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 Learn to
Teach, Teach to Learn
By Nancy Wozny
Dual careers fuel each other for dancers who teach
There’s an assumption in many dancers’ minds that teaching
is something you do when you retire. In the “normal”
progression, you start taking classes, become a dancer, quit
dancing, and then teach. That makes sense if we consider the
wealth of experience that a seasoned teacher brings to her
students. Some dancers, however, are finding that it’s never
too early to begin teaching, even while managing a performing
career. Could it be that teaching improves one’s dancing? If
so, what’s the connection between trying to explain movement
to someone else while you are still figuring it out for
yourself?
An early start at teaching offers some practical benefits. Not
all dance jobs pay enough to live on, and teaching can be a
flexible way for dancers to supplement their income. Then
there’s the unpredictable nature of a career in dance—you
never know when you might be sidelined because of an injury or
layoff. Victoria Leigh, a former American Ballet Theatre
dancer and proponent of early teaching, was glad she had
teaching to fall back on while she was dancing. “When there
were layoffs at ABT, I was confident that I could always
teach,” she says. “It sure beat waiting in the unemployment
line.”
It makes sense to have a jumpstart on plan B. If you think you
will want to teach (and acquire the set of skills that goes
along with it) as soon as you hang up your dancing shoes, you
might be in for a shock. Teaching is an art form too, and
making the transition from stage to classroom takes time,
training, and determination.
Teaching is not only about having a paying day or night job
either. It teaches you how to dance—and if you are still
dancing, you are still learning. The teachers interviewed for
this article mentioned the “practice what you preach” motto.
Could
it be that having your eyes on a roomful of dancers sets your
internal eye on yourself?
For Leigh early teaching was more than job security. She
trained with Ruth Petrinovic and Joanna Kneeland, two key
figures in ballet education. Petrinovic brought kinesiology
into teaching, while Kneeland
was interested in the physics of dancing. “It was about the
‘how’ of dancing,” says Leigh. “Kneeland
succeeded in making a teacher and dancer out of me.” Their
approach incorporates principles of physics, psychology, and
kinesiology, as well as standard ballet pedagogy.
Leigh introduced Barbara Bears
to her style of teaching while the Houston Ballet principal
was a student at the Leigh-Franklin Academy in Fort Lauderdale,
FL. Bears joined HB in 1988 and was promoted to principal
seven years later; she’s known for her interpretations of
neoclassical roles in the works of Sir Kenneth MacMillan and
John Cranko. And she has much to say about getting a head
start at teaching. She should—she started at age 14. “It was
part of our
training at Leigh-Franklin Academy to learn to teach,” says
Bears. “It sure helped in thinking about staying in the field
longer.”
But there’s more, according to Bears. Knowing how to teach
helps unravel the mystery of technique. She identifies her
teaching experience as key to her development
as a dancer. “I te nd
to notice the whole of the ballet when I watch a dress
rehearsal. Dancers are so self-centered and often watch just
the part they will be dancing,” she says. “I think teaching
has made me aware of all the little things, like the way a
dancer walks or runs.”
Bears has taught in the summer program of Houston Ballet’s Ben
Stevenson Academy for the past seven years, an experience she
treasures. She’s amazed at the technical caliber of the
students, yet she knows that dancing extends far beyond
technique. It’s the “connect the dots” part that really
engages her. “Sometimes I will have the students watch a
principal just from the waist up so they can see all the tiny
details that make a role come to life,” she says. “We can
learn so much from watching a dancer’s face. Tricks are fine
and dandy, but it’s the stuff in between that is the dancing.”
Bears also credits HB’s former artistic director, Ben
Stevenson, for giving her a sound role model. “I teach a very
dancey class, with lots of images and visualizations,” she
says. “I pull from my experience onstage when I teach.”
The Houston principal is considering a transition into
teaching full-time when she retires, and if she does, it will
be with a few decades of classroom experience under her tutu.
As a longtime dancer, Bears knows that her time onstage is
limited. “Ballet is a mistress—you love it but it doesn’t love
you back,” she says. “Teaching is different. It’s so rewarding
to watch students take with them something you have given
them.”
Texas dancers Amy Cain and Dawn Dippel not only teach and
dance professionally but co-own (along with six others) two
studios, North Harris Performing Arts I & II, in Spring and
East Houston. In fact, only one of the eight owners has
retired from the stage. “It helps to have others to cover for
us when it comes to performance time,” says Dippel about the
hectic pace leading up to performances. Cain and Dippel point
to the group’s trusting partnerships as key to managing dual
careers. Both guest with Dominic Walsh Dance Theater and Ad
Deum Dance Company and perform with their studios’ resident
troupe, Revolve Dance Company. Cain believes that their
dancing sets an example for their students. “I feel a certain
energy in the audience when I know my students are there,”
says Cain. “I think they get inspired that we are still
dancing.”
