Pas de Deux

Pas de Deux: Creating a Parent-Toddler Dance Program
By Heidi Anne Porter
Issue 123, March/April 2004

I looked around the circle of squirming little bodies and expectant adults. They were seated on the floor, waiting patiently for me to quiet the butterflies in my stomach and start the class. My two year old leaned against me and whispered, “Let’s dance, Mommy.” I gulped, smiled bravely, and turned on the music. It was the first day of my very own dance program. After months of looking for a studio, creating activities, selecting music, practicing with my son and his friends, passing out flyers, and talking to strangers, it was time to begin.

I grew up in a dancing family—my mother gave my two sisters and me our first ballet lessons on the patio. As children, we choreographed full-length shows for neighborhood kids. We studied ballet seriously for years, and one sister became a professional ballerina. I became a special-education teacher and discovered that dancing was one of my greatest teaching tools. I used dancing to teach everything from spelling to literature to language.

I danced for joy when I found out I was pregnant, exuberantly leaping and twirling around the house as I cradled my womb. As the months passed, the spins and jumps gave way to slower, more solemn waltzes.

When I brought my son home, we resumed our pas de deux, first with him cradled in my arms, then later side by side, as he began to walk. Music on the radio would inspire one of us, and then the other would take up the invitation. Sometimes I liked just watching him dance, his face and body expressing the mood of the music.

I longed for a dance class for us to enjoy together. I found music, tumbling, gymnastics, yoga, French, and nature classes for toddlers, but no dance classes. How can that be, I thought, when dancing is such a natural form of expression? Who hasn’t been delighted to see a young one respond unselfconsciously to music?

After listening to other parents wish for the same thing, I decided to create a dance class for toddlers and their parents, one specifically designed for children aged 18 months to three years. Knowing there would be a wide difference in ability at these ages, I would keep the activities open-ended. I wanted the class to be interactive and fun, providing parents and children with a special way to play and exercise together. Not only would this encourage parents to take ideas home, extending the dancing outside the studio, but it would provide a way for me to keep my son with me while I worked.

The first class was scary, noisy, and wonderful. It felt like opening night again as I led my new students through the activities I’d spent months planning. When my son realized that the day’s class was over, his eyes filled with tears. I reassured him that we would dance with our new friends many more times, then twirled him around the empty studio, my heart leaping with joy and relief.

Teaching the class was a constant learning experience for me as I discovered what worked. Each group of parents and children taught me something new. I tried to follow a basic structure with the class, so that the children would learn the sequence of activities and know what to expect. The structure also helped me keep track of time and know when I’d need to add or drop an activity.

I designed the class to introduce basic dance concepts in a way that would promote body awareness. We warmed up, facing each other in a circle and wiggling, twisting, bending, and stretching different parts of the body. I used nursery rhymes and easy songs to help the children remember the movements.

During this part of the class, each child sat on a mat. The mats defined the space of the studio for our warmup exercises, and provided an individual place for each little body. The mats were also useful for teaching jumps. We jumped with feet touching or with feet apart, bridging the mat. In another exercise, listening to musical cues, we would jump four times, then count out four beats of music to rest. Jumping on and off the mat, moving from side to side, hopping from foot to foot—all helped develop the children’s spatial awareness. Playground balls added to the fun as we bounced and rolled on them and chased them across the floor.