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 Fated To Be
Great
By
Joshua Bartlett
A
profile of master ballet teacher
David
Howard
David Howard attributes some of his legendary teaching success
to fate. “I was often in the right place at the right time,”
he says. But a few lucky breaks don’t overshadow the talent,
dedication, discipline, and ingenuity that Howard has applied
to a teaching career in ballet that has spanned more than four
decades. Always democratic in his approach, Howard has taught
and coached great stars like Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gelsey
Kirkland as well as aspiring novices. He has produced 110
classroom CDs and 25 teaching DVDs and headed numerous
teacher-training programs. And on November 13, 2006, at age
70, he received the coveted Dance Magazine Award for
his achievement in the field.
What has set Howard’s teaching style apart from so many others
is his kinesthetic approach to ballet. He thoroughly
understands the body’s anatomical structure and function,
which allows students to align their placement, move freely,
and prevent serious injuries. “I try to put the movement to
the picture, rather than making a series of pictures. I build
what I want to say into the step itself, working from cause to
effect,” he explains. With a regular teaching schedule at
Broadway Dance Center and Steps on Broadway in Manhattan and
numerous teaching gigs
abroad,
Howard has radically influenced the way several generations of
international students have improved their ballet technique.
The showbiz
bug hit London-born Howard early in life. His father took him,
at age 3, to a vaudeville house, the Chelsea Palace Theater.
“I vividly remember the shape of the theater and the color of
the curtains. It was fantasy to me,” says Howard. But then
World War II came—along with the German blitzkriegs. When his
dad went off to war, Howard and his mother evacuated London to
a village near Windsor. (Here’s where the fate part comes in.)
Thirty dance teachers were also temporarily lodged at a
mansion nearby, and British dance pioneer Grace Cone and her
two sisters started a school. (The Cone-Ripman School
eventually became the Arts Educational School, among whose
alumni are Julie Andrews and former Houston Ballet director
Ben Stevenson.) Howard pestered his mother to let him study
dance, and Cone gave him a scholarship.
Cone’s
curriculum emphasized not only ballet training, but also
ballroom dancing, singing, and tap. “You’re not learning to
dance—you’re entering a life in the thee-ahtah,” Cone
once told Howard, and that philosophy stayed with him for
life. While in school, Howard worked as one of the Ovaltineys,
a children’s chorus that sang on Radio Luxembourg hawking
Ovaltine, and acted in television and in movies. At 16 he won
the Adeline Genée Medal,
the highest honor a British dance student can receive, but
Cone advised him not to have tunnel vision about a career
exclusively in ballet. At 17 he was hired as a chorus boy at
the London Palladium (then at the height of British vaudeville
era), dancing two shows a night behind headliners like Patti
Page, Nat King Cole, Danny Kaye, Jerry Lee Lewis, Marlene
Dietrich, and Sophie Tucker.
Dame
Ninette de Valois, artistic director of Sadler’s Wells Ballet,
remembered that Howard had been awarded the Adeline Genée
Medal and sent a letter to Cone that read, “If we like him and
he likes us, there is a job waiting for him.” He joined the
British troupe in 1957 and stayed seven years with the company
(eventually renamed The Royal Ballet), which was basking in a
golden age of creativity and performing and benefited from the
publicity of Rudolf Nureyev’s defection from Russia. “We had
three in-house choreographers then—Frederick Ashton, John
Cranko, and Kenneth MacMillan,” says Howard. “When you look at
the repertoire of ballet companies these days, it’s those
three choreographers.” He rose to the rank of junior soloist
(at which point de Valois said, “You’ve done very well,
dear—went much further than we planned”) and then joined the
National Ballet of Canada. Doing one-night stands in high
school gymnasiums prompted Howard to “hate every minute of
it.” When the Canadian company was laid off due to lack of
funding, Howard returned to Europe to dance at the Lido in
Paris and eventually landed a role in the London production of
Little Me after a private audition with Bob Fosse and
the composer, Cy Coleman.
When
Howard’s chronic back problems made dancing too painful, a
doctor told him he needed to stop. “I went home, had a good
cry, and hung up the shoes,” says Howard. Then fate intervened
again. He got a call from Cone, who needed a teacher for her
young male students. After he had racked up
some teaching experience, fate phoned yet again. In 1966 the
Harkness Foundation in New York called with the news that the
rich heiress Rebekah Harkness (who later told Howard, “I have
no talent other than money”) was star ting
a school and needed apprentice teachers immediately. The
Harkness program, headed by Joanna Kneeland, introduced Howard
to various kinesthetic theories of ballet training. Having
been well versed in the RAD syllabus, Russian training, and
the Cecchetti method, Howard wanted to develop his own
distinct teaching style. “I wondered how I could find my voice
with so many methods,” he says. “I decided to pursue the
kinesthetic side and use that information.”
