Three Days and Counting Until the End of the ABT Summer Intensive

The American Ballet Theatre summer intensive is winding to a close. The kids are rehearsing their numbers and getting ready to go up to LaGuardia High School, New York’s performing high school — the one the movie “Fame” was based upon — for a run through tomorrow. That’s where their final performance will be held on Friday. Two performances, and then it’s over.

I think Julian will be very sad, but he’s leaving with a really good friend or two and a much stronger and able dance body. In general, he’s become a better dancer.

Julian did get his foot “stuck” yesterday dancing in his jazz shoes for the first time. It hurt his ankle and the bottom of his foot. He tapped in the evening with Michelle Dorrance anyway, and he said it was better today. That’s his first injury since the heel jam…

In the meantime, he had a jazz lesson at Alvin Ailey with Sue Samuels, Jason Samuels Smith’s mother. He enjoyed that and plans to return this coming Saturday as well. He also had a private lesson with Jason later that same day.

OMG! Just the warm up was something to see! As Jason said, he threw everything at Julian. I’ve never seen a warm up like that one, but I suppose that’s the norm for someone as good as Jason. Julian kept up most of the time… And the rest of the hour wasn’t much easier. Jason simply assumed Julian would be able to do what ever he asked, no matter how hard. The final assessment: Julian has the ability to do it but has to work on clarity of sound. “Articulation” was the word Jason used and that Julian was asked to remember. What an opportunity that was! I took some videos, but I have to ask permission to put any of them on line…

Next week — our last — Julian will simply go from studio to studio to dance. He’ll do more than tap and ballet, taking hip hop, jazz, modern, contemporary (whatever he can find) every day. I figure we can afford about two classes a day (maybe three on some days) for the duration of our time here. We’ll not only go to Broadway Dance Center, but to Alvin Ailey, Steps on Broadway, and possibly also to Peridance Center, which is located in the same building as ABT at 890 Broadway. Of course, we are still hoping for that private with Denise Wall as well.

I must say that I’ve spent a lot in the last two weeks on Broadway shows and such. Three extra tickets to Billy Elliot cost a ton (to take my daughter), and Julian doesn’t want me to sell the other two we have. I just hope we see someone different this next time. We saw Kiril Kulish last time. (Anyone have inside info and know who is performing July 29?) We also saw Lion King, which we saw long ago but my daughter wanted to see for the costumes (she wants to be a costume designer), and West Side Story. What’s a trip to NYC for seven weeks, though, without seeing some theater?

Anyway, we are back on a budget. We do have tickets to see Pilobolus dance next week and are hoping to get discounted tickets to Stomp. Maybe we’ll try to see something at the Joyce Soho again, which is cheap, but Broadway is off limits to us at this point, and we are eating $1 pizza slices.

More soon…

ABT Summer Intensive Half Over: Feeling Good and Wishing for More Time

Last week went off without a hitch — yes, even without Mom around to make sure Julian remained healthy. Of course, he was with a mom who makes sure her son goes to bed early and eats well and takes all his vitamins and supplements and such, so I knew Julian was in good hands.

The two boys only ended up going to tap class at Broadway Dance Center one night last week, and Julian loved the class he took. ABT actually had two late start days, which meant they only danced six hours, rather than seven, those days. And, on top of that, they had Friday off for the 4th of July. The boys were going to go to Steps on Broadway for a ballet class that day, but after walking six miles earlier in the day they were too tired! (I would have been, too…)

It seems that the third week of a summer dance intensive really is a turn-around week. The kids who have struggled the first two weeks start feeling better and getting used to the rigour of the schedule. Of  course, many of the kids who are at a ballet intensive like this one are home schooled and dance five or six hours a day already; they don’t find the intensive that much harder than what they already do. Many of the kids who are  in very intensive ballet programs at home also handle the program better than Julian has as well. His program at Teen Dance Company only requires that he dance three or three and a half hours a day four days a week. He usually throws in an extra couple of hours one day a week, and rehearsals add in extra hours on the weekends as well (which means he dances about 18 hours a week — sometimes more), but he isn’t dancing six or seven hours a day during the school year by any stretch of the imagination. That explains why he was so tired and sore the first week, and was still suffering from exhaustion the second week.

