From Dance Teacher

By Michelle Vellucci

Rebecca McGregor’s high school guidance counselor told her she’d never make a living teaching dance in the K–12 sector. At the time, there were only three full-time high school dance teachers in all of Vermont, her home state, and no dance programs in any of its elementary or middle schools, aside from guest-artist residencies.

McGregor studied dance in college anyway. And not only did she prove her counselor wrong by landing a job, but, in a twist of poetic justice, the school that hired her—Lyndon Institute—is her alma mater’s rival.

The private high school in the rural  community of Lyndon Center, VT, (about 80 miles northeast of Burlington) is where McGregor has spent the past six years building a dance program and cultivating relationships with teachers across the state to ensure that dance in Vermont thrives. “I took it upon myself to make connections with the other dance teachers out here and find ways of bringing us together,” she says.

First Steps

McGregor started dancing in her hometown of St. Johnsbury, VT, at age 8. When a Costa Rican dancer named Liliana Cubero moved to town a few years later and took over the local studio, McGregor began taking class several nights a week, as well as assisting with baby classes and teaching a summer dance program. Through Cubero, she discovered a healthy approach to movement. “I knew that was what I wanted to do,” she recalls. “I wanted to teach.”

Fast-forward to McGregor’s senior year of college, when she traveled throughout Vermont to research school dance programs. “I learned that no one in the dance field knew of each other,” she says. “It became my goal, if I ever got a teaching job, to increase dance awareness and opportunities in schools.”

Her chance came earlier than expected, when her mom spotted a newspaper ad announcing that Lyndon Institute was looking for someone to start a dance program. Though she still had a semester of student teaching ahead of her, McGregor decided to interview for the position just for practice. Two weeks later, she was offered the job. “They waited a semester for me to finish my degree,” she says.

Anatomy of a Dance Program

McGregor started teaching part-time in January 2003, and by the end of the year, she had attracted enough students to support a full-time position the following September. Today, there are about 80 in the dance program—not too shabby for a rural school with a population of 623.
“My students are from all learning levels and socioeconomic backgrounds,” she says, noting that dance has given these children another way to succeed in school. Headmaster Rick Hilton agrees. “It is a delight to see her students strive for excellence, achieve it and receive the approval of the community,” he says. “Rebecca’s stage is a joyful place.”

Classes take place in the school’s historic Lyndon Town House, a sunny, spacious building with high ceilings and wood floors. McGregor teaches two sections of Dance I in the fall and Dance II in the spring, as well as yearlong courses in jazz and lyrical ballet. Her well-rounded curriculum covers history, technique, choreography and principles of anatomy and kinesiology.

As the school’s only dance teacher, McGregor feels it is essential to expose her students to guest artists as often as possible. “Each semester, I try to bring in people who do things differently from me so that my kids can learn something new and get experience from different teachers,” she says.

Serious dancers may audition for Pulse Dance Company, a troupe for sophomores, juniors and seniors. Company members perform and teach in local elementary and middle schools and participate in talent shows and competitions. McGregor also offers independent study courses tailored to students who are planning to continue their dance education in college.

LI’s after-school tap club and dance club, which explores styles from various cultures and time periods, such as bellydance and swing, are geared toward recreational dancers. “It’s about trying to excite kids about moving their
bodies,” McGregor explains. “We let loose and ham it up.”

Reaching Out

When McGregor started her program, she decided to befriend the local studio owners rather than try to compete with  them. The gesture paid off. “The other teachers are very supportive,” she says. “They want their students taking class with me.”

She communicates regularly with the studio teachers, sending her syllabi and weekly outlines to those with students in her classes so they know exactly what she’s covering. “I make it a point to connect to studio teachers so they feel I’m trying to stay on the same page,” McGregor explains. “We share ideas. It’s important for us to connect and talk about the students, because that’s how they’re really going to progress.”

To connect with dance educators and students on a broader scale, McGregor founded the Vermont State Dance Festival. Now in its sixth year, the annual event brings about 150 teachers and students from around the state to the LI campus to participate in classes and performances. In addition to offering professional-level classes, it allows dance teachers from throughout Vermont to meet, collaborate and learn from one another, McGregor says.

Meanwhile, nearby elementary and middle school students get a taste of LI’s dance offerings, thanks to visits from members of Pulse Dance Company. And each spring, McGregor invites other schools and studios to participate in a benefit recital. Four schools took part in last year’s show, and she’s hoping for a few more this year. Admission is free, but donations are accepted; the proceeds go to organizations that promote child wellness. “We usually have about 500 people in our audience,” she says. “In the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, where hunting is the biggest sport, that’s pretty exciting.”

Looking Ahead

One of McGregor’s plans for the future is to encourage local schools and dance studios to get involved when guest artists come to town. “It would be great to establish a rotating schedule,” she says, “and have dancers from other high schools and studios participate in the master/open classes offered by the artists in residence.”

