WINTER 2010 NEWS

Support ADLI Thanks to an anonymous donor, all donations made in the next year will be matched dollar for dollar. So if you've ever considered supporting ADLI, now is the time to give as your donation will immediately double in value! Give Now	Upcoming Events Residency in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Performance in Providence, Rhode Island
	Recent Happenings Residencies and Performances in New York, Louisiana, and Florida
	Founders Corner reflections and ideas from Carolyn and Julie "Part Real, Part Dream" by Julie Adams Strandberg and Carolyn Adams
	MiniConversation Q&A with Amy Burns

MiniConversation with Amy Burns

Amy Marie Burns graduated magna cum laude from Adelphi University in 2000 with a bachelor of fine arts in dance. She had the honor of working and studying with Robert Christopher, Carmen DeLavallade, Gail Gilbert, Edisa Weeks, and Rebecca Wright. Amy has danced in works by Robert Battle, Laura Bennett, Danny Grossman, Deb Meunier, and David Parsons. Amy currently works with Dancing Legacy and Fusionworks Dance Company in Rhode Island. In addition to her dance credits, Amy is a certified lactation counselor. Amy lives happily with her husband and their three little dancers in training.

Hometown: Attleboro, Massachusetts

Age started dancing: 18

When did you know that dance would play an active role in your life? I took a modern dance class at a community college as an elective and also attended an American College Dance Festival Association event at Connecticut College that same year to take classes and watch the choreography that was presented. After seeing all the performances I finally knew what I wanted to pursue in my life.

What was your most embarrassing moment as a performer? Stepping and tripping on a very long skirt and finishing the performance with it half hanging off!

One thing about dancers most people don't know? That we are not one-dimensional. That we have interests other than dance and use them to fuel our art.

Favorite non-dance activity? Reading, watching/playing football, volunteering at church, and spending time with my family.

One thing about the dance field, you'd change? I would make dance a part of the public school curriculum. As a mother of three children, I would like to see them have exposure to dance in the same way they learn about art and music in school.

What has your involvement with ADLI meant to you? It has meant working with wonderful people who have given me the opportunity to learn, collaborate, perform, and be a part of something very unique in the world of performing arts.

Last Project: Performing with Fusionworks Dance Company in southern Rhode Island.

Coming up: ADLI's Winter Minifest 2010

Upcoming Events

Residency, February 1-12, 2010 - University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
ADLI Director of Operations and Programs, Laura Bennett heads to the southwest for a Dancing Legacy residency at University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. There she will teach master classes, present an ADLI lecture-demonstration, and set Parsons Etude, based on the work of David Parsons, on UNM student dancers.
The University of New Mexico Department of Theatre & Dance Website.

Performance, March 13, 2010 - Providence, RI
ADLI hosts its annual Winter Concert at Brown University's Ashamu Dance Theatre, featuring a gathering of dancers from across Rhode Island, the northeast region, and beyond. Featured in the concert will be Dancing Legacy, the performing and teaching ensemble of American Dance Legacy Institute. Also appearing will be Dance Extension, the resident modern dance company of Brown's Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, under the artistic direction of ADLI founder, Julie Adams Strandberg.
Brown University Theatre Arts and Performance Studies Website.

Recent Happenings

Residency and Performance, July 26 - August 21, 2009 - Saratoga Springs, NY
It was another exciting summer for ADLI, dominated by its month-long residency at New York State Summer Schools of the Arts (NYSSSA) School of Dance, hosted annually at Skidmore College and the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame. Under the artistic direction of ADLI founder, Carolyn Adams, NYSSSA Dance featured several Dancing Legacy members on the faculty this summer.