The physical therapist taped his foot last week, which helped that issue. She gave him stretches as well. He’ll see her again tomorrow. Thus, his foot is bothering him less. He drank a lot of water and fluids with electrolytes also. All in all, he seems to be doing better at this point.

Julian and I had a nice reunion when I picked him up on Friday…he even hugged me and told me he missed me. We went out for a nice Italian dinner, had Pinkberry yogurt and then came back and watched a two-week-old episode of So You Think You Can Dance on the computer (thanks to my mom, who sent us the recorded DVDs). We still have no television… (Julian bought the third book in the Eragon series yesterday, so I’m happy to say we will be spending some nights reading.)

We had a super Saturday: First, off to Broadway Dance Center, where Julian tapped with his old teacher and former (and current) Tap Dog Anthony LoCascio. Then we rushed off to the Metropolitan Opera House to see ABT perform in Sylvia. Then home and then out for a calzone and off to the West Side Highway to sit in “pens” on the highway itself and watch the fireworks over the Hudson River — along with about 2 million other people. The fireworks were awesome, but sitting there on the hard ground and having something wet get all over our towel and us was not so nice…nor was trying to get back by subway. That said, we had a really nice day and night.

Today, Monday, Julian was happy to get back to dance class at ABT and to see all his friends. He is very aware that the program is half over and time is running short. He wishes it would last longer, especially now that he is feeling good. He and three of the boys and one or two girls are the first in line each day (there about 45 minutes before they are allowed into the building to begin the trek up four flights of stairs — they aren’t allowed to take the elevator).

We are considering going to Michelle Dorrance’s tap class tonight. We hate to do a hard class early in the week, but we feel the pressure of our time here coming to an end. I wrote an article about Michelle and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards and Chloe Arnold for Dance Spirit magazine a while ago; they are all in Jason Samuels Smith’s “Charlie’s Angel’s” show. Jason considers these three female tappers the best out there…better even than some of the men. I’d love to have Julian tap with her and to meet her face to face. I’m trying to set up a private with her as well… She’s not on the road with Stomp anymore but performing right here in NYC — in fact just about five blocks away from where we are staying. So, I think Julian and I will go see the show, even though we’ve seen it before. (I wonder if she can get us good tickets…or get Julian backstage to meet the cast?)

Tomorrow is Julian’s 15th birthday! I got two for one tickets to Hair…yes, Hair. What a birthday present…full frontal nudity, references to drugs, profanity, and implied sexual acts. Ah, well, it’s all about the education, right? If he wants to be on Broadway one day, he’ll have to know that he, too, might have to get up in front of an audience baring it all (meaning sans dance belt). Even Daniel Radcliffe, of Harry Potter fame, bared all in his role in Equus. Plus, we have tickets to see Pilobolus, the Connecticut-based company that is known to perform at least half naked. So…call me a bad mom. Maybe I am. I’m probably not showing him anything he hasn’t seen before — or won’t see behind the scenes at a ballet or other dance production anyway (if not on the stage itself).

And with that, I’ll sign off for now. I have a ton of editing and writing work to do, which is making it possible right now for us to see these show! I need to get us tickets to West Side Story next…the only other big dance production other than Billy Elliot, which we see at the end of the month.

(Oh, Julian texted me last week to say he’d had his best day ever at ABT: great jazz class, super partnering class, and 20 minutes in the studio after class messing around with David Alvarez, aka Tony Award-winning “Billy Elliot” himself! Now the ABT summer intensive girls are texting Julian asking for introductions since he is David’s “friend.”)

More in a few days…

Two weeks down, four to go…

Julian is sad that the weeks are flying by. He’s completed two weeks already and has just four to go. However, they are definitely taking their toll on him. I’d recommend that everyone – girls and boys alike – really get in shape for a summer intensive like the American Ballet Theatre six-weeks in New York. It’s grueling, especially if you don’t normally dance seven hours a day (in humid, hot conditions). It also makes a difference if you don’t normally give 150 percent in your classes but you feel pushed to do so once at the intensive – both by the calibre of teachers and students.

