Playing till the work emerges . . . . dedicated to the process

Halestone News - Works in Progress

Exciting New Classes and Inspired Teachers
Belly Dance / Zumba® / Hip-Hop / My Baby and Me

All those Halestone students who have attended our specialized weekend workshops and wished that they could study hip-hop, ethnic, or social dance styles on a weekly basis, now have their chance. This year’s Tuesday night class lineup is wide open with new dance opportunities, fantastic teachers, and fun!

What Happened To Modern Dance Classes At Halestone?!

You might be asking yourself that question if you have just read the course schedule for the coming year.  The answer is that our traditional classes providing students with an in depth study of contemporary dance as a fine art—its theory, technique, and compositional aspects—are still being offered at Halestone but now have new names: Dance Lab I, II, and III and Dance Technique for middle school and high school students. 

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It has never been easy to find labels that accurately define the ever-evolving art of contemporary dance. Ironically, the original meaning of the word modern, “of or pertaining to present and recent time”, has gotten stuck in time as a label for that period of history associated specifically with the early decades of the 20th Century.  “Modern” no longer applies to the current fine art being made in music, the visual arts, or dance.  In the past decade, especially since the turn of this new century, it has become especially noticeable that the course descriptions that colleges and performing art institutions use to label their own classes have shifted in response.  Courses that were formerly classified as “modern dance” are now given more general titles such as Technique I, II, or III, Applied Dance Study, or Technique for Dancers.

And so this year, Halestone is officially making its own shift. After all that the word “modern” has meant to us over the years—especially when it was combined with dance—it is a little sad to leave it behind. And yet, as we do, we are left with the best word of all—dance. And ultimately, that is what we do at Halestone. At Halestone, we are dancers.  Halestone’s Dance Lab and Dance Technique for dancers 3rd—12th grade will continue to serve as our core curriculum, providing exciting opportunities for students to explore their dancing lives in their own, “present time.” No matter how we choose to label our process, past, present, or future, Halestone Dance Studio is committed to providing the finest experiences in classic dance education! (classic, adj. 1. Of the first or highest quality, class, or rank.)

So Much Dance—Now More Time!

Another development you may have noticed in this year’s schedule is that classes previously scheduled for 90 minutes have been shortened to 75 minutes or even 1 hour in length.  These more economical class times are helping to keep classes affordable while also creating the space needed in the studio schedule for new classes and teachers being featured at Halestone this fall.

One last note to dancers about time: don’t be late to class! In order to make every studio moment count, Halestone teachers will start on time regardless of how many students are still lingering in the dressing room, not yet prepared for class.  Dancers should arrive 5-10 minutes early and be dressed and ready to start when class begins at the appointed time. Tardy students disrupt class by arriving late and miss the important, primary exercises designed to prepare muscles for the more strenuous, advanced work of the class in progress.

This season’s more concentrated class schedule also makes it the best time ever for dancers to embark on new dancing adventures! Dance, in all of its forms--from classical to ethnic, contemporary, social, and popular--is one of the most challenging and complete forms of physical education.  With Halestone’s class times condensed, students who have been limited to one class a week because they haven’t been able to find enough after-school or after-work time for an extra class, now have a little more wiggle room in their schedules.  This is the perfect opportunity for dancers to expand their dance training experience and end of the year, recital opportunities.  With a wide variety of class choices, Halestone’s inspired teaching staff, and the new streamlined schedule, everything is set for an exciting year of growth!

Beginning at 5:30 each Tuesday evening, dancers can liberate their cores and liven up their evenings with Belly Dance classes taught by Sandra Denius. (Order your scarves and veils at Shoe Day!) At 6:30, Sandra kicks into high gear with an hour of Zumba®.  One of the fastest-growing, dance-based fitness crazes in the country, Zumba® was created in the mid-90’s by Colombian native Alberto “Beto” Perez.  Inspired by the traditional cumbia, salsa, samba, and merengue music he grew up with, Beto paired his favorite pulsating Latin rhythms with red-hot international dance steps and Zumba® (spanish slang for “to move fast and have fun”) was born.

Then, from 7:30 to 8:30 it’s Marla Palma with a weekly dose of Hip-Hop. Drawing from her own extensive training as a dancer since the age of 3, Marla has created these classes for students who want some additional fast-paced fun being challenged by the complex muscular control and release required by this classic, 20th Century jazz-dance form.

And finally, in honor of Halestone’s 30th Anniversary, Studio Director Nancy Saylor is reviving a class concept that was originally offered to parents and their toddlers by Studio Founder, Carol Stroud Winder (then Kirgis) when she opened Halestone Dance Studio in the fall of 1978.  According to the old, News Gazette press releases, Carol styled her classes so that “parents participated as partners” with their little ones, to gain insight into methods that would help their youngsters “develop coordinated movement skills and movement creativity.” Inspired by this bit of studio history and the interest that was created by the toddler classes offered last spring by visiting artist Lydia Polhemus Hance, Nancy Saylor has fashioned her own classes for the coming year. My Baby & Me, classes for moms or dads and their toddlers, meet each Wednesday from 10:00-10:45am.  My Baby & Me classes are designed to get both children and parents dancing, so everyone should come dressed to move

For more information, see our Instructors/Staff and Course Offerings pages.