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What’s up in the dance community
Community Aids School Owner After Fire
By Alison McCall
At
7:30 on the morning of July 21, Tia
Hetu, owner of The Gymnastic Place,
a gymnastics and dance studio in Uxbridge, MA,
received a call from one of her students’
parents. An eight-alarm fire had raged through the Bernat
Mill, which housed her studio a nd
64 other businesses, completely destroying it.
“The Mill fire was a tragedy,” says Sue Pignatiello, mother of
two students
at The Gymnastic Place. “The [lost] equipment and Tia’s
ability to make money for herself
are only part of the deal, because now how [will] the kids get
to do their passion again? . . . These kids are devastated.”
Rather than continuing their training elsewhere, Hetu’s
clients have refused to leave The Gymnastic Place, insisting
that the school owner made her studio feel like a community.
As parent Rhonda Hurley said, “Tia is like a mother to these
girls. She’s the heart and soul of the studio.” Consequently,
a group of devoted parents and the sympathetic owner of a
local gymnastic studio are helping Hetu recover. What amounts
to an entire community is working together to repair the
damage.
Parents, including Pignatiello and Hurley, have been drafting
letters asking for donations that they will send to major
corporations while Hetu searches for a new studio. Just days
before the fire, Hetu had paid off loans on thousands of
dollars’ worth of new equipment— all lost. To rebuild the
studio, she will need gymnastic equipment, including balance
beams, parallel and uneven bars, a vaulting horse, huge safety
mats, plus equipment and materials for her dance studio.
In the meantime, Hopedale-based McKeon Dance and Gymnastics
Center has donated time and space to Hetu, allowing her to
continue
 to
offer classes once a week, free of charge, while she continues
her search for a new location. Owner
Trisha Cacciapeglia, like Hetu, inspires a family feeling at
her gymnastics and dance studio. “Tia needs my help and I am
giving it to her,” says Cacciapeglia. “She can use [my] gym
for as long as she needs it. I cannot imagine losing
everything like that.”
The two studio owners met through Hetu’s niece, 20-year-old
Lindsey Larsen, a longtime student of McKeon’s. In the past
Cacciapeglia has hosted noncompetitive “fun meets” for The
Gymnastic Place, and Hetu hopes to bring her students to
another fun meet in January as a result of Cacciapeglia’s
generosity.
Cacciapeglia and her husband, Peter, also a gymnastics coach,
spoke at a USA Gymnastic Congress meeting in Newton, MA, in
August, asking for donations on behalf of The Gymnastic Place.
A relief fund for The Gymnastics Place has been established at
UniBank. Monetary donations can be made out to the The
Gymnastic Place Fund, c/o UniBank for Savings, 25 North Main
St., Uxbridge, MA 01569. People who have commercial spaces for
rent or sale that could help the Bernat Mill fire victims can
post a listing on a message board at http:// helpuxbridge.com.
October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month
As a public service to our largely female readership, we would
like to direct your attention to information about breast
cancer and resources for education, screening, and treatment.
According to data from the National Cancer Institute as cited
on the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM) website,
“new cases of breast cancer in the United States [in 2007] are
estimated to be 178,480 (female); 2,030 (male). Of these an
estimated 40,460 (female) and 450 (male) will die from the
disease.”
NBCAM is a 20-year-old organization dedicated to increasing
the public’s awareness of breast cancer, the importance of
early detection, and screening (including genetic testing) and
treatment options. Because the fi rst step toward prevention
is education, we encourage you to find out as much about this
disease as possible and to direct your loved ones to do so
Photo by Alison McCall as well. For more information and to
learn how you can get involved in the fight against breast
cancer, visit
www.nbcam.org
Two Major Dance Figures Honored at DMA
Jacques D’Amboise and Frank Hatchett were honored at the Dance
Masters of America 123rd Annual National Convention gala
banquet on August 3, 2007, at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in
New York City. D’Amboise was presented with the DMA Annual
Award and Hatchett received the DMA President’s Award.
Former New York City Ballet principal dance Jacques D’Amboise
is the founder of the not-for-profit National Dance Institute.
The program, created in 1976, exposes thousands of
schoolchildren to dance. It was the subject of a 1984
award-winning PBS documentary film, He Makes Me Feel Like
Dancing.
D’Amboise’s work has been acknowledged with many awards and
honors, including The Award for Distinguished Service to the
Arts from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1993; a
MacArthur Fellowship in 1990; the Paul Robeson Award for
excellence in the field of humanities in 1988; and the Kennedy
Center Honors in 1995. In addition to his work with NDI, he
was a professor and dean of dance at SUNY Purchase and a
visiting professor for 11 years in the College of Creative
Studies at the University of California– Santa Barbara. He is
currently writing a memoir.