After a day at home sleeping off a night of stomach upset, Julian went back to the intensive only to find himself sick again at the end of the day. He managed to throw up just once and then hobbled through watching the ABT performance of Swan Lake. We did, however, have to take taxis there and back. Once home, he suddenly got hungry and at the rest of the soup I’d made for him and then slept for 10 hours and woke up hungry.

While there we ran into a former Teen Dance Company artistic director, and a current master class teacher, professor at Buffalo State University in New York and choreographer for TDC (who will also be teaching at the upcoming TDC summer intensive), Carlos Jones, and he commented, “This is how you are supposed to feel.” This was after we asked him to come down to Julian’s seat at the Metropolitan Opera House to see Julian, who could not bring himself to move from the spot without feeling sick! (I guess that made us feel a bit better, although we haven’t heard of anyone else feeling this way. Of course, Julian is coming from a very dry climate – California – and Carlos said the humidity would be a tough climate change for him.)

I promised some more accurate information on the levels at ABT. They are from lowest to highest: yellow, red, blue, green, violet, aqua, indigo. Green and below are intermediate and everything from violet and above is advanced. The boys of all levels have men’s history and conditioning classes together. Otherwise, they are separated. So the intermediates, for instance, have partnering and men’s class together.

Julian is actually very satisfied with his level. He wanted to be in green but when he saw how good the boys in green were, he knew he was in the right level. Plus, the boys in green spend a fair amount of time with the boys in blue. In fact, Julian has friends in green, and they all seem to hang out together and help each other and teach each other things. Julian sometimes knows something a fellow green dancer doesn’t know and vice versa, so it works out well.

As for competition, I assume the boys all push to do better than the next, but at least at the intermediate level, the boys are friendly and nice and don’t seem to let competition get in the way of freindship.

Julian really adores his classes at ABT. In particular, he is getting a lot out of the partnering classes. This is the first chance he’s had to really work on ballet partnering. He hasn’t done much “guy stuff” in the men’s class, but he likes the camaraderie of being with all the boys. Technique classes are enjoyable also, and his choreography class, which is a jazz piece set to Elton John music, he says is awesome.

All in all, the classes, while tiring, are improving him already. He says he’s much better after just two weeks in New York.

As for his foot, which is better after one day off this week, the best I can do is to relate what chiropractor George Russell wrote to the physical therapist at ABT:

Julian appears to have a chronic sprain of the left anterior portion of the deltoid ligament of the ankle. It’s tender to the touch and hurts when he lands from jumps. the posterior part and the spring ligament appear fine. He’s pronated and in his barre work I coached him to even the two malleoli and get his weight a little more onto the heel, balanced inside to outside. I gave him a different foot exercise — lifting and spreading the toes, looking at the balanced malleoli and lifted arch in the mirror, and then letting the toes down without losing the alignment. He was doing doming over a tennis ball and resistance band work, which didn’t allow him to pay close attention to form and talar positioning.

Adjusting and icing the foot has helped, as it has in the past. Two days off will help as well. Julian does not plan to dance over the weekend. We had hopes of using the weekends for dance classes, but at least right now, he’s way too tired and needs the weekends to recover.

Tomorrow we go to see Marymount Manhattan and to find out about it’s dance program. We’ll get a tour from a TDC alumni.

Julian will be staying with another dancer and his mom for five days next week while I’m at a conference. I pray he stays healthy while I’m away! I really hate going at this point, but I can’t get out of it now. Hopefully it will all go smoothly. I will instruct him to drink lots of Gatorade and to use the packets of electrolytes that I have purchased at Whole Foods as well as better tasting Emergen-C packets. He’ll get much more sleep at their place, and it’s air conditioned. So, hopefully he’ll be okay. They do go to Broadway Dance Center twice a week to tap, but I told him not to tap if he doesn’t feel up to it. He can just watch. Or he can take part of the class.

