Is Your Dance Teacher A Genius?

Most dance teachers would probably say no, they are not a genius. But when you consider all the continual training and the areas of training they have studied over the years, your dance teacher may be one of the most educated persons you will meet in your life. Especially if your teacher is also part of the administration, or the business owner, of the dance school you take classes at.

For instance, your teacher has spent many years on their own training and learning from the very beginning, just as you have. They have suffered through the sore tight muscles, blisters, muscle fatigue, etc, such as you have. They have worked on memory skills and retention, again and again, just as you have. But their training has never stopped at a certain level or after a particular master class.

If there is any one reason to admire your dance teacher, that for sure is that they are a "lifetime learner". With dance being an ever changing element in performing arts, with many trends and the classics to stay abreast of , a dance teacher is always studying, always working and always trying to be the best that they can be for their students.

With new trends, especially the more athletic styles of dance, has came more opportunity for student injuries in class. This means that your dance teacher not only needs to know the moves, steps, style, etc, but also the correct technique that helps his or her students to learn injury free for a lifetime. He or she has most likely trained in assessing injuries to a certain level  and has taken first aide and CPR classes.

Your dance teacher also understands history and the progressions of dance and how to use that history to build creative choreography for the future. Dance is not new. It is just evolving all the time. By knowing dance history, your teacher knows how to connect to the world and help a dancer to grow.

To understand technique, your teacher has spent hours upon hours of study and practice in  dance and stretch techniques, anatomy, physiology, kinetics, and general science. They know how the body should operate free of injury and understand the different elements that makes up one movement at a time. If they did not, they would not be able to break down the dance movements and teach it in different steps or levels for their students.  They would not understand how to defy gravity for turns, leaps and jumps.

All dance teachers have studied nutrition. Either in a class situation or on their own. Nutrition is essential for a properly working body, and so they study to be able to continue to to dance for hours and multiple days a week. Great dance teachers also are a role model exhibiting proper hydration and preparation before, between and after classes by what they choose to eat and drink.

Time management is an important skill that teachers spend hours in developing. After all, every class that she has you in, there is a designated amount of time allowed for what is to be worked on in class. Time management skills is also used in developing lesson plans, selecting costumes, choreographing dances and administrative duties. Time management skills are always being improved upon by self study or attending training's.

Costume and set design sounds like fun, but a skilled dance teacher knows just how to make every student on stage look beautiful in their performance! Besides getting the right fit, color and style of costume, your teacher also has to match it to the show theme. And then there is the set/stage design and the lighting and sound to be considered. Dance teachers spend weeks and hours on getting it just right, so that the dancers look beautiful and the audience is entertained.

Human development and coaching is also an area your dance teacher may of studied as well. Ever noticed that when you have a problem, your dance teacher may be someone that you feel comfortable enough with to go to? For some reason your teacher is a person that is easy to talk to, a shoulder to cry on, a voice to encourage and a person to quickly give you information as to where to go to to get help, how to handle a situation, how to find your personal courage, etc.

Problem solving is a number one skill your dance teacher has had to learn to do. Ever notice how quickly they can change a part of the choreography that is not working? Pull a costume back together that decided to come apart just as you are about to step out on the stage? Find a way to mend a hurtful moment in class between you and another student? Help you tape a hurt ankle to go right back onto stage? Dance teachers have high level problem solving skills that tend to be over looked by many.

So, is your dance teacher a genius? They would probably say no. But ask as many adults today what skills they learned most from their dance teachers. Probably they will not remember the dance steps or technique. But they more than likely will tell you about all the life skills they learned in dance classes from their genius dance teachers.


*Written by Mary Myers, owner and director of Academy of Fine Arts in Woodward OK.

Why A Dance Education Versus Just Learning A Dance?

There are many different types of dance studios around our nation. And rightly so because not all families are looking for the same thing when it comes to placing their children in a dance program.

There are the "activity" studios. These are the ones that can come up with great activity style classes that only run six to eight weeks at a time. Low commitment and made for fun and to give the parents a break from their children once in awhile.

There are "lets learn a dance" studios that start teaching a dance at the beginning of the season and take the entire season to complete or polish it.

There are "competition" studios where every class in the studio, with maybe the exception of the baby classes, compete. That is their goal and target. Attend competitions.

There are the studios that see what they do as an education. They not only teach dances, but actually how to dance. Techniques is important and impressed upon their students because they want to be sure if these students do one day decide to audition for a university dance department or for a professional show, that they have the skills and training to make it.

Take these four types of studios and you will see even a different blend. Such as the Educational Studio that understands and can meet the educational side with still allowing a few students to compete. Why only a few? Because they are hand selected and not open called for auditions. These hand selected students are ones that parents understand that this is more that just getting on a stage and getting a trophy. It is about performance value and learning about performance.

Then there is the studio that the competitions are actually an activity because not enough time is spent on technique, but instead tricks to make the audience yell out for them (have you ever experience yelling "get it girl" during a Nutcracker performance by a professional company?). Although entertaining, these dancers seldom go on to higher levels of dance opportunities, and even if they tried they are generally turned away.

Dance is an education of movement, correct sequences and technique in execution. It should be fun or your child will not enjoy it. It should be measurable or your child will not know if they are advancing or not. It should be balanced with technique and learning a dance.

Yes, dance is an education. So is performance. An education that can take them to as high as they want to achieve, if they have the right start.