Tag: dance teachers

From director shifts and beyond, here are the major dance educator moves you should know about from spring 2023.

During dance class, a teacher’s verbal praise and recognition can reinforce students’ skills and boosts their confidence. A simple “That was a beautiful pirouette!” can mean the world to a student. But while the recognition of talented dancers and their hard work is necessary, it is just as important to recognize the other strengths that […]

Nearly all the movement a dancer does comes from the spine. And yet, “a lot of dance training can prioritize legs, or port de bras, without addressing where those things stem from,” says Bret Easterling, who teaches Gaga and contemporary at the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. Not only is the spine “the trunk […]

Hydration is an important part of your nutrition plan. Your body relies on water as a medium to support all metabolic reactions—water cools you and even plays a role in the absorption and digestion of nutrients. But for many dance educators, staying hydrated falls to the bottom of the priority list behind tight schedules and morning […]

On any given weekday between 11:30 am and 1 pm at New York City’s Steps on Broadway, Nancy Bielski offers an advanced-intermediate professional ballet class that keeps even ballet’s biggest superstars on their toes. By the end of tendus, her students (a mix of freelance ballerinas, former professional dancers and a revolving door of off-season […]

The dance world is often viewed as something beyond the toils of day-to-day living. When dancers walk into the studio, they are expected to be totally focused, exercise self-discipline and work hard towards perfecting their craft—and leave whatever occurrences happened outside the studio behind. “Leave your problems at the door” is a phrase that most […]

For many of your students, taking dance classes is an outlet for expression. For others, the dance home you’ve helped to build is a step towards a professional performance career. But for a few, the years spent in the studio might have cultivated a passion for a different profession: teaching. But how exactly do you mentor these […]

Updated 9/29/22 This April, Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Ashton Edwards made headlines for a rare company casting: a nonbinary dancer, assigned male at birth, performing on pointe in the Swan Lake corps de ballet. More significant, perhaps, is that Edwards is not alone. Earlier this month, an article in The New York Times analyzed a new Centers for Disease Control report […]

Working with young people can be incredibly stressful. As a dance teacher, you might often take on a lot of the emotional burdens of your students, so it’s extremely hard to proactively take a step back and consider how you’re feeling on a day-to-day basis.  But practicing self-care is essential. Because when you make your mental […]

On the surface, stillness is a simple concept. To be still, you just have to stop moving. In reality, though, stillness is much more than the absence of motion—it can have a range of qualities and compositional purposes, just as movement can. And to fully tap in to the power of stillness, dancers need to […]