This article was written knowing that parents are often faced with making decisions, with little or no experience in dance to inform their decision making about where their child will study dance. It presents information that parents may wish to consider in choosing a studio or school to train their young dancer.
A plie' will be taught in every single dance class. While some may think that learning to do a plie' is easy and such a basic step that anyone can teach it... it is, after all, just bending the knees, right? Not at all. And if someone learns to do a plie' working incorrectly, they will develop that habit. A professional dancer has developed eyes that can see and interpret the movement of the body on a skeletal and muscular level. Eyes that interpret the kinesiology of technique. A professional dancers understands that there are SO MANY elements to doing a plie' correctly, that it must be taught properly from the first time. A professional dancer understands that if you do a plie' correctly, then every time you do it, your technique is improving and the appropriate musculature is getting stronger... whereas if you practice it incorrectly — which is very common — you are not even getting much exercise value from it, your are likely to be practicing habits that lead to poor posture, and developing incorrect muscular habits that will translate into all your other dance steps (every time you bend your knee)! AND, the movement habits you establish in your early training are hard to break!
Professional dancers have invested years into their own training, and invested a lifetime into their art. It is a passion. They have become masters of the body, have developed an educated eye that understands proper body mechanics, and have developed a spiritual connection to movement that transcends the exercise and transports it into an art form.
A professional dancer never stops developing and learning about dance. Even when they retire, it is unlikely they will drop out of the dance world. Rather, they become the mentors, rehearsal directors, board members and support people for the dance world. The breadth of their specialized knowledge about the body is amazing.
For this reason, it takes a professional dancer to teach dance properly. While it is not true that all professional dancers make good teachers, it IS true that it takes a professional dancer to train students in a well-rounded understanding of the body, of the art, and of the dance world.
To summarize, studying with a professional insures:
There is nothing more sad to me than to meet someone who has the heart and desire to dance, but has been trained improperly and now has to re-learn technique. It is better in many ways to start from scratch than to re-learn the habit of inadequate technique. The best, of course, is to study from a professional and insure that you are learning properly the first time.
Any teacher can teach a student to do a pirouette, for example. However, only the naturally talented dancers will learn to do 6 pirouettes unless the teacher is a master of movement. A MASTER has had years of experience studying the nuances of technique, refining muscularity and applying techniques for proper muscular development. A MASTER can thus SEE and then CORRECT the technique — not just the steps, but the proper use of the muscularity, joints and levers of the body — that is involved and can thus teach the steps to develop both the coordination and proper use of the muscles to do multiple turns not just well, but gracefully and with full control and expression.
Like reading a sonogram, with coaching a layman can learn to interpret what they are looking at, but only those well trained can understand the nuances and translate the applications that are indicated.
Moving Arts Dance has a professional company in residence. Thus, students have the opportunity not only to meet them and get their autographs, but the professionals become mentors to the students. At our studio, every student has the opportunity every year to perform in a show with professional dancers, to see first hand what it's like to be a professional... how they act, pre-pare the character, eat, put on their make-up, warm-up, treat their costume, pre-pare their feet, tie their ribbons, and what they do right before they go on stage... every detail of a professional performance is mentored through first hand experience.
The dancers of Moving Arts Dance are unique people. While each dancer works for several dance companies, they are all part of Moving Arts Dance because they love the art that we create together. Moving Arts Dance is more like a tribe, than a "company". The dancers work practically for free, receiving a stipend to reimburse them for the expenses it takes to rehearse and perform. Our collaborators, the choreographers, costumers, composers and directors work for free, receiving only a modest honorarium to cover their costs and their time. On a small budget we produce the equivalent of companies our size whose budgets are over $800,000. Moving Arts Dance is a group of passionate people, who are generous with their time and believe that creating a dance community is of great value.
In addition, we have on our faculty not just professional dancers, but highly regarded dance educators who impart proper technique, inspire the love of dance, and teach professional tenets in performance skills. Our students are known to develop at incredible rates, and showcase levels of performance-maturity that far exceed their age.
But most of all, our students develop into nice people. Our faculty meets regularly for training sessions where the studio philosophy is developed cohesively. Under the direction of Anandha Ray, who applies her extensive education to the studio philosophy, (a masters degree in Choreography and double majoring in Kinesiology, in addition to a second masters degree in Dance Therapy); the faculty understands the importance of imparting life-skills within the dance class. Modeling and requiring that students develop manners, self-discipline, respect, and self-confidence, are as fun a part of the dance classes that Ray has developed as is the development of grace, poise, technique and performance skill. Humiliation, berating students, choosing favorites, rewarding competitive behaviors ARE NOT PERMITTED in our classrooms. And the students quickly learn that in our studio the students are "One for all and all for one," that we are gracious, and that we work hard to develop skill and this is more valuable than being naturally talented.
In our dance community, each level of dancers are mentored by the students that are the level above them. Rather than compete with each other, we model and expect that dancers will support each other.
On the cutting edge of dance education, Moving Arts Dance Center faculty are in touch with the current trends in performance and education, as well as the valuable lessons of historical dance trends.
The TEACHING of dance has evolved considerably in the last ten years:
Current research has taught us that dance that is taught from a creatively inspired modality (as Moving Arts Dance does) it imparts critical thinking skills necessary in school, develops problem-solving methods and opens the blocks to creativity.
Additionally, when it is taught from a viewpoint of social awareness (the opposite of competitive programs) students improve interpersonal skills, increase compassion, positive self-awareness, and learn to understand and interact from a gracious viewpoint.
No longer is it adequate to learn only ballet or jazz. Now, dancers must have a considerable background in both ballet and modern dance -no matter what career path they choose in dance*. Additionally, studying improvisation, composition and partnering are necessary to be adequately prepared for college or to successfully audition for a dance company. Moving Arts Dance is among a handful of studios in the Bay Area who offer these subjects, and currently is the only studio in the East Bay Area that does so.
*NOTE: The March 2008 issue of Dancer Magazine is devoted almost entirely to modern dance.