Ugh…my nervous, worried mother is setting in. Why did I ever think I could leave him here in the city without being a wreck? If he hadn’t gotten sick this week, I’d probably be fine with it, but now… Okay, positive, creative thinking: It will be just fine. He’ll be just fine. I’ll let you know when I get back in a week.

ABT Summer Intensive Takes Its Toll on My Boy

Okay, well, I guess the New York Times article I read about the boy who went to the American Ballet Theatre summer intensive and suffered from shin splints and such painted a correct picture…or we’ve just hit some bad luck and made some bad choices. Julian is a week and a half into the ABT summer intensive himself and on Monday he slightly injured his left foot and tonight he has an upset stomach.

The slightly injured foot definitely comes from overuse and his tendency to pronate. (Remember, boys, think about this!) The chiropractor here in New York, George Russell, is a former dancer, and after he watched Julian do a few things, like plie, he saw exactly how Julian was straining his foot. Of course, he also has jammed his heel with jumps. I’ve been taught to adjust the heel, and that is helping, as is icing.

As for mistakes…well…First, we went off to a tap class with Jared Grimes at Broadway Dance Center last night knowing that Julian’s foot was not 100 percent. Also, he’d just danced 7 hours. He took a tap class at Broadway Dance Center last week, but it was nowhere near as strenuous. So, we didn’t help the foot, nor did we help Julian’s general state of fatigue.

And he is fatigued, let me tell you. He’s better this week, but last Friday after his first full week was over, he couldn’t lift his arms and he could hardly walk up the subway steps. His shoulders were sore to the touch!

The, second mistake, Julian didn’t drink enough water today. The studios are extremely hot, he says, and after lunch he began to feel nautious. He didn’t tell me this, however, and came home to eat some things he shouldn’t have eaten. And then he ate his salad at dinner but nothing else — which didn’t really help, even though it was healthy. Needless to say, not long afterwards he began throwing up. I hope it is a simple case of heat stroke and he’ll feel better in the morning and won’t have to miss classes.

I guess we won’t be doing any dancing this weekend…I think we’ll take it easy and go see some dance instead.

We didn’t get tickets to the ABT performance last weekend, because it conflicted with a trip to see his grandmother, who lives an hour outside of Manhattan. He failed to get the student tickets for Swan Lake, which opened this week, but I might just buy some.

We did go see In The Heights last Friday. It was awesome if you like hip hop and rap music. The dancing was really tremendous. The best of the dancers, a really classic hip hopper, told Julian it was great he was attending ABT. He said, “I went to Ailey and it changed my life.”

We met one of the young Simba’s from The Lion King while at Broadway Dance Center last week. He was sweet and polite and humble. He thought Julian’s tapping was awesome; he had just finished taking a beginner tap class. We saw Kiril Kulish leaving the theater after a performance, although we haven’t yet seen Billy Elliott. And Julian met David Alvarez at ABT, where he is taking some of the summer intensive classes but not all. Julian refrained from talking to him about Billy Elliott, since everyone else was doing so.

All in all, with the exception of the hurt foot and the upset tummy, it’s been a pretty good almost-two-weeks for Julian. He loves the ABT program. He’s made some friends with the guys both in blue and green levels as well as in yellow. He enjoys all his classes. He loves the partnering class and the boys class. He enjoys the teachers. He’s enormously glad he came, and he’s learned a ton in less than two weeks.

It’s been pretty good for me too (as long as I leave out some some details, like stopped up sinks, no TV reception which prevents us from watching So You Think You Can Dance, and me falling down the stairs to the apartment and twisting my knee and ankle).

Next time: How Julian feels about his level, info on his classes, his relationship with the boys, and what exactly is wrong with his foot!

Strengthen a Boy’s (or a Girl’s) Feet for Summer Dance Intensives

Since I have yet to find an expert to write a post  on how to prepare for a summer intensive like the one Julian will be attending at American Ballet Theatre this summer, I thought I’d share the information I gathered when researching two articles for Dance Teacher magazine on keeping dancers’ feet healthy. Some of you may not actually read that magazine, so you may have missed it.

