Hundreds of children crowded into the Ulla Muller School courtyard earlier this week, some silent, some chatting quietly amongst themselves. From the tiniest kindergartner to the worldly sixth graders, they took their seats in the rows of chairs placed in a circle around a large open space marked off with traffic cones.
Teachers, office staff, even the crossing guard joined them. The whole school was there. And they were waiting expectedly, but for what?
Not a sports event. Not a visit from a government official. Not a performance by a celebrity.
They had come to watch a small group of fifth-graders as they transformed the gritty yard into an elegant dance floor for about an hour, demonstrating what they had learned in a special 10-week course in ballroom dancing.
Katie Zaytoun, executive director of the non-profit organization Dancing Classrooms Virgin Islands, Inc., acted as emcee for the afternoon and introduced the students and the dances. The program started with the merengue, then moved into the foxtrot, the rumba, the tango, and swing.
At the end, the floor was open to all. But until then, it was a tightly organized performance that allowed the dance students to show off not only their knowledge and skill with the dance moves, but the pride, confidence, teamwork and mutual respect that the program is designed to foster.
“For a lot of people, it is about a new experience and (discovering) what they are capable of,” Zaytoun said. “It’s a very structured program. It requires a lot of teamwork and a lot of communication.”
The Ulla Muller students will have another chance to perform on April 5 when they square off in a competition with dancers from the E. Benjamin Oliver School and Yvonne E. Milliner Bowsky Elementary on stage at the Reichhold Center for the Arts. The “Colors of the Rainbow” starts at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free, seating is first come-first served, and the doors open at 5:30 p.m.
The V.I. group is affiliated with a national organization that was founded in 1994 as “Dancing Classrooms NYC” by famed dancer and instructor Pierre Dulaine and the dance partner with whom he has won a number of awards, Yvonne Marceau.
Affiliates have sprung up across the U.S. in recent years, and in at least three other countries, Canada, Israel and Switzerland, according to the Dancing Classrooms website. In the 2010-2011 school year, 42,000 students in 509 different schools participated in the program.
It was introduced in the Virgin Islands in 2009 via a pilot program on St. John. Originally sponsored by a company receiving Economic Development benefits, it is now operated under the recently formed Dancing Classrooms Virgin Islands, Inc., which is also affiliated with the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands.
Besides the schools competing next week, Zaytoun said the program has been taught at the Guy Benjamin, Julius Sprauve and Gifft Hill Schools on St. John and at the Antilles School and the Peter Gruber International Academy/Montessori School on St. Thomas. A class is just beginning at the Bertha C. Boschulte School. All together, Dancing Classrooms has reached about 300 students this school year.
“It’s been a very organic process” choosing schools for the program, Zaytoun said.
In a sense, the school picks the program as much as the organization picks the school, she said, because the program is a partnership involving students, administrators and teachers. Teachers, in fact, must actively participate in the course along with the Dancing Classrooms instructor and the students. Each 10-week course costs about $3,000, and the school is expected to fund half of the cost, so it is vested in the course.
Besides promoting social awareness and self-esteem in the students, the program is designed to “build community,” she said.
It’s also integrated with other subjects. Students not only learn the tango, they learn a little geography and history about the country of its origin and the geometry of the shapes they trace with their feet. They are required to write about the experience and encouraged to use dance as inspiration for writing poetry and prose. The opportunities for crossover learning are “limitless,” she said.
With a background in both dance and education, Zaytoun is both executive director of the program and one of its teachers. There are also two instructors on St. John and two on St. Thomas.
The two for St. Thomas, Jessica Alvarado and Derrick Evans, were at the Ulla Muller event. Both went last year to Los Angeles for training in the program.
“This was the last year Pierre (Dulaine) was doing it himself,” said Alvarado, explaining why the opportunity was so special.
Alvarado said her background is in ballet. She met Zaytoun last year when she participated in a Pistarckle Theater production of “Cabaret” and learned about Dancing Classrooms.
Evans has extensive experience with various different types of dance. A V.I. native, he said he got his start at the St. Thomas School of Dance. After earning a degree stateside, he pursued his dance career for a number of years, including a stint with Michael Jackson in New York and work for dance companies in Chicago before he returned home.
All the St. Thomas schools that participated this year are having in-school performances like the one at Ulla Muller. They may prove helpful warm-ups for the "Colors of the Rainbow" at the Reichhold Friday night.
