Kyndell Goff, our Artistic Director, is incredibly creative and a dynamic teacher. For as long as I can remember she has used the term "kissing heels and bunny toes" to teach children ballet 1st position. This term became a staple in our ballet class for A Chance to Dance and was also a springboard for how to teach new dancers ballet terminology. After all, it is a completely different language- it's in French, for those of you who aren't familiar. This week it dawned on me that we are no longer using metaphoric instructions to describe ballet. Our dancers know what 1st and 2nd position are. We no longer make windows, we "demi plie". Our mice don't run up the clock- we simply have "passe".
It's easy to focus on what our dancers still have to learn and we often forget how far they have come in such a short time. I feel it is a daunting task for teenagers to learn the appropriate french terminology for ballet and yet our dancers already have a grasp on the basic ballet vocabulary. Each of our students has their own goals and their own measures of success, but as a whole, their class has progressed together in its own ways. At our performance last week, Kyndell and I fondly remembered that a year ago we had one dancer that refused to walk on to stage by herself and instead was held by her buddy for the duration of the performance. This year, Kyndell exited the stage remarking that this same student did very well and performed most of the dance. Yes, progress can be accounted for by aging & maturity, but I also believe that our students have worked hard and our Angels and Buddies have worked hard to produce what you, our audience, sees on stage.
Thank you for believing in us and helping us to remember to believe in our students abilities and recognize their accomplishments.
-Leah
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