After
teaching at the Harkness School for 11 years, Howard gradually
realized he was the most popular teacher there. The school
accountant approached him one day and said, “If you ever
leave, we’re in trouble. You’re the only one keeping the place
open.” At the time, Howard was teaching four classes a day
every day, making a whopping $125 a week. A lawyer who took
Howard’s ballet class asked him if he’d thought about opening
his own studio. And, bingo, fate again struck. An acquaintance
of Howard’s who owned a building on West 62nd Street asked him
if a $15,000 loan, interest free, to open his own studio there
sounded good. Howard nearly fell over backward. That studio
became an epicenter of the ballet scene during the height of
the dance boom in the 1970s and early ’80s. (Howard had so
many ballet stars in his class that someone once jokingly
asked him if he’d thought about charging admission.) He later
moved his studio to West 61st Street.
Howard
admits that his class construction has evolved over years of
experience. “When I look at some of my old notes, I’m
horrified,” he says. “Class is a work in progress. Now I have
a plan for class, but it’s not carved in stone. I’m a very
practical person. If I need to change something, I will. And
I’m never frightened to admit I’m wrong.” Since giving up his
studio to freelance as a teacher—a career choice made by most
dance teachers in Manhattan due to the prohibitive costs of
real estate—Howard has simply adapted to working for larger
conglomerate studios like Steps. “When I teach there, I close
the door and the room is mine,” he says. Howard admits that he
sees a difference in the current generation of students. “When
I was young I was very passionate about the theater. I sense
it’s a little bit more of a job now—a bit corporate, in a way.
They work just as hard, and I think they are more realistic
down the line. But I think that diverts attention away from
the art.”
Howard’s
teaching method reflects the discipline that has always
provided grounding for his training. He gets up at 6 a.m. to
prepare his classes. For the planning—and this is
revelatory—he starts from the end of the class and progresses
backward. That way he builds the essentials into the class by
knowing where he’s heading. “I try to incorporate as many
ranges of movement as possible: slow, fast, moving, standing
still, beats, grand allegros, and steps for the boys and
girls,” he says. Economical in his time use, Howard completes
the barre work in 35 minutes, yet gives students everything
they need in the center. Following the advice of the great
Danish dancer Erik Bruhn, he indicates clearly without
physically demonstrating. (Howard recently underwent a
successful hip replacement). “The class isn’t about you—it’s
about getting them to be better,” he adds.
One myth
Howard feels the need to dispel is that his life as an
international teacher and coach is glamorous. He is regularly
invited to teach at The Royal Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet,
and other companies and schools but, he says, “it gets lonely.
What’s glamorous about eating by yourself in a hotel room?”
Still, the unexpected rewards have been priceless. “You fill a
strange role in a way,” he says. “I have kids call me after 30
years. You never know, when you catch someone in their life,
wh at they might
be going through.” He treasures his relationships with
students like Gelsey Kirkland. “She would hear what you were
saying and translate it into her body like that,” says Howard,
snapping his fingers. “It was a miracle.” He also wants to put
to rest the myth that he has made a fortune from coaching—he
never charges his regular students a penny for coaching
sessions.
One student
whom Howard felt especially close to was Peter Fonseca, a
prodigiously talented dancer with American Ballet Theatre.
“Peter was very special, brilliant,” says Howard, his eyes
welling up. At the age of 28, Fonseca died of complications
from AIDS. Howard lost too many students in the ’80s and ’90s
during the AIDS epidemic. “A whole era of people just went,”
he says, and you can sense that the wounds are still deep.
During that time he also lost his highly creative pianist,
Lynn Stanford, with whom Howard collaborated on many CDs.
“After Lynn died, I said I would never work with only one
pianist. It keeps me on my toes to adapt to different
accompanists,” he says.
The master
teacher has plenty of advice for young teachers and generously
dispenses it. First and foremost, he says, “look at the area
you’re going to work in and the age groups of the students.”
He is adamant that people who want to teach need to ask
themselves if they can work with kids who have no career
aspirations, because talent of professional quality is rare.
And they must know how to deal with mothers. “If you need
teachers to teach for you, get the best you can and give them
guidance,” he says. He stresses the importance of having your
teachers sign a contract that stipulates that if they leave
your school, they can’t operate a business within 30 miles of
yours, to avoid unnecessary competition.
Above all,
he thinks teachers need to stay involved and continue their
education by joining organizations like Dance Masters of
America or regional ballet associations. “Take courses and
keep updated, even if you don’t agree with them. I can deal
with Russian-, French-, British-, and American-trained
students and find a way that they don’t shut me out. I’ve
always been willing to make changes, rather than thrust my way
on them,” he says.
On October
6, 2006, Howard celebrated his 40th year of teaching in the
United States. Yes, fate had something to do with his success.
But drive and dedication have ultimately made him the dance
teacher that all others can look up to.
Photo
captions (from top to bottom):
David
Howard
Jennifer
Gelfand, principal dancer with the Boston Ballet, at age 13
being coached by David Howard.
Natalia
Makarova in David Howard’s class at his studio on West 61st
Street in New York City.
All
photos by Victor DeLiso.
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