Dancing Legacy performs Ballston Rag

The NYSSSA Dance Faculty and Guest Artists Concert, August 15 at the Skidmore Dance Theater, included Dancing Legacy in three dances: The show's opener, Laura Bennett's vivacious Ballston Rag, followed with captivating performances of Rainbow Etude by Donald McKayle and an excerpt of Marisa Ballaro's Vivaldi. The enthusiastically received concert also included dances by Robert Battle and Rubén Graciani, as well as premieres by Danny Grossman and Maggie Lloyd. To close the evening, Dancing Legacy joined forces with other members of the faculty for a surprise performance of Mr. Battle's Rush Hour. In an equally surprising affirmation of ADLI's mission and values, the ensemble won wild and continuous applause from students in the audience, who themselves had been learning the dance and performed it at their own showing less than a week later. It was a moment of sharing that reinforced the ADLI conviction that cultivating a common and widely accessible dance heritage brings dancers and their audiences closer together. Another highlight of ADLI's residency was Legacy Methodology workshops led by Dancing Legacy member Marisa Ballaro. Marisa worked with NYSSSA Dance students to codify ADLI's unique system for sustaining and passing on the essential elements of dances. Students learned Parsons Etude, seeking to understand and embody the key components of the distinctive style of choreographer, David Parsons.

NYSSSA Dance students perform Village Etude in a lecture demonstration

They also learned Village Etude, based on Sophie Maslow's The Village I Knew, and received online coaching from Israel from Village Etude choreographer, Deborah Friedes. Their experience culminated in a performance of both Repertory Etudes for family and friends as part of the NYSSSA Dance Student Concert on August 19 at the Skidmore College Dance Theater.
New York State Summer School of the Arts (NYSSSA) School of Dance Website

Workshop and Performance, October 2-4, 2009 - Baton Rouge, LA

ADLI's Dancing Legacy was generously hosted by members of the Louisiana Alliance for Dance in Baton Rouge in early October, as a featured guest at the Louisiana Dance Festival.

Manship Theatre, Baton Rouge - site of Louisiana Dance Festival performance

Marisa Ballaro, Laura Bennett, and Stuart Singer led workshops and taught excerpts of Repertory Etudes later performed at the Festival's Gala Concert. Audiences at the Dancing Legacy workshops included regional professional dancers, dance educators, college and high school dance students, and non-dancers. The ensemble was warmly welcomed by peers within the Louisiana dance community, and delivered infectious and stirring performances of Buraczeski Etude, Parsons Etude and Rainbow Etude.
Louisiana Alliance For Dance

Marisa Ballaro (far right) leading a workshop at Louisiana Dance Festival

Residency October 6-17 - West Palm Beach and Fort Myers, FL

Laura Bennett (right) coaching students at North Fort Myers Academy for the Arts

ADLI's Dancing Legacy was on the road again later in October, with Laura Bennett spreading the ADLI message in residencies at four regional arts schools in southern Florida. In West Palm Beach, she taught classes in technique and used ADLI's Legacy Methodology to set Repertory Etudes on 7th and 8th grade students at Bak Middle School of the Arts. In the Fort Myers area, she again taught and set Repertory Etudes on students from 7-12 grades at Cypress Lake High School Center for the Arts, Lehigh Senior High School, and North Fort Myers Academy for The Arts.

Founders Corner
reflections and ideas from Carolyn and Julie

PART REAL, PART DREAM
by Julie Adams Strandberg and Carolyn Adams
Arts Education Policy Review, Vol. 102, No.2, November/December 2000

Miss Odum smiled inwardly as she looked out at her class. She could tell that learning was going on because her students were sitting quietly at their desks with their feet together like popsicles. Some were practicing penmanship on their slates, some were reading, others were doing their sums. She could tell that the six year-olds were having trouble sitting still. The twelve-year-olds were quiet, but she knew that they too were anxious to move about - "antsy," she always thought.

Their faces were shades of beige, brown, and black, silent reflections of the ancestors whose blood coursed through their veins. Miss Odum loved them all, but Julius was special. She had great hopes and dreams for him and pushed him in his studies, bringing in extra books from home to satisfy his voracious appetite for knowledge. When he finished his studies, he would draw or write poetry. What would his life be like?

She had lived all of her life in Macon, Georgia. Now in 1901, even though slavery had been abolished for over thirty-five years, she still could not picture a future where he could fulfill all his capabilities. Would there ever be a time when he could? When she thought back on the last one hundred years, she didn't think that the next one hundred years would be enough time for this old world to so be reshaped and reorganized that he would be safe to be his best. "Perhaps two hundred years from now," she mused to herself as she walked over to ring the dismissal bell. At its sound, the children ran off, most to do chores. There were still several hours of daylight left.

The next day Miss Odum turned the comer to the schoolhouse as she had every morning for the last fifteen years. She saw gatherings of children and some individuals going off in different directions, but the schoolhouse was gone.

