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.)

I’ve Got A Male Dancer, So Treat Him Like A Prince

My husband and I were discussing my son’s treatment at his current dance studio. It’s been a constant source of conversation since September, and with student evalutations coming up this weekend, it’s a hot topic. I cautioned him not to sound like one of those parents who think their son should get special treatment just because he is a boy. Or, even worse, not to be one of the parents who insists his son be treated like a prince – and like someone with extraordinary talent – just because he is a boy or because he is, indeed, talented.

It’s a fine line with boys. Young male dancers are few and far between, and it’s true that studios should be jumping up and down and bending over backwards to get them in the door and to keep them there. On the other hand, I’m not so sure that accomplishing that means treating them differently, at least not as if they are “special.” Yes, give them boys’ classes and teach them boy things, but don’t say they are special and give them special treatment.

Now, my husband’s attitude is this: Our son has some talent. When, for instance, the Billy Elliot people were rounding up local boys to audition in San Francisco and called some local studios, whose name were they given? My son’s name. When we went to regional competitions, out of the boys competiting in my son’s age group, who always won a good number of the awards? My son. In other words, my husband says, Julian probably is one of the better young male dancers in the Bay Area. Not the best by far (we’ve seen some pretty good ones out there). But one of the better dancers. So, any studio should be happy to have him and should be treating him specially.

Or, at the very least, they should be working hard to keep him happy and to develop his talent. What my husband sees is that Julian is treated “just like everyone else,” and he doesn’t like that. 

Ah…and why shouldn’t Julian be treated just like everyone else – boys and girls?

Now, I’m playing devil’s advocate here, because as his mom I surely don’t want him treated like everyone else. I want him treated specially. I want someone to see his talent. I want someone to single him out and give him extra attention and help him draw out that talent and become succcessful. Yet, I can see from a dance studio owner’s perspective that you have to treat everyone equally. (Plus, you wouldn’t want to give these boys big heads!)

That said, I’m going to go back to my interview with Denise Wall of Denise Wall’s Dance Energy, which was published in the October issue of Dance Teacher magazine. She does something really unique. She spends time with each and every student getting to know them. She figures out how they think. She understands them. And she teaches them from that place of having a real relationship with them. So, when a student doesn’t know how to get her leg to move in a certain way, she creates imagery unique to that student to her accomplish the task at hand. If the student needs to put more feeling into the dance, she helps him draw on the issues in his individual life to find the emotion.

Not every teacher at every studio has the time to do that. Denise’s studio isn’t large, but it isn’t tiny either. The studio where Julian dances is actually a “company.” It isn’t open to the public for classes; only the kids who audition for the company and make it take classes there all year long. This year the company only has 22 kids. So, here’s my argument: The teachers should take the time to get to know those 22 kids inside and out. That should be part of the program. Then each and every one of them could be treated as “special.”

And when it comes to the boys – there are just two, their needs and interests and talents should be addressed in a special manner. Sorry. It’s true. That’s how I feel. These boys are in some way special by the sheer fact that they have chosen to be dancers. Someone needs to nurture them along and help them achieve their goals. Someone has to see them as special and treat them as such. They need that if they are to get past the tough early years as a male dancer. That’s not to say they don’t need to be toughened up to the rough, real dance world. But there is time enough for that.

Now, as a parent, I would hope that I don’t have to storm into the studio and demand special treatment for my kid, and I guess that’s not really what I’m asking for. I’m not saying, “I’ve got a male dancer, so treat him like a prince.” (I’m not even sure that’s what my husband is saying.) I think what I’m saying is this: “I’ve got a male dancer, so see him as the really unique and special person he is. Recognize his talent, if he has any, and make him a prince. He’s got a desire to be great, now help him learn how to be great. And show me how you are going to do that. Prove to me that you are doing that.”

And if they can’t do that – or won’t, then I guess it’s time to look for another studio or other teachers who will appreciate the male dancer I’ve got. Otherwise, my only choice is to jump up and down and demand it, and I still might not get what I want or what my son deserves.

You know, my son may not always behave like a prince, but when he’s on that stage dancing, he often looks like a prince to me and to his father. All we ask is that the people who work with him every day in the dance studio see him through our eyes…as someone with the potential to be a prince in the dance world…and help him acquire that crown.

Patience: A Virtue Lost on Boys Who Dance

Julian has never been one to wait for anything. Like most boys – or maybe kids in general – patience represents a virtue lost on him. He rushes headlong through his dance education every chance he gets.  He is impatient. He wants to move up, move forward.  Luckily, his teachers tend to slow him down.

His old tap teacher, Anthony LoCascio (of Tap Dogs fame), kept him in a slower-paced class even though he was able to move up to the harder class so he would get the technique correct first. The same was true in ballet, whenLise LaCour wouldn’t let Julian move up to level 4 as quickly as he wanted at Ballet San Jose School even though he even asked her specifically to move him up.  She wanted him to develop his muscles and improve his technique. Now he’s being held back at Teen Dance Company as well. He can do the higher level dance classes – and he’s even more challenged by them, but they want him to get the basics in the disciplines he hasn’t yet learned (modern and contemporary.