First, you can access my article on tappers’ feet here and the information on exercises for tappers’ feet here. The doming exercise is pretty much the same one described below, but some different points are made. Julian is using this one every night to build up some extra cushion in his feet. We figure this will help prevent broken bones and, possibly, shin splints. The extra muscle in his feet will give him extra cushion. It surely can’t hurt!

Second, here are all the exercises that were offered to me by the experts I interviewed for the general article I wrote on keeping a dancer’s feet healthy. Julian is doing some, but not all of them. I plan to print this post out, though, and give it to him tonight!

Exercises for Developing Strong, Healthy Feet In and Out of Dance Class

When it comes to helping dance students develop strong, healthy feet in and out of class, the experts suggest a few exercises that provide the most bang for the buck in terms of developing muscles in the foot itself, ankle stability and strength and foot and leg awareness. 

The Flamingo

Once students have learned good abdominal and pelvic alignment, which means good posture, so the nerves that go to the feet are not compromised in any way, Marika Molnar, a physical therapist and president of Westside Dance Physical Therapy in New York, NY, suggest they stand on one leg in parallel. The other leg is raised off the floor and doesn’t touch the body. The foot and ankle ligaments and tendons should be working hard to keep the body over the base of support. The bottom of the foot should share the support among the heel, ball of first and ball of fifth toe so dancers have a tripod beneath them.

Students should try this exercise for 10 seconds at first with about six repetitions and build up to 60 seconds. Once dancers can accomplish it for 30 seconds on one leg, they should switch to the other leg.

“This is a great exercise to increase the awareness of where you are in space,” she explains, adding one caution. “Make sure that the alignment of the leg is healthy without the knee hyper-extending beyond five degrees.”

The next part is more challenging: Have the students close their eyes and repeat the exercise. “Most dancers cannot do it at first, because they use their eyes for centering themselves. Closing their eyes forces them to rely on their intrinsic messengers: the information from the ligaments, tendons, muscles, etc. to the brain,” Molnar says.

The Foot Crunch

To perform a foot crunch, students simply pick up a towel (or a theraband or a pencil) with their toes. “This is a good general exercise to strengthen the muscles of the foot and the muscles that support the arch of the foot,” reports Dr. Chris E. Chung, M.D. a sports medicine specialist at South bay Sport & Preventive Medicine Associates, Inc., in San Jose, CA.  “Building muscles in the foot provides shock absorption. In the long run, increased muscle in the foot helps prevent injury to bone, to muscle and to joint.” Doing 15 crunches on each foot for two repetitions per foot provides a good daily workout.

Foot Doming 

In a similar fashion, Kim Gardner, a former professional ballet dancer who now working as a rehab trained, certified Pilates instructor and the lead dance medicine specialist at South Bay Sports and Preventive Medicine Associates in San Jose, CA, suggests dancers practice “doming” their foot over a tennis ball to strengthen intrinsic arch muscles. This involves simply holding the arch over the ball for five seconds at a time for up to 15 repetitions per day. Dancers should perform this exercise with one foot, and then switch to the other foot. This exercise can be done without a ball as well.

Pushing Sand

Another good exercise, especially for pre-point students, involves strengthening the arch of the foot and the muscles along both side of ankle and calf to create ankle stability. Gardner explains that these muscles “attach under the foot like stirrups, but you don’t want one pulling up tighter than another. The inner stirrup muscles help avoid pronation while the outer stirrup muscles help avoid supination.”

Doming over the tennis ball helps strengthen the stirrup muscles to some extent, but imagining standing in wet sand scooping the sand to one side or the other with the sole of the foot does a better job. While sitting, students should be instructed to move the inside of foot toward midline and to imagine they are scooping sand towards the center or their body and then pushing it away from their center and towards the outside or their body. “This can be done with a Theraband as well,” says Gardner. 

Finally Found: Ballet Tights that Fit a Teenage Boy!

As a short breather to the Duncan Cooper series (and since I don’t have time right now to post another piece to that interview), I’d like to share that Julian has finally found some ballet tights that fit and that he loves. He says he can’t even tell he’s wearing them! So, I want to share the brand: MStevens Inc. of Los Angeles, CA, in case any other boys his age – 14 – have had trouble finding tights that fit. (He happens to have purchased the footed tights, Style 1099.)