After running the show solo for the past six years, McGregor says she’ll eventually start delegating certain responsibilities—though she admits she often feels she could keep going forever. “I could easily work on lessons and choreography 24/7 or until I fall asleep in motion, because I am passionate about my job,” she says. “I love seeing the students grow physically, cognitively and socially.”

For now, she’ll continue forging ahead, doing what she loves. “Rebecca possesses that essential quality of great teachers: a passion for her academic discipline,” says Hilton. “Her lessons instruct her students, but her example inspires them.” DT

Germaine Salsberg lives to tap. In addition to being on faculty at Broadway Dance Center for over 20 years and teaching at STEPS on Broadway, she’s worked with Tony Award–winner Danny Daniels on the Broadway and national tours of Tap Dance Kid and has privately coached actors, including Liza Minnelli on the film Steppin’ Out. With a reputation for instilling a strong technical foundation through rhythm elements, it’s no wonder she recently released a CD of music for tap class. Along with pianist Kevin Cole, the two created Tap Tunes: For Tap Class and Practice. “I feel it is my obligation to acquaint students with different styles of tap. Therefore, I utilize different types of music,” says Salsberg. “Music choices need to be interesting enough to dance to, but not overwhelming.”

Artist: Gene Krupa
Song/Album: “Hodge Podge,” V Disk
“This is an oldie but goodie. It’s really a big-band sound, but it’s not so over-arranged that it takes over. It’s not real fast, but it has the Gene Krupa drive. Good for style, time steps and combinations that could incorporate a musical theater or big-band style.”

Artist: Jo Jones
Song/Album:“Jive at Five,” The Everest Years
“I did some work with Sarah Petronio in Paris, who is so swinging. She introduced me to the music of Jo Jones, a jazz drummer from the ’60s and ’70s, and boy does he swing, too! I love other songs on this album as well, so check out the entire album. The music is good for combinations—it really forces the students to listen and syncopate.”

Artist: Kenny Burrell
Song/Album: “Midnight Blue,” Midnight Blue (The Rudy Van Gelder Edition Remastered)
“This is a medium swing that keeps a very even tempo, and it goes on long enough to do long exercises (shuffles, double shuffles and triplets) at a relaxed pace.”

Artist: Jeff Golub
Song/Album: “Cold Duck Time,” Do It Again
“I fell in love with this song and found out it’s actually a jazz standard, but Golub arranged it in a jazz/funk mode. Warning—there is a variation in phrasing where he throws in a 12 measure once in a while, as opposed to the standard 8 measure. Not a fast-paced song, but there’s lots of room for double time and paddle and roll work.”

Artist: Oscar Peterson & Milt Jackson
Song/Album: “Work Song,” Very Tall
“I started using this song many years ago—and I used it and used it and used it! It’s great for warm-ups utilizing articulations and single-sound warm-ups for beginners, and I even choreographed a competition piece to it. It’s strong and driving, easy to hear, with a
certain amount of musical variation (not tempo) that keeps it interesting.”

Artist: Jane Monheit
Song/Album: “Taking A Chance On Love,” Taking A Chance On Love
“I often shy away from using vocals, because it comes across as too many elements with the tap sounds, music and the voice all at the same time. But Monheit is such a great jazz singer, and this song gives such a lift to the students. It really swings, has a great instrumental break and is quite peppy without being overly fast.”

Artist: Natalie Cole
Song/Album: “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” Unforgettable: With Love
“Cole’s voice really adds to the instrumentation. I use this all the time for my basic and beginner combinations. It is slow enough for them but does not drag and isn’t boring. It has a great musical break, and the students really listen—sometimes they even sing along.”

From Dance Spirit

By Alison Feller

As the co-executive producer of “So You Think You Can Dance,” Jeff Thacker has seen it all. He’s watched dancers face-plant during the audition process, but he’s also witnessed the dancers who blew Nigel and Mary away. He’s here to tell you how to get your ticket to Vegas—
and for the hot tamale train.

Do:

• Dress to impress. It makes a big difference.

• Be as unique and memorable as you can. Show us something we may not have seen yet.

• Show us your charisma and character. Having a good personality is equally as important as excellent dancing ability.

• Come and enjoy the entire experience.

Don’t:

• Come unprepared. You never know what songs you may dance to or styles you’ll be asked to do.

• Dance in a style that isn’t your own. Be good at your own style, not bad at another.

• Wear hats or glasses that cover your face. We need to see you.

• Hold back. Just go for it and do your best.

Competition season is upon us, and this is such a great experience for dancers, but it can also be very stressful.  I have come up with a list of competition essentials to help dancers get through this crazy time.

#1 – Get plenty of sleep.  If you are not well rested, there are greater chances of injury and forgetting choreography.  Get at least 7 hours of sleep the night before you compete so you can be refreshed and ready to go in the morning!