This leads me to some information I was given by Denise Wall of Denise Wall’s Dance Energy in Virginia Beach, VA, and mother to some great dancing boys – Travis Wall and Danny Tidwell of So You Think You Can Dancefame. First of all, she doesn’t let anyone move up to a higher level class in her studio unless they are ready. Not only that, she sends her ballet students down to lower levels. She says once they begin to understand how to use their muscles correctly, they can practice this in the lower level classes, relearn the technique and become better dancers. They understand the moves better, you see… This allows them to perform them with a new consciousness and to enhance their ability, making them stronger and cleaner dancers.

Basically, she says that younger dancers simply don’t understand how to use their muscles correctly. (I argue that most dancers never learn how to use their muscles correctly. They actually don’t know how to use their muscles specifically in the way Wall teaches. She agrees, saying, “If you don’t get it eventually, for you to become a professional is going to be hard, because you aren’t going to be controlled. You have to make it look like it is easy.”)  For this reason, she says, “Everyone has to go back to the basics, even your advanced students.” When they do this, they learn to control those muscles, and to activate the correct muscles at the correct time. “Then people will say, ‘That looks so easy for them,’” says Wall.

The key here, moms, lies in finding a teacher that knows how to teach your dancin’ boy how to use his muscles correctly. (I can’t say I’ve found one, but I’m gonna keep looking and possible take Julian to see Denise Wall one day.) The teacher needs to do the following, according to Wall: “Teach every muscle students are supposed to engage for everything they do. And make sure they know what muscle they are supposed to start with. Like with a releve…people just lift their heels up, and that’s not it at all. If you are just lifting your heels up, you are doing so much damage to your Achilles, because all your weight is going back into your heel.”

So, ask your son if he thinks about what muscle to engage when he does a releve. Ask him if he even thinks about it? If not, it’s time to get back to basics!

And keep this in mind when he wants to move up to the higher level class faster than maybe he should. (Yes, Julian…that means you.) This reminds me of the caution we’ve probably all heard when we’ve taken our children to a pool. “Walk, don’t run!”  Sometimes moving slowly simply provides the faster way of arriving at your desired destination – at least when it comes to becoming a professional dancer. Patience can be, if not a virtue, at least something worth developing when it comes to being a male dancer.

Flower Buds and Turn Out – For Boys Who Dance, Too

The editor at Dance Teacher magazine cut lots of information from my article on Denise Wall for lots of reasons – mostly because of space, especially after she asked for more information on Danny Tidwell – and I had to cut an immense amount of information simply to meet her word-count requirements. However, I wanted today to include one little bit of imagery from Denise that does not appear in my article, which is the featured article on this month’s (October) issue of Dance Teacher magazine.

Denise herself told me about this bit of imagery, as did two of her students…but the editors felt it was a bit “suggestive.” Well, maybe for girls, but I didn’t see it until she said it to me. As for boys, which is who we’re talking about, I think we can let that particular sexual reference go. Or I hope we can.

Anyway…Denise’s biggest “secret” to teaching dancers comes down to imagery. She finds imagery that works for each individual dancer to help them complete whatever dance move they are having difficulty completing. In this case, to help all her dancers improve their turn out in ballet class, she offered a visualization about a flower bud opening. Here’s how she told me about it:

“There’s this new thing I made up, and this is crazy! I tell them to imagine what a flower bud looks like opening up. I come behind them and put my hands between their legs and say, ‘Back here I have your flower bud.’ I push my hands through and open my hands to give them more turn out and say, ‘Imagine the flower bud opening.’ Then later during the class, they’ll be standing there, and I’ll just point to their legs and say, ‘Open up your flower,’ and they will turn out more. And they all freak out, because they weren’t trying  to turn out more. But the imagery makes them turn out more.”

One of Denise’s students actually said that now during ballet class Denise only needs to say, “Flower!” and everyone’s turn out miraculously improves.

I share this not to prove the editors at Dance Teacher wrong (and maybe you’ll think they were right to exclude this visualization. I could see their point after they made if – if not before) but for this reason: If your  son is having trouble with some aspect of dance, maybe you or someone else – his teacher  can employ Denise’s imagery secret. Come up with an image that works for him.

I tried one of the others in my article with Julian (the one about the Achilles tendon and pointing the foot), and it didnt’ work for him. However, in tap, we talked to him about pretending he was playing soccer and  getting over his knees like in soccer when he dribbles or juggles the ball, and that helped him.

It seems this is a very personal art, and Denise has it down. She is so good at it because she really knows her students. That doesn’t mean someone else can’t learn this art, and who knows these young male dancers better than their mothers? Anyway, give it it try.