Master jazz teacher Frank Hatchett tours the United States
giving master classes and making guest appearances, including
one last August at Jazz Dance World Congress. His unique dance
style, called VOP, combines strength, funk, and
interpretation. He was honored as an educator at the TDF/Astaire
Awards in 2002. Hatchett, who has choreographed for every
arena of the entertainment industry, was featured in an Emmy
Award–winning TV documentary, Real Stories. He is the
co-author, with Nancy Myers Gitlin, of Frank Hatchett’s
Jazz Dance.
Residencies and More at VCU
Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA, has
announced a lineup of visiting teachers and artists in its
Department of Dance and Choreography.
Three nationally recognized artists will visit VCU for a
series of one-week teaching and performance residencies:
Philadelphia-based Tania Isaac Dance (October 8–13); New
York’s Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People (January
22–28, 2008); and Meisha Bosma of Alexandria, VA (February
11–15, 2008). Erika Randall of Boulder, CO, was in residence
September 24–28.
In two seven-week residencies, national and international
dance professionals Heidi Weiss of Berlin, Germany, and Daniel
Gwirtzman of New York City will teach and set work on dance
majors from August 23–October 12, 2007, and January 22–March
2, 2008, respectively.
The visiting artists’ works will be performed by dance
students in the VCU Dance NOW concert (which features works
by guest artists and the university’s dance faculty) on March
27, 28, and 29, 2008. Weiss, Gwirtzman, and Guttierez will
also teach master classes during their visits.
Also slated for fall is an informal showing of new works by
VCU students in a range of disciplines, with a
post-performance discussion facilitated by VCU Dance faculty
member Martha Curtis. It will be held October 16, 2007, at VCU
Dance Center, Studio 203. Admission is free.
For more information about these and other VCU dance programs,
visit
www.vcu.edu/artweb/dance.
A Day at the Races to Benefit Ballet San Jose School
Ballet San Jose is off to the races at Bay Meadows Race Course
in San Mateo, CA, on October 28. The day of horseracing will
benefit the ballet school’s scholarship fund.
The Betts Cartwright Memorial Scholarship Fund was created to
encourage and inspire ballet education and training in a
Ballet San Jose School student who has the potential for a
professional ballet career. The endowment fund was set up in
memory of Ballet San Jose Council past president Betts
Cartwright.
Tickets will include valet parking, a souvenir program,
admission to the private Directors Room overlooking the track
featuring a buffet luncheon, no-host bar, gaming clerk, and
silent auction. Sponsorship levels include a Triple Crown
Winner Table at $1,200, a Kentucky Derby Table at $900, and a
Belmont Stakes Table at $600. Individual tickets are $50 for
open seating.
To attend, call Ballet San Jose at 408- 288-2820, x 240. For
more information about the company and its school, visit
www.balletsanjose.org.
Kudos
❊
Producer, director, and choreographer Sean McLeod has
been named International Artistic Ambassador by the city of
Auburn, NY. McLeod is the founder of the New York Institute of
Dance and Education; the Educational Tour on Self-Esteem
Through Dance; Mission to South Africa, which establishes
sister schools to NYIDE in that country; and other groups. He
was honored previously with the National Jefferson Award for
Public Service to America, founded by Jacqueline Kennedy
Onassis.
❊
Choreographers Luciana Achugar (NY), Yannis Adoniou
(CA), Nora Chipaumire (NY), Kate Weare (NY),
and Nami Yamamoto (NY) have been awarded choreographic
fellowships by the Maggie Allesee National Center for
Choreography (MANCC) at Florida State University for the
2007–08 academic year. The recipients, who were selected
through a national screening process, will each receive
approximately $11,000 to conduct choreographic research at
Florida State University.
This year’s research agendas include an investigation of the
commonalities between puppeteers and choreographers
(Yamamoto); an exploration of identity with fellow exiled
Zimbabwean musician/composer Thomas Mapfumo (Chipaumire); and
an inquiry into the relevance of making dance today given the
state of affairs in a war-torn world (Achugar).
❊
Jean-Yves Esquerre has joined the faculty of San
Francisco Ballet School for the 2007–08 academic year. He will
serve as supervisor of the school’s trainee program, a select
group of advanced-level dancers, as well as perform other
teaching duties with the company and school. After dancing
with Les Ballets du XXème Siècle, Hamburg Ballet, and
Nederlands Dans Theater, the Frenchborn Esquerre began his
teaching career at the Conservatoire de Danse and the Mudra
School in Brussels. He served as artistic director of Les
Ballets de Monte-Carlo from 1988 to 1992, and since then has
worked internationally as a teacher and ballet master,
including at San Francisco Ballet and School, Boston Ballet
and School, Steps on Broadway, English National Ballet and
School, and Cirque du Soleil.
Photo captions (from top to bottom):
Tia Hetu, owner of The Gymnastic Place, spots student Clara
Small at her school’s former site in the Bernat Mill complex,
which was destroyed by fire in July. Photo by Rhonda Hurley
Tia Hetu (center) and her students, including Tess Miller
(left) and Susie Pignatiello can continue their classes at
McKeon Dance and Gymnastics Center, thanks to the generosity
of McKeon owner Trish Cacciapeglia. Photo by Alison McCall
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