This comes after a very long search for tights. In fact, he’s been wearing the same pair day in and day out. He has a second pair, but he doesn’t like them and won’t wear them. (One more purchase that was a waste of money.) We have found that Discount Dance Supply carries MStevens on line, and we are going to order two more pair. (This week they have some special shipping discounts.) Then he’ll be outfitted with ballet tights and dance shoes for ABT this summer. We still need to buy jazz pants, which he hates, some footless tights for hip hop (no sweats or shorts allowed at ABT), and a Pilates or yoga mat. Then he is set to go.

Today he had his year-end evaluation at dance; it wasn’t as intimidating as it was last time, and his Dad and I didn’t have any “stuff” up around the studio/company or anything like that. (We now are very happy with our/his studio choice.) So, it was pretty smooth sailing. They seem happy to have Julian, and he’s happy to be there. After a bit of a plateau in his dancing, he seems to be improving – or so they say. They also feel sure that going to NYC and dancing with a bunch of boys and under the tutelage of new and excellent teachers will be a superb experience for him. That made us all feel good about the decision, which is a bit of a hardship on our family, to say the least. He does need to work on a few things to avoid shin splints while at the intensive, such as landing and rolling through his whole foot and using his full plie on his jumps. And there was something or other about his hips or pelvis that related to his core. I know from writing about foot health twice now that that affects everything, the legs and feet in particular.

Speaking of feet, my story on how to keep a tap dancer’s feet healthy is now out in Dance Teachermagazine, for those of you who subscribe or want to purchase it. I guess the one about how to attract boys to a studio must have been in the April issue. They failed to send me that one, so I didn’t see it. Look for an article on three teen dance companies, including Julian’s company, Teen Dance Company of the Bay Area, in the July-August issue of Dance Spirit magazine.

Does Your Son Tap? Keep His Feet Healthy!

I recently wrote an article for Dance Teacher magazine on how to keep tappers’ feet healthy. Previously, I wrote an article for them on how to keep dancers’ feet healthy, but tappers are a bit unique; they use their feet in more ways than most dancers, and their feet take a lot more pounding as well.

While I can’t share the information in that article here – you’ll have to purchase it when it hits the newsstands in a week or two – I can direct you to a little bit of  “overflow copy” they couldn’t use in the magazine and posted instead on line. It actually contains a really essential exercise to help create a cushion for all that impact a tapper’s feet are subject to and how to stretch – something a lot of tappers (especially boys) don’t do before dancing – to avoid injury. (Also, the exercise, called “doming,” was recommended for ALL dancers by the experts I interviewed for my story on keeping dancers’ feet healthy…hint, hint.)

To read this web exclusive, click here.

Check back here for some great information from ballet superstar Duncan Cooper. I interviewed him for a whole hour, and he gave me some super information…enough for at least three posts! I’ll be transcribing the tape and writing, and I hope to post something in the next few days.

Boys Working Together at NYCDA

I am happy to report that Julian had a blast at the NYCDA convention despite his reluctance to go. He loved the teachers, the choreography and the competition.

I had a blast, although I was only there on Saturday night for the competition and on Sunday, and here’s why: I had such fun watching the boys prepare for and perform their “part” in the ballet class taught by Duncan Cooper. He had choreographed a special part just for the boys, which Julian thought was totally awesome — both the choreography and the fact that the boys had a part of their own. And during the class on Saturday, the boys congregated at the back of the room and began rehearsing together. They worked and worked and worked…and helped each other. It was not an individual effort but a team effort. Yes, they were each going to be performing the choreography as a solo act — and later auditioning alone (well…in a group but each as an individual), but they practiced it together as if it were a group performance. And that made their performance really something special. Some of the boys even shook hands at the end as they stood at the edge of the stage to allow the judges to write down their numbers (or not). It was awesome.

I commend Duncan Cooper….and the boys. Well done!

