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 Calling
All Boys
By Marsha Cohen
Teachers talk about ways to get boys in the door as well as
how to keep them interested and inspired
Males
manifest their power through rivalry and ambition, through
dominance. They tend to reject any qualities or
accomplishments that may be considered feminine. Boys don’t
want to be considered sissies or doing “girls’ stuff,” so they
often avoid the arts to avoid behaviors associated with
femininity (Scott Harrison, 2002). This makes recruiting and
retaining male dancers a challenge for the studio owner. But
some studio owners have been successful.
“Boys breed
boys,” says Dori Matkowski, owner of Dance Dynamics Performing
Arts Center [Walled Lake, MI], and admits she paid her young
son “five bucks a boy” to bring his friends to class. That was
15 years ago. It started snowballing from there, and she has
between 80 and 100 boys all of the time. Matkowski says she
does special programs for the boys and has managed to raise
some talented dancers who have appeared in Nutcracker,
in commercials and modeling, and are getting paid for it.
That, she says, creates an incentive. She also encourages the
brothers of the female students to go in and try a class while
they’re hanging around waiting for their sisters.
“The boys
see that the girls are in tights and that there’s a lot of
partnering, something that can’t be done on the sports field,
so they try it out.” Once they’re bitten by the “dance bug,”
they stay.
Bobbie
Tauber, owner of Bobbie’s School of Performing Arts [Newbury
Park, CA] believes the draw is the male dancers in the company
whose costumes are manly and whose performances are
choreographed to show athleticism and strength. Boys need to
be encouraged to dance with a masculine style, Tauber says. “
I have had to drastically change the music, themes and props
to accommodate the males. I work to have more neutral themes
or to add male characters to the program.” The moves must be
strong and bold. Hip movement is limited. “We look for strong
hands and fingers.”
Shirley
Larkin, owner of Larkin Dance Studio [Maplewood, MN], credits
the song “I Can Do That,” from A Chorus Line, as a
motivator. Larkin also says her Dads Line, which she’s had for
25 years, is evidence that men can dance and still be men. She
never puts her boys in tights, and she makes sure the
costumes are masculine.
Matkowski,
Tauber, and Larkin agree that costuming and choreography are
keys to their successfully retaining male dancers. Having male
teachers and older male dancers who serve as role models is
also important. Financial incentives can also help. Tauber
offers scholarships to any dancer who shows passion. Matkowski
offers a “buy one, get one discount,” which she says helps get
the “not so sure” ones into class.
Tom
Ralabate, Associate Director of the Dance Program at the
University of Buffalo [NY], says modern media have contributed
significantly to the increase in the numbers of male dancers.
With hip hop and reality television as well as stars such as
John Travolta, Ricky Martin, Michael Jackson, and others in
music videos, interest is sparked when young males see pop
stars dancing with athleticism. They, too, want to dance, but
to keep them in the studio, a teacher needs to understand that
males and females are physically as well as psychologically
different. The teacher who recognizes those differences and
adjusts for them will have a better chance of keeping those
male Dancers.
For
students younger than 6 or 7 years old, dance class should be
more creative and less structured. Girls, by nature, develop
kinesthetic knowledge and develop movement from inside to out.
Boys, on the other hand, have more difficulty. Culture
dictates boys be strong and not show emotion. Most are told
that boys don’t cry. Because a boy learns to hold in his
emotions, it takes longer for him to move from inside out.
Ralabate suggests giving boys improvisational exercises to get
them to explore the sensation with movement, not just movement
for movement’s sake. Just as actors don’t just read the words
but get into them, a dancer needs to get into the feeling of
the movement and the music. Too many teachers focus on skills
and then connect the sensory, but the two should be done at
the same time, especially with males, Ralabate says.
 In
working with older students in both college and master
classes, Ralabate often finds that when young men are given an
improvisational assignment, many just stand still because they
haven’t been taught creative problem solving. When those
students are young, teachers need to work on creative
exploration as they work on developing strength. Males and
females move through space differently, however. Because male
dancers spend much of their time around females, they often
move like females. Ralabate suggests that rather than limit
exercises to barre or center floor work, teachers work with
physical space to get their male students to move through
space.
While more
males are dancing, many who would like to dance, are not. Some
succumb to peer pressure, some to parental pressure. To
address issues of dance being too feminine, Ralabate suggests
showing films of dancers like Baryshnikov demonstrating
strength and athleticism. Then show films of football or
basketball games and point out the similarities in movement
such as flying through the air, leaping, jumping.
Music is
another important element in recruiting and retaining male
dancers. Males more often want aggressive beats. Matkowski
said choosing music is often difficult. For her students, she
finds some music just too “girly” for the guys. Ralabate
offers that adjustments can be made when introducing males to
dance, but if studios use only music that is “macho,” the male
students will not develop lyricism, which can look
manly.
While there
is more acceptance today of male dancers, more education is
needed regarding identity. Males and females need to be able
to understand themselves and who they are. So many young
males, unable to cope with the peer pressure, quit dancing
until they reach high school or even college when they have a
stronger sense of their own identities. Ralabate says, “If it
is his destiny and he has passion for dance, he will find a
way to do it. Often, however, the problem is in allowing that
young man to find his destiny within the studio.”
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