I am currently teaching in just about every corner of the dance education world. I am teaching professional dancers at Broadway Donation Dance Classes, I am teaching pre-professional ballet students at the Joffrey Ballet School, I am teaching pre-professional musical theater students (serious young adult beginners) at CAP21, Molloy College and New York Film Academy, I am teaching recreational children’s classes at Hamilton Dance, I am teaching open level adult classes at both Joffrey and Alden Moves Dance Theater and I am constantly traveling the country to guest teach at competition studios.

I’ve noticed more and more that the students who are more talented, who are for the most part doing well, have a very strong need to be “the best”. They need a lot of stroking and complimenting. They need repeated reassurance that they are at the top of their game. I even once had a student leave a more prestigious school for one a little lower on the totem pole…and it appeared that one of the main reasons was that he wanted to stand out, be special, be the best. And, sadly, it is rare that these students really have the diligence and work ethic that they will need to reach their full potential. I have students who are gifted both in their ability and facility. Students who have long, lean, strong, flexible, turned out bodies with a nice technique and a reasonable sense of musicality, artistry and style. They say that they are dedicated to dance. And yet, when I or my colleagues stand in front of them, teaching them, guiding them, passing on our art form, they just don’t seem to fully engage. They are there. They sort of listen. They pick up steps. They do steps. And then they wait for the accolades. I have so few students who are ferocious learners. So few who listen with full attention. So few who take responsibility for their own training. And still they yearn to be the best. And I think that our “Every child gets a trophy culture” is part of the problem. I studied for nearly ten years with Mdme. Darvash. I don’t ever remember a compliment. I have no recollection of my parents telling me how brilliant I was. And many times I lost. Many times I didn’t get the trophy (or the job, or the part, or the big solo). And that is life…and it is a lesson that is best learned sooner rather than later.

I implore all pre-professional dance students to stop yearning for perfection; yearning to be the best. It is a waste of time. There will always be something more to learn, something to work on, something to improve. And there will always be someone better…and they will be standing right outside the studio door waiting for your job. I try to encourage the students to be the best STUDENT that they can be. They need to hang on their teachers every word. They need to study themselves in the mirror as objectively as possible rather than admiring and self-congratulating. They need to listen to corrections, apply the corrections, and make their work and their training their highest priority. And they need to stop loving the idea of being the best and start loving the process of learning to dance. They need to realize that as their teacher I love them and want the best for them. They need to understand that the most important thing to me is their success, their improvement, their achievements. But as teachers, we cannot make dancers, we can only guide them.  Once they let go of their need to be the best and start embracing the process of learning, they will find that they truly soar.  And they won’t need the stroking and they won’t need the compliments  because the results of their work will be staring back at them from the mirror.

To quote the legendary Mikhail Baryshnikov:
“I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.”

Although I am known for teaching the Luigi Jazz Technique, the majority of my work is in the teaching of ballet technique classes. A particular topic of discussion has come up many times amongst my colleagues. It often starts with me, or someone of my generation, saying something like: “When I was their age, I would spend hours in the mirror at home, trying to get my tendu just right. Why won’t my students work like that today?” I think we all agree that most of our students are NOT lazy. What they are is impatient.

We are all aware that we are living in a “YouTube Star” – “Instant Gratification World” and I am sorry to say, that in my opinion, the “every child gets a trophy” culture that we are living in has created part of the problem.
So, now we are faced with teaching an ART FORM, not an activity, to a group of wonderfully talented students who on some level, expect to be able to do everything perfectly on the first try; to a kid who expects to post a video on line and become a super star; to a kid who never really worked to get a compliment. IT’S NOT EASY. I spent 10 years studying with a student of Madame Vagaonava herself. 10 years. I never once was complimented.

I have started saying things like “No one in this room is ever going to be good enough; in fact NO ONE is ever good enough. Your dancing can always be improved, there is always something to work for, something to strive for. I want to open doors  for you, doors to new ways of working. I am not going to teach you steps. I am not going to teach you a dance. I am going to teach you HOW to dance. And learning to dance is a process that lasts a lifetime. And anyone in this room who thinks otherwise is sadly mistaken. THE STUDY OF BALLET IS THE RELENTLESS PERSUIT OF AN UNACHIEVABLE PERFECTION. I have told students that I am not going to compliment them every time they do something right or there will be no time for teaching. I have even stopped for the most part saying “good” or “right” unless it is REALLY GOOD or REALLY RIGHT. Instead I Say “Better”. But I truly believe that this has to come from a place of love. And the students can tell the difference. If I give this sort of speech, and stop complimenting, and sometimes talk to them more harshly than I would have in the past, my students still know that I love them (because I do). I often tell them that I am desperately trying to given them the opportunity that I didn’t have; because my parents didn’t support the idea of me dancing. And that their success was what was important to me.