Also, I was thrilled that Julian seemed to have found something within that changed his dancing this weekend. He used his upper body better and was much more expressive with his dancing. He even said that he felt so much better in general about his performance. In fact, here told me several times how happy he was because of the way he had danced.  He felt he had made a huge step forward in his ability. He did receive a scholarship and felt proud to have been complimented by two teachers, but he said this was nothing compared to what he himself felt about what he had achieved. Those words, and his sense of pleasure with him self and with his ability, did this mother’s heart good. He finally realized what really matters — and it’s not that piece of paper he had in his hand when he came off stage (and that he may never even use). He even said that the scholarship really didn’t matter to him; he just felt great about how he had danced.

However, Julian hurt his heel dancing on the hard ballroom floor. He has had a problem with his heel before, mostly while he was in the ballet program at Ballet San Jose but not so much since he hasn’t been doing just ballet. The chiropractor said he strained it and should take it easy this week. No jumping or leaping.

Those conventions are really hard on the kids for that reason — the flooring at those hotels is really not suitable for spending hours dancing. I hear all kinds of stories about kids who end up with sore joints and backs afterwards. I suppose there is no where else to hold them, though. Where else could you fit so many kids into a room to dance?

On another subject, I had a great idea — don’t know why I didn’t think of it before — for this blog. For my other blog, www.writenonfictioninnovember.wordpress.com, I ask experts to write guest blogs for me during the month of November. I usually comment on the subject, too, but they offer advice and information. I thought, given that I’m not an expert on dance per se — I’m not even really a parenting expert although I have two kids and two step kids — I’d occasionally ask a dance exert to write a blog for me or to let me interview them. You see, my expertise comes from my experience as a dance mom raising a dancing son and from my research as a journalist and author into the lives of male dancers and into dancing in general. But I’ve never said I have all the answers. I just pose some questions, say what I think and maybe too often tell you what’s going on in my son’s dancing life — and in my life as the mom of a dancing boy.

So, to avoid some of the drivel (which I write when there isn’t much going on)…and to stay with my new focus on bigger topics…I thought I’d let the experts do a little talking now and then. In light of that, this past weekend I asked Joe Lanteri of NYCDA to guest blog for me a few times. (I’m not sure about the topics yet, but I will likely pose the convention choreography one to him.) I also asked NYCDA ballet instructor Duncan Cooper to either write a blog or let me interview him.

If anyone has suggestions on great male dance teachers that I should contact that you feel would be willing and available to write a blog or chat with me by phone, please let me know. If there are male dance teachers — or professional male dancers or older male dancers who feel they have wisdom to share — reading this blog, please contact me as well. And, as always, email me or post comments detailing the types of issues you have with your sons’ dancing or about men/boys who dance, so I can get these experts to address them. You can contact me at cpywrtcom@aol.com.

Recently there have been some people upset with my blog’s focus. I hope everyone will be happy with the new focus. I only want to serve those who read this blog. If you have suggestions on ways for me to improve what I’m doing, please feel free to contact me at cpywrtcom@aol.com.

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…

The Benefits of Pilates Physical Therapy

Three weeks ago my son started Pilates physical therapy for dancers. He’s working with a great former dancer who really knows her stuff. She made him slow way down — Julian was taking lots of extra ballet classes to try and get back into shape. He had, however, developed a case of tendonitis from over use. Remember he’d been in that boot for a month without dancing at all. So, the extra classes were not a good idea. (Don’t listen to the school director who says she knows best how to get your son back in shape, because she’s a dancer…)

In any case, the Pilates therapy seemed just the thing. She noticed that he had lost 30% of his muscle in that hurt leg, and they set to work on building it back up with machines, tennis balls, bands, and a variety of exercises. He was amazed at how much he had to use his core (abdominal) muscles for many of the exercises, and he was tired afterwards.

The best part, however, was all the work they’ve been doing in front of the mirror. She makes him do plies and releves and watches exactly where his hips are and if his knee caps are “sagging” and how he holds his shoulders and if he is leaning back too far. It’s great! It’s the best posture class for dancers I’ve seen Julian take to date! And he’s really learning how he has to hold himself.

I’m sure this will pay off not only in his ability to dance better — he’ll be more balanced — but also in less injuries as well.