A love of dance lost in all the structure
An irresistible picture often comes to mind when parents start thinking about dance classes for their little ones. For those with toddler girls, especially, ballet may signify the peak of angelic sweetness, so this vision is usually dressed in pink from head to toe, with a fluffy tutu skirt and tiny pink slippers.
I’ve had that vision, too, and I’ve acted upon it — not once, but several times, enrolling each of my three children in some kind of preschool dance class. And as a lifelong ballet lover but ambivalent dance mom, here’s my cri de coeur: Do your kids a favor and banish the thought.
Yes, there are options galore for parents looking for a dance class for their toddlers — even for babies. Dance schools will be delighted to fulfill your sparkly pink dreams. But the best dance class for a very young child looks nothing like that.
Instead, it will have no dress code. It will not demand tights or special shoes. It will offer your child a box of scarves and a wide variety of music, or maybe just drumming, or maybe the kids will make their own music with maracas and tambourines. The instructor will be open to just about anything; she will be tolerant, kind, happy to be there. She will demand little more of your child than free expression. She may also join the children, mirroring their moves, or she may simply watch what the kids come up with and cheer them on like mad.
This is the kind of dance class I was lucky to experience when I was about 3, in a neighbor lady’s basement, and I’m sure it sparked my love of the art. I remember the scarves, and waving them to the music — I literally thought of them as ocean waves, probably because the teacher, whom I adored, planted the idea. And then, what do you know? There I was, the most amazing scarf-waver she’d ever seen.
For some reason, when my own daughter was 3 or 4, I pulled up her tights and pinned back her hair and carted her off to something entirely different. It was a ballet-jazz-tap class, billed as fun and creative, but it was serious business. The kids were drilled in each genre for precisely 15 minutes, starting with ballet.
Class began like this: The students stood in rows while the teacher went around adjusting each little foot of each little child into first position. Eventually she got them all teetering in this unnatural pose, heels together, toes turned outward. After some minutes, things moved along to, oh, attempting a wobbly bending of the knees, with feet still glued to the floor in their precarious V-shape.
These were all lovely children, each one trying hard to do as instructed. Their teacher, while firm, was cheerful and endlessly patient. But who wouldn’t sympathize with her students for twisting around to shoot looks at their parents that said: Just how, exactly, does all this standing in rows add up to dancing?
I should have known better, because dance classes for my two older sons, when they were preschoolers, hadn’t gone any better. In one “creative movement” class, the teacher spent a chunk of time getting the kids to line up for the water fountain. In another, my son frequently ditched class entirely.
Children are born with the instinct to learn, which to them translates as play. Too often this comes into conflict with adult expectations at a distressingly early age. And play becomes hard work.
Ballet can be terrific fun for 6-year-olds, but it may be too boring and stifling for younger children. Very young children are likely to be happiest just running around to music and letting their imaginations fly, unbound by rules and procedures.
Let me be clear: I’m not knocking ballet or any form of dance instruction. Dance is a superb art to dive into when young, through which children — especially school-age children — can discover the amazing capabilities of their own bodies and learn about music, self-expression, discipline, confidence, poise, problem-solving. They can surprise themselves. (This happened to me: I progressed from that basement tumbling-class-fantasyland to serious ballet study, which eventually developed into a career I love.)
Yet there is such a small window of time in which kids can simply bloom.
Dance offers those precious moments of joy that the human spirit has always cherished, and it has no requirements, really.
Years ago, I was in the pediatrician’s office with my firstborn, asking the doctor how to get him to sleep through the night. I was failing miserably at a technique that basically boils down to letting your baby cry himself to sleep all alone in his crib.
It felt horrible to do that. It felt horrible not to be able to do that. Obviously, this lack of discipline was going to set the boy back for life. Right?
The doctor was quiet for a moment, looking down at the baby in my lap.
“It’s a cold, cruel world out there,” he said gently. “What’s wrong with rocking him to sleep in your arms?”
What’s wrong, indeed, with tossing technique in favor of love? With inviting children to do what comes naturally, to see life’s magic in a box of scarves, to dance their own dance?