And so I stopped coddling, I stopped complimenting, and I started encouraging students to WORK. I often talk about how much the process means to me. How at 55 I still take class three to five times a week, and I still work to get better. How I’m still finding nuances, and how exciting that is for me.WHEN THE STUDENT FINDS THE JOY IN THE PROCESS, THE DANCER IS BORN.

So often I feel like students are TAKING class. And that is where I feel the students are falling short. They are taking class and not studying ballet. The study of ballet is steeped in ritual. There is the centuries-old tradition of walking into the studio every morning and placing your left hand on the barre. During technique class I teach about the history of ballet (in small doses), because the history is intimately intertwined with the technique. I can trace my educational lineage directly to Vaganova and Cecchetti and my ballet students know and understand that what I am teaching them came from these great masters, from teacher to student to them.

Learning to embrace and love the process is the key to improvement. We must strive every day to make each tendu longer, each plié more supple and elastic, each rond de jamb more majestic, each arabesque more expansive. We must make our adagio more expressive, our epaulment more nuanced, our petite allegro more crystalline and bright, our grand allegro more explosive and joyous.

And it will never be good enough. And that is the challenge, and that is the beauty. When the student finds the joy in the process, the dancer is born.

Luigi was my first teacher, and I would like to explain why I am teaching his technique; why I am finding such enormous value in a technique that was developed in the 1950’s; a technique that many dance educators feel is no longer relevant.

As I’ve been traveling the country to guest teach and meet more and more people, I’ve received some inquiries from some studio owners and teaching colleagues as to why I’m teaching the Luigi Jazz Technique. It seems as if there is a perception that this kind of traditional jazz is in some way not relevant or helpful in the training of today’s young dancers. So I thought I’d take the time to share some of my thoughts on training dancers in traditional Jazz and why/how I teach what I teach.

I teach both Classical Ballet and The Luigi Jazz Technique and I am based primarily at the Joffrey Ballet School in NYC. I have made it my personal mission to keep the work of my mentor Luigi alive. There are two aspects to this work. Firstly, there is the “Style”. Luigi created an unmistakable, exquisite style of Jazz that seems to have all but disappeared. And here’s the thing: I AGREE that there isn’t a lot of usefulness to teaching the Style for its own sake. There has been very little work choreographed in this style, and there certainly are not many jobs waiting for dancers familiar with the style. BUT THERE IS MORE TO THIS WORK THAN THE STYLE.

The Luigi Technique is a codified training method. And this method has been responsible for the creation of some of the most beautiful, exciting and unique dancers that the stage has ever seen. The technique teaches a beautiful quality of movement; something that I see disappearing from today’s dancers. It teaches how to develop a deeply personal style another attribute that is disappearing as conservatories are turning out dancer after dancer who are maddeningly uniform. The technique teaches how the body works, how to use epaulment, how the torso is carried, how the rib cage is held, how the arms connect to the back, how to create a beautiful port de bras, or a long line that goes on forever, how to feel the music, how to phrase, how to “dance from the inside”, how to “Feel first, then do”, and how to “Never Stop Moving”.

There are a few of us (former students of Luigi) left teaching this work. I, however, refuse to turn the technique into a museum piece. Although I do teach the technique and style exactly as he did, I teach it in a way that allows dancers to apply the training to ANY STYLE. I want the technique to be a living growing evolving and exciting way to train dancers. I want my students to pulse with the excitement that this technique brings, and to come away a more beautiful, more nuanced, more artistic, more individual, more exciting dancer in any and every style they approach be it contemporary, hip hop, lyrical, modern, jazz, ballet…

Every time I teach at a new school or face a new group of students I am always fascinated as I watch dancers explore this way of working. It’s like opening a door for them; a door they never knew existed. Some get it. Some don’t. And to the “nay-sayers” who judge the work after a few classes, my response has always been the same: “You don’t know what you don’t know”.

For those dancers with the patience to acquire the technique, for those dancers with an open heart and an open mind that can see past the noise of the latest Instagram trend, it can be career changing. I have personally experienced the results of this work and I have been privileged to watch what it has done for the students of this technique, decade, after decade, after decade.

“To dance, put your hand on your heart and listen to the sound of your soul.”, Luigi