#2 – Always eat something.  Your body depends on food to give you energy.  If you are performing all day, you are going to need plenty of energy to perform your best.  Make sure to eat plenty of fruits and light carbohydrates.  Stay away from junk food and heavier foods that may make you feel too full.

#3 – Always have an extra pair of tights.  You never know what can happen when dancing on stage, and there is always a chance that you will get a big run in your tights during a performance.  If those are the only tights you have, you will be stuck with them for the rest of the competition.  Another mini tip: Have clear nail polish on hand; if you put this around the run, it prevents the hole from getting bigger.

#4 – Make sure to wear blush and lipstick.  The lights on the stage can make a dancer look very pale.  Wearing lipstick and blush will bring color to your face and not drown you out on stage.

#5 – Warm up and stretch properly.  A dancer should always warm up and stretch before any type of dancing to help prevent injury.  Many dancers forget to do this during competition because they are very busy with costume changes and running their choreography back stage.  Try to arrive at the facility early so you give yourself plenty of time to warm up and stretch.  This will lower the risk of injury during the performance.

#6 – Relax and stay confident.  Try not to panic before you go on stage;  just let all of your hard work and practice show in your performance and you’ll be fine.  The more confident you are in yourself, the better you will be;  for competition and for the rest of your dancing career.

Competing is a great experience for a dancer; it can teach you many things that you can use now and throughout the rest of your life.  But most of all, have fun!

Hello everyone!

I hope you are all entering a great 2nd week into February. I’m about to embark on my 4th week of school, and the semester has been so busy already! I mentioned in the last blog some of the projects I’m working on this semester so I thought I’d update you all regarding them.

First, I’m performing in “Showing 4″, which is one out of the 5 “showings” we have featuring work by student choreographers. I’m in a piece choreographed by Mandarin Wu, who is a 2nd year MFA and graduated from UCI for her undergrad. We actually know each other through mutual people including my future sister-in-law, Genevieve, because they worked together in LA this past summer. Anyway, Mandy (short for Mandarin) is choreographing a pointe piece, and I’m very excited and scared to perform it all at the same time. It’s been a long while since I’ve performed pointe on stage so I hope that I don’t fall on my face! We will be performing this piece next week – Feb. 18th and 19th. Wish me luck!

My next project I’m working on is a piece I’m choreographing for the MFA 1 concert. All 1st year MFAs get their own concert to feature choreographic works if they wish. I am choreographing a piece set on 6 women, and it is going to be FIERCE. Here’s a little preview of their costumes (still a work in progress…and was custom made and sewn by my MOM, Monica Chua – my Mom is the best!!! :

Don’t they look so awesome! The piece is also set to music composed by Elias Constantopedos (who also composed my solo from last semester) – the music is a fusion of a Baroque fugue mixed in with electronic sound. I wanted to have this regal and courtship look to the piece, and the music suits the choreography perfectly. You can preview a rehearsal video here – just remember it’s still a work in progress:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP5voHFwoWU

This piece will be premiering in 2 weeks – Feb. 25, 26, 27th. The show is FREE so if any of you readers are in NYC and would like to come to this performance or the one above then come to 111 2nd Ave, 5th floor. Both shows are FREE! I am so looking forward to this performance because not only are my mother, her boyfriend, and my grandmother coming to see the show, but my fiancé, Chester, will be here too! This will be the first time Chester has come to see me here in NYC so I’m so excited!!!

Lastly, the third project I’m working on is for my Choreographers, Composers and Designers class. I’m working with two other ladies, Julia and Wen-Jen, and we are collaborating with set designers, a costume designer, and music composer to choreograph and produce a work. It’s been such a brain-filled experience so far because everyone has such great creative input and ideas that when I walk away from our meetings my brain hurts! Our concept deals with technology, and how it affects our communication – whether it helps or leads us to miscommunication. We are working within that realm, and if you start thinking about technology and how it is taking over our lives this can become a very broad and deep topic. However, we want to keep this piece light-hearted and somewhat humorous. We will be scaling down and concentrating on specific communication through the use of social networking like Facebook and Myspace and how that can affect relationships between 2 or even 3 people. We have 1 female and 2 males in our cast so we might try to work out some kind of love triangle or something to that extent. We are still in the very beginning stages of this project so I will keep you all updated. Here’s a poem that we found that inspired our concept for this piece (it’s actually really funny):

http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/tek1/rememberwhen.htm

I will keep you all updated on my many projects coming up this semester. Hope you enjoyed reading and hope you have a great week. Thanks!!!

Sometimes people have a hard time applying their makeup with brushes. The reason for this is because of the amount of pressure they use while holding the brush.

When you choose a makeup  brush, try to use one with a longer handle, and hold it on the far end. This will help you to gain control while applying eyeliner and shadow.

