For reasons that remain mysterious, Baltimore has been unable to establish a thriving resident professional dance company on the order of the Pacific Northwest Ballet of Seattle, the San Francisco Ballet or the New York City Ballet.
So it might be natural to conclude that Charm City has made a negligible contribution to the dance world. That conclusion would be wrong.
The dance schools that serve as Baltimore’s professional training grounds are relatively young — the oldest dates back to the 1960s – but they’re now at a stage when their list of alumni performing professionally is growing quickly. Baltimore-trained dancers have recently appeared in such major troupes as the Alvin Ailey Company, the Merce Cunningham Company, Broadway’s “Fosse,” the San Francisco Ballet and the Bejart Ballet.
“In New York, when you talk to the dancers, they know Baltimore as a dance city,” said LaTrisa Harper Coleman, a Towson University graduate, Baltimore native and dancer in Broadway’s “Lion King.” They know that a lot of well trained people come out of Baltimore.”
A closer look at the lives of a few alumni helps shows what Baltimore dance teachers, choreographers and schools are doing right:
Amy Marshall
Credentials: Artistic Director of Amy Marshall Dance Company in New York City; former dancer Paul Taylor II and Parsons Dance Company.
Baltimore Training: B.A. Goucher College, 1992
An inspired teacher identified choreographic potential in Marshall that she didn’t even recognize in herself.
“Throughout her schooling here, I knew she had the ability and the drive, but she was the one with the dream,” said Amanda Thom-Woodson, who chairs Goucher College’s dance department. “No one had to push her.”
Well, not too much.
“I didn’t really want to study choreography, but it was a requirement,” Marshall said. “By senior year, Amanda was talking me into doing my own show.”
After graduation, Marshall joined the “second” company (a group of young, promising professionals) created by the legendary Paul Taylor. But she didn’t forget about choreographing, and apprenticed herself to one of the best.
“I essentially studied with Taylor for five years,” Marshall said. “I constantly said to myself, ‘Learn from this.’ “
After Marshall left Taylor II, Woodson invited her to teach and perform at the Goucher Summer Arts Institute in July 2000.
“I got together some choreography and dancers and came,” Marshall said. “Suddenly, my dancers wanted to know what we were doing next. And, I said, ‘Well, what are we doing next?’ “
Her continuing efforts to answer that question led to the creation of the Amy Marshall Dance Company earlier this year. Marshall’s choreography is based on the athletic, muscular dancers in her company. It’s not avant-garde, but dancey; emphasizing such classic qualities as long body lines and expansive movement.
The choreography reflects Marshall’s own strengths as a dancer – the ability to switch between light, suspended movement and heavier, weighted movements with no perceptible change in the flow. “Amy stood out to me as a real modern dancer,” Thom-Woodson said.
The company will perform at Goucher College in March and at the Summer Arts Institute in 2001.
Meital Waibsnaider
Credentials: Israel Ballet 1999-2000
Baltimore Training: B.A. Goucher College, 1999; Sudbrook Arts Center, 1984-1995, member Baltimore County Youth Ballet, 1990-1995
Waibsnaider is a true product of Baltimore dance – a student of various local programs from age 8 through college. Primary training came at Goucher and Sudbrook, but she also took classes at Towson University, performed with the now defunct Maryland Ballet and toured with the Washington Ballet.
The local opportunities prepared her well for the transition to the professional world. Waibsnaider said that Laura Dolid, her teacher at Sudbrook and Goucher, holds her pupils to unusually high standards at a young age. This is particularly important for future ballet dancers, a profession in which careers peak when performers are in their 20s.
“The way Laura ran rehearsals and the way we prepared for performances and productions was very professional,” Waibsnaider said. “A lot of that professionalism carried over into Goucher. The move to the company in Israel was a natural transition.”
Baltimore’s proximity to New York City makes it a favorite stop for guest artists. Miriam Madhiavani, a former New York City Ballet dancer, taught and choreographed at Goucher during Waibsnaider’s junior year and suggested that she audition for Israel Ballet. It was a liberating experience – the first time in Waibsnaider’s life that she wasn’t juggling school and ballet. She was free to just dance.
But she found that belonging to the only classical ballet company in Israel was a paradox: Israel has been Westernized and identifies with the United States, but it remains very much a part of the Middle East. “It’s still part of that region, and something like ballet is very rare to find,” she said.
Now back in Baltimore, Waibsnaider teaches and choreographs for Harford Dance Theatre. “I would love for Baltimore to become a much bigger place for dance,” Waibsnaider said. “I definitely feel a loyalty to dance here.”
