CREATIVE MOVEMENT
This class shares the world of dance in its most inventive and expressive forms with the student. The goal is to combine the mastery of movement with the artistry of expression without the emphasis of repetitious movement typically involved in other forms of dance. Students explore the playful, creative, physical world with limbering exercises, exposure to a wide variety of music, rhythmic play, and a cooperative learning focus. The creative play enhances the development of fine and gross motor skills as they run, skip, leap, stretch, coordinate, isolate and move to the music. Improvisation exercises emphasize the dance elements of the body, space, force, and time. This brain-compatible approach supports intellectual learning as well as the obvious physical benefits.

Creative Movement classes for ages 3-5 year olds meet once a week for 45 minutes. Creative Movement classes for 1st graders and up meet once a week for 1 hour.

Dress Code
Girls - Any color leotard, any color convertible or footless tights, bare feet, hair pulled up and away from the face.
Boys - Any color T-shirt, exercise shorts or pants that do not restrict movement. NO jeans, please.

COMPOSITION
Building on the elements of dance explored in Creative Movement, Composition students choreograph longer movement studies leading to dance compositions. Students choreograph on themselves and each other. The creative process is pivotal to the class, as students work together to create, perform, assess, and evaluate.

Composition classes for 7th graders and up meet once a week for 1 hour- 1.5 hours.

Dress Code
Girls - Any color leotard, any color convertible or footless tights, bare feet, hair pulled up and away from the face.
Boys - Any color T-shirt, exercise shorts or pants that do not restrict movement.

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Pre-Ballet - Ages 4 to Kindergarten
The Pre-Ballet program offers a creative and enjoyable introduction to dance specifically designed to bring the joy of movement and music to your children. The goal of our pre-ballet program, as well as in all classes, is to encourage self-confidence and appreciation, as well as a love for dance that will last a lifetime, whether the student goes on to study more seriously or not. These classes introduce students to the basic shapes, vocabulary, and postures of classical ballet. Coordination and motor skills become more refined as children are challenged to mold their bodies to these very specific positions. Musicality, flexibility, and dynamics of movement are stressed as the students gain more control of their bodies and learn the healthy habit of exercising at an early age.

Pre Ballet classes for ages 4 through Kindergarten meet once a week for 45 minutes.

Dress Code
Girls - Black leotard (NO skirts, please), pink tights, pink ballet shoes (preferably Capezio, Bloch, Sansha, or Leo's), hair secured in a bun. A secured headband may be worn for short hair.
Boys - White short sleeve fitted T-shirt, black fitted legging pants or black shorts with white socks, or black tights with no socks, black ballet shoes.

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Ballet - Grades 1st thru 3rd
Ballet is the foundation for all dance forms. Students may begin here with no previous training, or the preschool and kindergarden students can incorporate what they have learned in Creative Movement and Pre-Ballet and begin their formal introduction to classical ballet training. The student begins training with the emphasis on working at the barre, focusing on the muscle development that is necessary to execute basic classical movements. Center floor work is continued to develop motor skills and musicality.

Ballet classes for 1st - 3rd graders meet once a week for 1 hour.

Dress Code
Girls - black leotard (NO skirts, please), pink tights, pink split-sole ballet shoes (preferably Capezio, Bloch, Sansha, or Leo's), hair secured in a bun. A secured headband may be worn for short hair.
Boys - White short sleeve fitted T-shirt, black fitted legging pants or black shorts with white socks, or black tights with no socks, black ballet shoes.

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Ballet - Grades 3rd and up
Students may begin here with no previous training. The School's intermediate classes enter a more focused phase of classical ballet training. Students concentrate on technique and strength development. Faculty continues to guide students in proper positioning, body alignment and technical knowledge. Students at this level focus on increased center floor work, particularly in the areas of petite allegro and pirouettes. Girls begin pre-pointe exercises to strengthen their feet, ankles, and legs for future pointe work. Intermediate Level is when pointe work may be introduced. Students will begin pointe work upon approval of the instructor and/or Artistic Director. Girl's pointe work for teacher-recommended students begins at the age of 12 and up.

Ballet classes for 3rd graders and up meet twice a week for 1 hour or more as the student progresses.

Dress Code
Girls - black leotard (NO skirts, please), pink tights, pink split-sole ballet shoes (preferably Capezio, Bloch, Sansha, or Leo's), hair secured in a bun. A secured headband may be worn for short hair.
Boys - White short sleeve fitted T-shirt, black fitted legging pants or black shorts with white socks, or black tights with no socks, black ballet shoes.

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Tap - Grades 2nd and up
The discipline of tap will be used to explore rhythms, musicality, coordination and timing. This course will consist of tap technique, terminology and history. The student will explore rhythms, tap steps and combinations.

Tap technique and styles for the musical theatre are geared toward acquisition of basic concepts and skills fundamental to tap dance styles with a continuation of tap technique study emphasizing stylistic variance of tap repertory specific to the American Musical Theatre.

Ballet classes for 1st - 3rd graders meet once a week for 1 hour.

Dress Code
Girls - Any color leotard, tights, fitted jazz-style pants or shorts, hair pulled up and away from the face, and
Beginner and Adv. Beginner - Mary Jane-style tap shoes (NO split soles).
Intermediate and Advanced - black oxford-style tap shoes (NO split soles).
Boys - Any color fitted T-shirt, exercise shorts or pants that do not restrict movement, black oxford-style tap shoes. (NO split soles).