Hello everyone!!!

I’ve had a very fulfilling and busy 2 weeks back home teaching and designing costumes and now I am back to school! Going back home to CA to teach was great because I definitely missed teaching and it’s really nice to know how much the kids have missed me. I have definitely missed them!

I’m done with my first week back to school and I am sore! I didn’t think I would be as sore because at least I was teaching and taking a few classes during my visit, but I guess it wasn’t enough. I have to comment on one my teachers, Jolinda. She’s probably one of the best ballet and pointe teachers I have ever had. Great teachers are very hard to come by, and she’s definitely one of them. I’ve had so many fabulous teachers in CA, but to find one here in NYC and at my school is just amazing. She pushes me, is really articulate about what she wants to see, definitely gives you great corrections and positive feedback when you do something good . I fortunately get to have her for ballet and pointe 3 times a week (I wish I had more!). I just had to say something about her because she’s a great teacher, and I hope to be able to teach and inspire students like her one day, especially in the ballet and pointe field.

It’s back to work with my choreography, and I have a few projects underway. I’m working a solo for my composition class, and every week we are to choreograph about 40 seconds to a minute to experience the choreographic and creative process. My teacher, Phyllis, doesn’t want us to whip out the entire solo right away. She wants us to add on a little bit every week so we can edit, and continue to think about our creative process as we’re doing it.

Another project I’m working on is a choreography piece for the 1st year MFA concert. It’s a concert that is only open to the 1st year MFA’s and we’re able to choreograph a piece if we like. Almost everyone is choreographing with the exception 1 or 2 people. I have 6 female dancers, and have already started rehearsals. I am working with the same composer I worked with last semester so I’m just waiting on the music so I can put the movement vocabulary in and tweak from there.

Lastly, my Composers, Choreographers, and Designers (CC&D) class requires that we choreograph a piece that utilizes a strong relationship with set designers, costume designers, and composers for music. We are allowed to think BIG. So this concert is normally very exciting and creative. I have 2 other partners in this project – Wen-Jen and Julia. We’ve come up with a great idea, but now we have to solidify our concept and think about how we’re going to try and portray that through movement.

Those are the projects I’m working on this semester! I will keep you all updated on the creative process and hopefully it’ll all work out!

Happy New Year everyone and thanks for reading!!!

Hope everyone had a beautiful holiday season and I know it was hard getting back into things, but here we are almost done with January already! How the time flies, it is truly amazing. I have my first ballroom competition coming up on February 12 at the Irvine Marriott called “California Open”. After my Christmas showcase I put on at my ballroom studio, I got a wonderful response from my students, their parents, my friends and family about my performance, it really gave me the boost I needed to just work work work to be the best I could be for this first time out on the floor. My partner has decided for the first few competitions to start me out at a little lower of a level so I will stand out and look polished and clean. After that, I will then change my routine and go into an open division, which allows me to do more steps that relate to ballet/lyrical background. In the american smooth divison, which is what I am competing in…there are only 4 dances in the category (waltz, tango, foxtrot and viennese waltz). I will keep you all updated an post some videos from my christmas show so you can see, but for now here are a couple of pictures.

Hi Danceworld readers!

So sorry I have been MIA for the past couple of weeks. I’ve been traveling all over the place during this holiday season and now I am finally back home in California.

I’ve been teaching almost everyday since I’ve been here and it has been absolutely GREAT. I’ve missed teaching very much and missed seeing my students. It’s so great to see how TALL everyone has gotten. Either that or I’m shrinking . I’ve had such a great holiday and there’s no better way than to finish it up by teaching some great dance classes.

For those of you who are interested here is a picture from my trip to Juneau, Alaska. I never made it to Florida due to the unforeseen circumstances at the Delta terminal, but I was able to spend more time with my fiancé and dogs.

Here is a picture of Chester and Me, Emma and Ernie our 2 samoyed dogs.

I’m here for one more week and am going to teach almost everyday. Here’s the rest of my schedule for those of you who are interested in taking class. I would love to have you there and would love to see you!

Monday, Jan. 11th

Teaching Blocks 4, 5, and 6 at OCHSA

Teaching at South County Dance 8:00-9:00pm Adv Contemp. Jazz

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Tuesday, Jan. 12th

Teaching at Elevation Studios 8:30-10:00pm Adv Contemp. Jazz

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Wednesday, Jan. 13th

Teaching at Boogiezone Contemporary classes at Focus Dance Center

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Thursday, Jan. 14th

Teaching at South County Dance 8:30-9:30pm Adv. Lyrical

Being in the entertainment industry dancers often find that we have the opposite schedule of most other people. We work when others are at leisure so they will hopefully come to see us perform. I have to admit this is hardest to deal with during the holiday season. When others are cuddled up at home with family and friends we are in the full grind of Nutcracker, our busiest time of year.