to the next level, they rise to the occasion or they rise to the tier of those around them. Or they simply feel motivated to dance like the greats who came before them.

“That’s why watching the greats that have gone before him is important. That’s why it’s good at conventions to see a young guy dancer doing 10 turns. Then you say, “Wow. It can be done.”  It motivates you to try to do it,” says Duncan.

I mentioned that we had sent Julian into the studio to do some dancing and choreography on his own in an attempt to help him “find himself” and that emotional center in his dance. Duncan commented, “It’s good to go do choreography himself, but it’s also good to get information to inspire himself. Have him find books on great male dancers. Or go on line and search on YouTube for great male dancers. Have him watch Danny Tidwell or Rasta Thomas, the young great dancers coming up there. He should see how they are doing it. And he should watch the older dancers.  When you see that as a young dancer, it changes you.”

The Need for a Good Teacher and Getting Past the Music

None of this replaces the need for a good teacher who can impart the knowledge of how to dance with emotion, but Duncan said that happens in the studio with the teacher rather than here in a blog. “You have to find a teacher who is really able to move the student and inspire them to do the things they need to do. It’s the difference between an okay teacher teaching a jazz class and a really great teacher teaching the class. The great teacher can  impart the information to the class correctly. That’s the worth of a great teacher or a great coach or a great choreographer.”

While connecting to the music also helps a young man learn to dance with emotion and to be inspired by his dancing, Duncan says boys have to get beyond the music and understand the phrasing and just “be” with the piece of music. You have to find the inspiration and emotion no matter what the music.

In the end, he said, “What you do inside the studio is just as important as what you do outside the studio.” All of this comes together to create a dancer and dance that become less about dance and more about art.

Next time: One last post with information from Duncan Cooper! This time Duncan discusses dance strengths and weaknesses, psychological issues, making choreography your own, and his personal view on the difficulty of being a male dancer.

Strong Sense of Self Helps Boys Dance Well

Julian and I had a conversation yesterday about the post I had just written about developmental stages and how they affect dancers.  (He was adamant that I should be writing about him, by the way…) I told him about the girls and boys I most watched at the convention and how I thought their dancing differed from his.  And he made a comment that totally validated what I had been thinking…and writing about.

I said that the girls danced with a lot of confidence.  There was no hesitation in their movements, and their whole body seemed full of energy and attitude. His upper body, however, didn’t have that same look or feel. And he said, “Those girls have an attitude that is like, ‘I know who I am.’ Or ‘This is who I am.’” 

Julian admits that he doesn’t yet have that attitude. In fact, the place that his dancing is weakest is where he carries his lack of confidence: in his arms, his shoulders, and his chest. Not surprisingly, this is the part of the body where many people tend to curve in, slouch, hunch, or in some way fold to protect themselves. It’s also the part of the body that we can “make small” so we won’t be seen, noticed or judged.

So, while a boy like Julian might want to be seen, noticed and acknowledge in the world of dance, his insecurities in other places — like in school (where he has never been totally accepted, has been called “gay,” has been seen as “different,” hasn’t fit in, hasn’t had girls like him, etc.) — have created a pattern in his body of hiding and protecting himself. It seems to me that until he can feel secure about himself — like his female counterparts at TDC, he won’t really shine on the dance floor in the way he would like.

I might note that his lower body is much stronger…

I thought it was interesting that he could see this as well. I have to admit that he didn’t really like hearing it right after the convention. My niece pointed out that he would have heard my words better the day after the convention, so I advise other moms not to be as quick as I was to jump in there to try and offer an opinion. He was much more willing to admit to it and talk about it a few days later.

Again, he is planning to go into the studio alone and find some confidence…find himself. I hope he does.

Conventions and Sore Ankles

This past weekend Julian and the rest of the Teen Dance Company dancers went to the Nuvo dance convention. Julian had a blast hanging with his buddies from TDC and seeing some old friends from other studios. He also saw some friends from school or from the Nutcracker performance he was in last December.  Additionally, he got to observe and talk with two other male dancer he has met previously

The TDC dancers had recently had an hour-long class involving instruction on how to work with choreographers. The gist of the class, according to what Julian told me, was to “copy” the movements and not to change the movements to make them “your own” unless told to do so by the instructor. Julian noticed another male dancer doing what he deemed “just the opposite” — in his eyes — and making it his own to a great extent. And this boy was rewarded by being put on stage. He was upset. And maybe Julianwas just jealous…who’s to know. Or maybe he was just confused given that he was told to do something, which received no recognition, while someone else did the opposite and did receive recognition.

Anyway, the kids had a blast at the convention, and they were given the opportunity to compete simply for the sake of “performing” and giving the company a bit of publicity. That turned out quite well, as they came in first and got high honors in every category in which they competed. Of course, the kids were thrilled. (Who doesn’t like to be a winner, even if it’s not supposed to be about competing and winning.)

However, in one of the numbers Julian was set down a bit harder then usual after a lift and turned his ankle a bit. Between that and his two tap numbers, he has a sore ankle ankle and foot today, so he stayed home from dance to rest it. He has rehearsals gearing up at the end of the week for their spring concert; he wants to be in tip top shape for that.

He got to take class with Travis Wall, an idol of his from So You Think You Can Dance. He loved his choreography and has wanted to dance like him since he saw him on television.

It’s been a year since Julian attended a convention. He has two more to go…