Owning the schools actually allows Cain and Dippel the freedom
to dance, although they have been known to put in 12- to
14-hour days.
Both want to do it all: own the studios, teach, and dance.
Cain finds that teaching unravels the mechanics of movement,
offering a clarity that ends up in her dancing. This process
began early for Cain, who began teaching at 16, and will serve
both the quality and longevity of her dancing.
For Cain and Dippel, dancing and teaching are not so separate;
it all feeds into a larger mission of promoting dance
education and
performance. Their schools offer a demonstrator/assistant
program for students 12 years of age and up who have five
years of training. First the students learn to demonstrate,
then they assist in giving corrections, and eventually, in
their teen years, they co-teach.
For Hope Boykin of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater,
teaching is about connecting to the community. She made use of
a surprise week off by going
to Houston to teach and set a new work on the Ad Deum Dance
Compan y.
While in the city she offered master classes and taught at the
Ben Stevenson Academy. “I guess you could say teaching is in
my blood,” says Boykin, who notes that her mother rose through
the education ranks to become a school principal.
Boykin got an early start, becoming a gymnastics teacher’s
assistant at 9. As a teen she taught at Nina’s School of Dance
in Durham, NC. While a student at Howard University, she took
turns teaching company class with members of her dance
ensemble. “Teaching is about sharing our gifts and talents,”
she says. “It’s not so much what I do onstage but what I leave
behind.” Passing on vital information tops Boykin’s priority
list, and she loves it when students tell her about
breakthroughs they experienced in her class. “You never know
whom you are going to touch.”
Boykin teaches as part of the Ailey company’s Arts In
Education and Community Programs department, which offers
master classes and lecture/demonstrations in schools. She
enjoys her outreach experience, but her face lights up when
she talks about her once-a-week adult beginning class in
Horton technique at The Ailey School. “Even though it’s a
beginning class, it’s very different than teaching children;
these are clear-thinking, fully developed people.”
Boykin sees a rich connection between dancing and teaching.
“I’m stealing—in a good way—all the time from my students,”
she says with a grin. “I’m always amazed at what students add
to my movement and how they make it their own. My students
stir feelings and ideas in me that I bring back to my
dancing.” She welcomes their changes and sees the teaching and
sharing of movement as one of the ways the field evolves.
She makes it sound like a circular process: “I put myself out
there and I get myself back in
a new way.” Encouraging her students, saying, “Yes, you can,”
is part of her mission, and she continues to be guided by all
the teachers that said yes to her. Boykin is following not
only her mother’s lead but her mentor’s, Alvin Ailey. “I’m
always thinking of Mr. Ailey’s famous words, ‘Dancing comes
from the people, and we
need to bring it back to the people.’ ”
Early attempts at teaching can also let dancers know whether
or not it’s a good fit. Most people find that they either take
to teaching or they don’t, which is good to know
early on so they can start thinking about an alternative
career. Great
dancers don’t always make great teachers. S ometimes
it’s the person who struggles with technique who becomes adept
at teaching. Teaching is also not a replacement for daily
class, and those with jam-packed schedules need to be mindful
of that fact. Demonstrating at the barre is not the same as
doing it for yourself; as a teacher, you are there for your
students, not yourself.
Not every dancer is cut out for a double-duty life; some may
feel it’s necessary to focus on their own artistry before
developing it in others. None of these still-dancing teachers
said it was easy to manage a dual career; swift negotiations
of time are necessary to keep one’s sanity and schedule within
healthy limits. Summer hiatuses, company breaks, and other
down times are excellent opportunities for dancers to stretch
their teaching wings. Doing so in a community of teachers who
can fill in when rehearsals ramp up is also crucial.
Dancers often manage more than one job at a time, so this kind
of overlap is a natural occurrence. But for those who love it,
teaching can be one of the most rewarding ways to stay in
dance beyond a performing career and pass this beloved art
form on to the next generation.
Photo captions (from top to bottom):
Revolve Dance Company member Amy Cain, who is also co-owner of
two Texas dance schools, believes that students get inspired
when they see their teachers dancing. Photo by Billy Ocel.
Houston Ballet principal dancer Barbara Bears, an instructor
in the summer program of the company’s Ben Stevenson Academy,
started teaching as a teenager. Photo by Drew Donovan.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Hope Boykin works with Ad
Deum Dance Company. Photo by Nancy Wozny.
Boykin and AAADT dancer Clifton Brown in Judith Jamison’s
Reminiscin’. For Boykin, teaching is about sharing gifts and
talents, “not so much what I do onstage but what I leave
behind.” Photo by Paul Kolnik.
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