Temple Kane
Credentials: Currently, Radio City Music Hall Rockette; National tours with “42nd Street” and “Will Rogers Follies”
Baltimore Training: B.A. Towson University, 1994
There’s no class called “How to be a Rockette.” Some skills can be taught, but not all. Before she got to Radio City Music Hall, Temple Kane had to vault over a few hurdles.
For instance, ballet was her first love. But her genes inclined her more for a career in basketball. At 5’10”, she’s a good three inches too tall for the current classical ideal. Once she realized that it was unlikely she’d be hired by a classical company regardless of her level of skill, she began to look for other options.
Towson University tries to train its dance students in many areas: modern, ballet, tap, jazz. Kane supplemented those lessons with voice and musical theater training.
Her versatility stood her in good stead when she auditioned for an opening in the Rockette chorus line. Members have to sing, dance, project personality and have tons of stamina. (The Rockettes do more than eight shows a week.)
And here, Kane found that being tall was a decided plus. “Being a Rockette actually emphasized my height,” she said.
One reward for hard work and passion is a job, but the Rockette receives more than a paycheck. “I’m dancing on a great stage [Radio City Music Hall],” said Kane. “You can hear children’s excitement. That’s what makes it all worthwhile.
Dion Wilson
Credentials: Currently, Dance Theatre of Harlem; Philadelphia Dance Company 1998-2000
Baltimore Training: 1996 Graduate Baltimore School of the Arts
Dance lessons can be expensive and time-consuming, which makes good training inaccessible to many. Four to five classes a week are standard for serious student dancers and can cost up to $200 a month. And that doesn’t even include pointe shoes, Band-Aids and tights. That’s why the Baltimore School of the Arts, a public high school in downtown Baltimore, is so important. It helps kids who are talented but not necessarily wealthy by providing a four-year program of intensive dance and academic training to those who meet audition standards.
Like the hero of the current film, “Billy Elliott,” Dion Wilson came to his 1991 audition with a tap routine and minimal dance training, and he was accepted based on his potential and physical abilities. “Dion has a perfect physique for dance, and once we see a kid who has that, we really target them,” said Stephanie Powell, BSA teacher.
That physique includes long, lean muscles and great flexibility from an early age.
“He was very focused on dancing,” Powell said. “At the school, he saw that he could be a ballet dancer. He could be a partner. He could be a modern dancer.”
Most dancers watch their training and careers evolve over many years. Wilson developed quickly, receiving his first professional paycheck at 17 and joining the Philadelphia Dance Company at 19.
“When you first start dancing, it’s a hobby,” Wilson said. “When you get to a professional level, it becomes more of a job – but it’s a job you like. That’s the great thing about the arts.”
Earlier this year, he joined the prestigious Dance Theatre of Harlem, one of the premier showcases for African-American dancers in the United States.
Last month Wilson performed his first lead role with Dance Theatre of Harlem in George Balanchine’s “Theme and Variations.” That would be exciting enough, but on top of that, his debut coincided with a company tour of China.
LaTrisa Harper Coleman
Credentials: Currently, “Lion King” on Broadway; Ailey II, 1996-1998
Baltimore Training: B.A. Towson University, 1996; Oakland Mills High School, 1992; Graduate, Columbia’s Royal Academy of Ballet.
LaTrisa Harper Coleman has fought – and succeeded – to retain a strong sense of herself while undergoing the rigors of dancing in New York.
That has helped her career; it’s important that she be perceived as more than just another pair of long legs and pink tights. She said it all started coming together for her when she was exposed to choreography with a spiritual emphasis while training with Stephanie Powell, and at Spirit Wings Dance Company in Upper Marlboro.
“She had a natural elegance about her,” Powell said. “And she was so serene looking. Her movement is very dynamic, clean and beautiful, but it is very streamlined, and she exudes a calmness that makes you look at her.”
Coleman hit New York after graduating from Towson University. She began as a scholarship student at the Ailey school, then joined Ailey II. But she was eager to combine singing and acting with dance, so in August 1999, she joined the chorus of “The Lion King”
The musical was a natural fit, because Garth Fagan, the “Lion King’s” renowned choreographer, encourages his dancers to express their personalities through his movement. “He cares not only about his choreography, but what you bring to it,” Coleman said.
And what Coleman brings to it depends on having a well-rounded life – one that includes spending plenty of time with her husband and pursuing one of her favorite recreational activities, swimming.
“I take class every day. I go to vocal classes. I go to rehearsals. I perform, then you try as much as you can to have a life,” Coleman said.
“It’s hard work all around. I’m having a great time.”