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Musical Theatre Dance - Grades 1st thru 4th
Musical Theatre Dance is a class comprised of dance techniques for the musical theatre stage. Students will explore warm-up stretches, progressions across the floor and choreography styles based in novelty jazz and ballet. During the course, students will be given roles specific to a particular musical and will learn a selection from that musical to be presented in class for Parent Observation Day. Light costuming and props will be utilized where applicable. Classical dance background is recommended.

Dress Code
Girls - Any color leotard, non-shiny tights, black jazz shoes, hair pulled up and away from face.
Boys - Any color fitted t-shirt, exercise pants or shorts that do not restrict movement, black jazz shoes.

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Jazz - Grades 5th and up
Jazz dancing has had a long and colorful evolution. Consider the many varied dance forms that have fed into jazz, making it such a rich dance medium: ballet, African dance, modern dance, show dance, theatre dance, social dance, and East Indian folk movement. Jazz has always been a reflection of the trends and temper of the times. Early in America's history, jazz music and dance had their foundations in the culture of African slaves. It wasn't until the 1920's, "the Jazz Age," that the population at large started to admire and emulate the contribution of black musicians and dancers. In the 1990's (starting with MTV's appearance on the scene in 1981), music video dancers, club dancers, and street dancers sparked a new interest in jazz, especially among young people. Today, jazz is universally recognized as a uniquely American contribution to dance art. (from "Jazz Dance Class" by Gus Giordano)

Both Jazz dance and modern dance techniques are based on the basics of the old ballet tradition, even though both forms where considered to rebellions against it. To excel in jazz dance, the dancer must master ballet techniques. Classical training not only gives the student basic vocabulary, but it also teaches discipline in the legs and feet. The essence of jazz dance is entertainment to the people of the day, a form of dancing which is easy to understand for anyone seeing it. As the famous modern choreographer and pioneer Alvin Ailey said "The dance came from the people, and should always be given back to the people."

Famous jazz dance pioneers worthy of note: Jack Cole's animalistic and explosive style which led to protégé Matt Mattox's angular and sharp technique. Just the opposite is the languid fluidity of Luigi. Also of importance is Gus Giordano's modern and yoga influenced classical jazz dance.

JAZZ CLASSES
This class includes a set center warm-up that combines ballet, modern and jazz techniques, and is designed to strengthen and increase flexibility, including stretching, plies, tendus, extensions and isolations. The warm-up is an essential part of each class.

Floor exercises continue further body placement, strengthening abdominal and lower back muscles and leg stretches.

Progressions across the floor have a specific intention and focuses on putting technique into action with a series of challenging steps, turns, and jumps that helps the dancer connect movements. It focuses on agility, style, and supports the work in the combination.

The final combination will challenge the dancer to put all the elements together with a sense of style and presentation.

The aim is to develop dancers with the freedom of movement that comes from a firm technical foundation, grace style and attitude!

Styles covered in classes include Classic Jazz, Broadway, Latin, Lyrical, and Hip Hop.

Jazz classes for 5th graders and up meet once a week for 1 hour- 1.5 hours. Additional classes are optional and available as well.

Dress Code
Girls - Any color leotard, any color non-shiny tights , fitted jazz-style pants or shorts (tights must be worn under shorts), black split-sole jazz shoes (preferably Capezio, Bloch, Sansha, or Leo's), hair pulled up and away from the face. (NO Dance Sneakers, please.)
Boys - Any color fitted T-shirt, exercise shorts or pants that do not restrict movement, black split-sole jazz shoes. (NO Dance Sneakers, please.)

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Modern - 6th grade and up
The dictionary defines Modern Dance as : A style of theatrical dance that rejects the limitations of classical ballet and favors movement deriving from the expression of inner feeling.

Developed in the early 20th century, primarily in the United States and Germany, modern dance resembled modern art and music in being experimental and revolutionary. Modern dance began at the turn of the century; its pioneers were Isadora Duncan, Loie Fuller, and Ruth St. Denis, and eventually Martha Graham, in the United States; Rudolf von Laban and Mary Wigman in Germany. Each rebelled against the rigid formalism, artifice, and superficiality of classical academic ballet and against the banality of show dancing. Each sought to inspire audiences to a new awareness of inner or outer realities, a goal shared by all subsequent modern dancers.

Leaders of this movement based their works on personal experience, using their bodies as instruments to express such emotions as passion, fear, joy, or grief. Rather than adhering to a set form and a limited range of gestures, as in ballet, the dancer created form as an outgrowth of his or her own communicative impulses. Over time, modern dance has reconciled itself to other traditional dance forms with an established and developed vocabulary. With the advent of television and improved transportation after World War II, audiences and dancers alike have benefited from a greater exposure to dance styles from all over the world. Modern Dancers today use a broader range of techniques, styles, and source materials than ever before.

MODERN CLASSES
These classes combine the fundamentals of the techniques of Martha Graham, Jose Limon, Bill Evans, and Lester Horton. It is important to acknowledge the origin of the term "modern dance," in that this dance form broke from earlier classical traditions in order to reflect the contemporary issues and artistic expressions of the time. Therefore, this class develops a training methodology which focuses on developing the "thinking" dancer, who will use his or her artistic expression and technique to express the issues and aesthetics of contemporary times.

Modern classes for 6th graders and up meet once a week for 1 hour- 1.5 hours.

Dress Code
Girls - Any color leotard, any color convertible or footless tights, bare feet, hair pulled up and away from the face.
Boys - Any color fitted T-shirt, exercise shorts or pants that do not restrict movement.

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