How Ballroom Can Improve Your Dancing in Any Style
After 11 years of dancing on world tours, award shows, film and television, Britt Stewart was ready for a new challenge. Fate was on the same page. While in rehearsal for Disneyland’s 60th anniversary, the producers of “Dancing with the Stars” saw her dance and asked her to audition for the “DWTS” Troupe, the group of professional dancers that used to perform on the show as an ensemble.
“Six months later I was on the show without any formal ballroom dance training,” she says. After immersing herself in the ballroom world, she became a “pro” on the series—paired with celebrities to compete—dazzling audiences with her character-rich choreography, magnetic performance quality and stunning lines.
Diving into ballroom dance has opened doors that Stewart hadn’t previously known were available, and subsequently brought more variety to her dancing and choreography overall. “I mean, what hasn’t ballroom benefited in my career?” Stewart says, noting her expanded musicality, broadened performance opportunities and newly nuanced partner work. She is one of the many dancers who have discovered that adding ballroom to your arsenal can enhance your dancing technically and artistically, mentally and physically.
Ballroom doesn’t follow the same training and performance pattern of commercial or concert dance. Most training is done privately with a partner and coaches, and each class generally works on a set piece of choreography. So, for example, you may work on your samba choreography for one rehearsal, and cha-cha for another. Occasionally master teachers will hold group classes with multiple couples/individuals, or dancers may attend classes called “rounds,” in which they perform all their dances with other couples in the room and receive critiques as if it were a competition.
Most ballroom dances are done in a circular, counterclockwise pattern (think ice skating) with the audience surrounding the performers on all sides. In traditional ballroom competitions, dance routines are not typically set to a specific song. Rather, the routines are performed to songs that fit the proper rhythm of the selected style. The exception to this rule is when dancers are asked to perform set choreography numbers at commercial competitions, like NUVO, for example, or on shows like “Dancing with the Stars” or “So You Think You Can Dance.”
Ballroom is also performed in various live productions (many Las Vegas shows incorporate ballroom dance), which are generally set to specific songs. Beyond these, primary performance opportunities for professional ballroom dancers are at ballroom competitions.
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OBITUARY: Prima Ballerina NaTalia Johnson
Prima ballerina and local dance conservatory founder NaTalia Johnson died unexpectedly on May 7. She was 37 years old.
Just as important as the plies and arabesques she lovingly taught them, was instilling in Black children the pride of knowing that they were just as capable of executing the moves as anyone else.
Ms. Johnson was the artistic director of the Sacramento-based Natalia Johnson Conservatory of Ballet (NJC). She was born in Lubbock, Texas on November 20, 1983 to Doris Jean Kelly-Johnson and Lenious Johnson, Sr., a business owner and one of the City’s first African American employees. She was the youngest of the couple’s four children.
Instructors knew Ms. Johnson was destined for bigger stages and cheered her on as she pursued them. At 17 years old, Ms. Johnson was offered a dance scholarship to the prestigious Juilliard School of the Arts, but instead took the opportunity to begin her professional career with the famed Dance Theatre of Harlem.
During her illustrious career, she’d also dance with Urban Ballet Theater, Ballet Noir, Ballet Lubbock, Renaissance Ballet, and Collage Dance Collective. She also studied at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. She shared her love of dance, teaching throughout the county, including at the Harlem School of the Arts in New York, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Urban Ballet Theater, Henry Street Settlement Abrons Arts Center, Debbie Allen Dance Academy and has taught and choreographed in the public school system in New York. She also taught master ballet classes throughout the country and in Europe.
She performed with notable entertainers including Aretha Franklin, Jennifer Lopez, Raven Symone, Todrick Hall, LeAnn Rimes, Tichina Arnold, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Eddie Money, Audra McDonald, and the Rev. Al Green.
While living and dancing in New York, Ms. Johnson visited Sacramento frequently, mentoring dance and gymnastics hopefuls who were participating in the National Girl’s Self-Esteem Program and its Little Miss Capital City Pageant (LMCC), run by her sister, Kandice Kelly.
Ms. Johnson retired from professional dance and relocated to Sacramento. The Natalia Johnson Conservatory of Ballet (NJC) was started in 2013. The conservatory’s offerings were also about hard work, pride and building self-esteem. Classes were open to girls and boys, complete beginners, as small as 2 years old, and more advanced dancers as well. The NJC also offered scholarships for young people who had the heart for ballet, but not necessarily the funds. Participants also performed as part of local drill team and praise dance groups. Her “baby” however was “The Nutcracker In Oak Park,” which she choreographed based on one of her favorite ballets. The show drew sold out audiences to The Guild Theater for several years.
Capital Dance Project leaps from the stage to the streets and our screens in new digital video series
Capital Dance Project company member Ava Chatterson is filmed at the 1810 Gallery for the original piece, “Wild One,” a collaboration between choreographer Julia Feldman and Sacramento artist Franceska Gamez.
From a waterfront ballet to a rose garden boogie, all of Sacramento is a stage in Capital Dance Project’s new digital dance series, which began Aug. 26.
After the company’s sixth annual Behind the Barre show—an elaborate production of visual art, dance and music—was postponed due to COVID, members reimagined the event as a virtual series of 11 new works, each showcasing a different part of Sacramento. The original performances, which are each three to seven minutes long, are released and then archived on the company’s website and Instagram every Wednesday and Saturday in September for free, with a presentation of all the vignettes, including behind-the-scenes clips and cast Q&A, available on Oct. 2.
“COVID seems like it’s not going anywhere, so we have to be more imaginative and creative in how we present our work as artists,” says dancer and Capital Dance Project co-founder Alexandra Cunningham. “We want to explore what art looks like in this new world.”
Midtown Sacramento organization aims to get students back into the arts
School children in Sacramento County will soon have access to performing arts instruction online, something that has been sorely lacking in classrooms during the pandemic.
The E. Claire Raley Studios for the Performing Arts, known as CLARA, in midtown Sacramento is gearing up to produce more classroom videos in theater, dance and music.
It is building on an instructional series produced for Sacramento City Unified schools and filling a need after limited school hours during the pandemic concentrated on core subjects like reading, writing and math.
Even as schools reopen, many students learn remotely, survey finds
“The obvious places where education got cut if you only have a limited number of hours per day is the arts,” said CLARA Executive Director Megan Wygant.
But evidence shows that performing arts learning improves grades, college graduation rates and lifelong earning power.
Dubbed the CLARA Classroom, the online lessons allow teachers at different grade levels to present lessons without being performing artists themselves.
It also gives kids tools to do activities that relieve the dreaded student screen fatigue.
“As they learn the dance moves or as they learn new music rhythms or new theater games, to close their laptops down and find people they can interact with and play with, so siblings or parents or neighbors,” said Emili Danz, the education outreach director for CLARA.
The lessons are taught by performing artists who have classroom experience — and the reviews are encouraging.
“They are loving the opportunity to move and get up and try new things and still be able to grow and express themselves, especially during the pandemic,” said teaching artist Emilee Mercado.
Since its initial offering, the CLARA Classroom has taken feedback from parents, teachers and students to heart, and their offerings this fall will now be more culturally diverse.
“We’re going to be offering a class in Bollywood dance, Afro-Caribbean movement, and also baile folklorico,” Danz told FOX40.