She went over to one of the children who looked like Julius and asked where the schoolhouse was.

"What's a schoolhouse?" he asked. "If there is no schoolhouse, where do the children go to learn?" asked Miss Odum.

"Learn what?" he asked.

"To read and write and add and subtract and to learn about history and culture," she rattled off, growing a little impatient and perplexed.

"I don't quite know what you mean," he replied. "Why don't you come with me for a while."

Miss Odum followed the boy to a big open room. There were people of all ages and colors creating pictures on large easels. The scene reminded her of paintings she had seen in old encyclopedias of artists' studios in the Italian Renaissance.

Her young companion carefully lifted the drop cloth that protected his painting to reveal the portrait of a middle-aged couple.

"This is my painting of my great-great-great grandparents, Julius and Olive Adams," explained the boy. "We are studying American history and I have created paintings and a book of poems about my family. I come here every day to work in this studio with Gardenia, who is a painter. She guides me in my painting. I also learn about being an artist, and I help her design programs for her computer graphics projects because I am very good in math."

"What is your name? What year is this? How old are you? Where did you learn to do math if there is no schoolhouse? Do all students do art or just students like you who are good at it?" Miss Odum figured she was dreaming, but thought she'd ask anyway. The questions had welled up so fast, that she forgot even to ask what a computer was.

"My name is Julius. It's July 16, 2085. I'm twelve years old. All people do art - music, theater, dancing and visual art - and people like me who really like it get to do it more often and to work alongside artists."

Just then Gardenia, who had overheard the conversation, approached Miss Odum and Julius.

"I heard you ask about the disappearance of schoolhouses," she interjected.

"About one hundred years ago people were engaged in a variety of educational experiments," she said. "Some families were teaching their children at home and taking them to educational programs at places like science museums, art galleries, and zoos. Some communities were beginning to educate the children in institutions other than the schools and integrating education into the life of the community.

"Many of those families were poor, and their public schools weren't very good, so they stopped coming to those buildings, and they were closed. The politicians began to listen to the people. Instead of focusing on buildings and institutions, they began to focus on children and families. One of the unforeseen consequences of this shift from edifices to education was that the society, which had been segregated by race and income, became much more integrated. Today, in 2085, we cannot even imagine what it must have been like when all the children in a school were of the same race or social class!"

Miss Odum thought back on her classroom of children. "This is indeed a new world," she thought.

"A few schools were kept as museums," Gardenia continued. "This was so that people could remember how children used to be taught, but most of them are now communications centers, residences, restaurants, or health and fitness centers. There are still a few old-fashioned schools in operation, if you would like to see one. They are in the communities where people do not want to mix with people who are not like them."

"No thank you," replied Miss Odum.

"I would rather follow Julius for the rest of the day."

As Miss Odum observed him, sometimes Julius worked on skills with small groups of students his own age at one of the many communications centers. Sometimes he was with people of all ages. He went to different sites to do different things. He gathered information from multiple sources--books, computers, and oral histories--and was able to communicate and share what he knew in multiple ways by writing, speaking, performing, or drawing. He often slipped in and out of different languages. Sometimes he worked alone, sometimes with an adult and sometimes in big groups. There were many public presentations and performances in a variety of venues. He participated in dance, theatre, and musical presentations for the community but there were always students who were much stronger than he in those areas, and he and Miss Odum enjoyed watching them. But when it came to visual art and poetry, Julius always shone and the others in the community recognized his special gifts.

Miss Odum allowed herself to just relax and follow Julius around. There were many strange and futuristic things that she didn't recognize, but she was most confused by two things. Julius was rarely still and in one place. Miss Odum remembered back when students sat like popsicles--with feet, not sticks, attached. Could there really be learning going on? And where were the teachers?

"They are all around," replied Julius when she inquired about the teachers. "Some of them are our guides and connect us to people who help each of us to learn what we need to know. Others, like Gardenia, are our mentors. We all have to learn to read and write and understand and make art, for example, but we don't always have to do it in the same way, at the same time, and in the same place.

"There is a story in my family about a teacher that my great-great-great grandfather had two hundred years ago in the olden days. Her name was Miss Odum and she always had time to guide him, provide him with resources, and encourage him to be all that he could be. That's what our teachers are like now."