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.)

No One Likes to Change, Least of All Boys

If you thought I disappeared into the Internet ethers, you’re wrong. I was tied to my keyboard by another writing project. I was asked last minute and given three days to write a cover piece for Movmnt magazine on magician Criss Angel’s newest collaboration with Cirque du Soleil and choreographer Wade Robson. It’s an amazing show called Believe in Las Vegas. (If anyone wants to donate some tickets to me, I’ll take them. After this I could use a Vegas vacation with my family, and my daughter wants to see the Vegas Cirque water show, too.)  You might have seen a preview of Believe on So You Think You Can Dance last summer. If not, you still can by watching this Youtube video of the number I think is called “Homage.” It’s classic Robson…

And that’s where I’ve been until 2 a.m. two nights in a row leaving only to become a chauffeur to my son. My daughter is busy at school being the personal costume attendant to Cyrano in the school’s production of Cyrano de Bergerac – also responsible for putting his nose on and off – and also head costume designer/attendant. She only needs pick up at 11:30 p.m., and my husband has been doing that after picking up Julian at 8 p.m. or later.

If you don’t know Movmnt magazine, you might want to check it out. It’s the creation of international journalist David Benaym and Danny Tidwell (of SYTYCD fame). It’s full of interesting articles on all sorts of things related to pop culture, including the most up and coming dancers and choreographers. The next time you visit the Movmnt website, you’ll find the cover featuring the Believestory I wrote! And inside, I can tell you (Shhhh! Don’t tell anyone you heard it hear…) you’ll also find a piece on a former Billy Elliot from the musical - if you want to read about a young male dancer/singer who made it.

By the way, the current issue of Dance Spirit has an article on the boys of Billy Elliot. Julian auditioned…made it through to the last audition and was kept for two hours instead of 30 minutes. We were sure he had gotten the part. But he sure doesn’t look like those kids…he’s got peach fuzz on his lip and his voice is changing. We figure that’s why he wasn’t chosen. They did a time line on these kids and figured out when they’d begin to not look like kids. Julian doesn’t look like a kid. Well, that’s our rationalization on him not being selected anyway. (Couldn’t be that he wasn’t good enough – although his singing could have used some help!)

Be sure to click on the link for Dance Spirit; there’s a great video there of Alex Wong dancing to a piece called “Capture of the Tiger.” (I can’t say Julian looks that good yet…but he wants to look that good.)

Which brings me to my point: He’s over his “thing” about not wanting to change how he was taught to do ballet. (See my last post on October 18 and the great comment posted by Nichelle Strzepek. Check out her website and blog at http://danceadvantage.wordpress.com/. She posted one about my blog here.) I guess he just needed to moan and groan and complain and be stuck for a while.

We all do that to some extent. No one really likes to change. And, after all, he worked hard for three years to get his hands to do that thing they do when they move from  one position to another and to get his head to tilt like that. Of course, he’s going to balk at first about being told to change. Boys do tend to be a bit more stubborn than some other kids…at least Julian is more stubborn an ornery than his sister, Ariel, by far.

But we’ve heard it from more than one person that we’ve asked by now that these really are just “stylistic” aspects of ballet. Many schools of ballet exists with different “styles,” and it’s good to learn all of them. In fact, we were told that the style he learned, Bournonville, is one of the hardest and could be called the “Irish dancing of ballet.” We also heard it called “ballet in a box.” That’s nice… He was told, “Now that you know how to do it, put it on a shelf and learn something else. Take it down if you ever need it again.” Lovely. Glad I spent all that money and he spent three years of his time and effort learning that method.

The fact of the matter is, Julian actually does have good ballet technique. Everyone says so. He has a some things to work on, but for a 14-year old, he looks pretty good. And, now that he’s over his fit of loyalty to his past teachers and his stubbornness over not wanting to change, he can move on.

I guess that’s a sign of maturity. It goes with that fuzz on his lips and the deepening voice if not the lousy grades and tears that come so easily still. He’s a boy in an ever-more manly body. Change…it happens to the best of us even when we aren’t looking and when we are. It happens when it’s forced upon us or when we choose it willingly. It just happens.

Talk, Talk, Talk, Dance, Dance, Dance

Despite the fact that Julian hasn’t had much luck over the years with friends, he’s a very social creature. Being a dancer, has made it hard for him to fit in socially, however. Most young male dancers experience this.

For a really social kid like Julian, being accepted anywhere makes him very excited. And when he’s excited, he wants to express himself.  In other words, he wants to talk. In his new dance company, he is not only accepted, the 22 kids are like a little family, chatting and texting and hugging all the time.

They have to tone things down when they get into class or when a choreographer arrives. Well…they try. Yesterday, I guess Julian didn’t try hard enough. Ehud Kraus was telling them from the first minute he entered the studio to be quiet.

Yesterday, Ehud was there to work on his piece of choreography. I thought Ehud  liked Julian quite well. He jokes with him, even asked the last time he came to TDC how come Julian had never shown up in his studio and offered him a card and told him to come take a class some time. They have a Jewish connection; they talk about Jewish holidays and he calls him a “nudnik,” (we thought affectionately…).

Afterwards, Ehud told me, seriously, “You know Julian is a nudnik (someone irritating or a pain in the rear).”

I replied, “I know.” I thought he was joking again. Then I asked, “Is he a nudnik in a bad way?”

“He talks all the time,” he said. “To himself…to others.”

“Should I chastise him?” I asked jokingly.

He said, “You should discipline him.”

Oh, oh…time to get serious. After class I told Julian, “I don’t know what you were doing in there, but it’s time to stop joking around with Ehud and take him seriously and to stop talking when you are in a session with him.”

Well, Julian got upset (I won’t say how upset…) and said, “I’m not talking that much.” Okay…this mom doesn’t believe everything her son tells her. Julian tends to always tell the same story. He’s pretty good at denial. He went on: “Some of the other kids kept asking for help, and my group would go over to help, and then Ehud would look over at us and yell, ‘Julian, stop talking! Be quiet!’”

So, who’s story is correct?  My sensitive little son believes he was wronged. Ehud believes my kid was a disruption.

I know that he can get overly excited…by a teacher who seems friendly and fun…by kids who are accepting and desiring of his attention and help…by simply dancing with other kids.

I also know that his feelings were hurt. (Actually, it’s pretty amazing how our sons, who appear to have such hard shells on the outside, are such softies on the inside. Well, I’ve always known this about Julian, who is as sensitive a kid as they come.) He felt singled out when he wasn’t the only one doing something wrong. Could it be that in this case a boy stands out as a trouble maker? Are the girls seen as the “good” ones and the boys as “bad” ones? Are the girls the well-behaved students who are quiet, proper and subdued and the boys the overly active, rambunctious and loud students — and, therefore, the ones assumed to be causing a problem?

Or could it be that because Julian has a relationship with Ehud…because of the connection he formed with Ehud, he was singled out…expected to behave differently?

Or, dare I say it, could my son – yes, my lovely, well-behaved son – have simply spent more time goofing off and talking during the choreography session than working hard? (It wouldn’t be the first time.) I wouldn’t doubt it for a minute. (Does that make me a bad mom?)

In any case, our discussion escalated into Julian complaining about only being told what he does wrong rather than what he does right when he is at TDC…Ah, you can see where this is going. It wasn’t pretty or pleasant.

Another long drive home with a sniffling, upset kid, and  me wondering why I spend my time driving back and forth to the studio and paying tons of hard-earned money for “this.”