By Susie Davidson
Advocate Correspondent
NEWTON - “Technique without the tutus” is how Dorothy
Hershkowitz describes her
dance classes. “Find out how many different ways there are
to take a step.”
For those who are willing to test this hypothesis, and perhaps
begin a new
healthy habit, Hershkowitz is leading three ten-week sessions of
Modern Dance classes at the Leventhal-Sidman JCC, 333 Nahanton St. in Newton
Centre.
Newcomers Modern Dance, for either beginners or the more seasoned,
is running
from 7:30-9 p.m. on Monday evenings. Elementary and Intermediate,
a more
advanced session, meets from 9-10:30 a.m. on Mondays as well, and
Wednesday
Intermediate is held from 7:30-9 p.m. on Wednesday evenings.
The intermediate level classes, she explained, are for those
seeking diversity
in both the movement and the background music. Participants will
engage in
varied warm-ups, exercises where they will learn to pay attention
to breathing
and alignment, and what Hershkowitz describes as “traveling
phrases and
imagery” inherent to the dance movement. Her method, she
explains, utilizes
“dynamic, challenging combinations designed to stimulate and
exhilarate the
imagination and the body.” Attendees, she says, will
“enhance technical
strength, expand movement vocabulary and refine performance
skills.”
Hershkowitz, who also teaches Intermediate Modern at the Boston
Ballet School
in Newton on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:30-11 a.m., has been
teaching and
choreographing dance for 30 years. For 21 years, she was a member
of the Dance
Faculty at Wellesley College; she also served as Associate
Director of the
Harvard Summer Dance Center in its founding year. She has been an
Artist in
Residence at many US colleges nationwide, which include the
University of
Illinois, the University of Wisconsin, San Jose State University
and Tufts
University, and has been involved with The Dance Complex and Dance
Circle in Cambridge, the New Art Center in Newton, Concert Dance Company of
Boston, and community studios in
New York and Boston. She has received two Choreographer’s Fellowships
from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as grants from the Mass.
Cultural Council, the Mass. Artists Foundation and the National Foundation for
the Advancement in the Arts.
“In my work I integrate theatrical and musical
elements,” she said, not about
to stop there. “I have most recently evolved into
full-length dance/video
productions.”
Before moving to Boston, Dorothy studied, performed, and taught in
New York
City.
“Ballet was my first calling and time-honored
companion,” she recalled. She
began experimenting with modern dance as a college student, and
went on to
study with notable dance instructors Maria Nevelska, Maggie Black,
Martha
Graham, Merce Cunningham, Viola Farber, and Dan Wagoner. She spent
several
summers at the London School of Contemporary Dance, and performed
and taught in
a residency on the Greek Island of Paros. She went on to perform
in New York in
the Children’s Dance Theatre (Merry-Go-Rounders) and
off-Broadway musicals as
well. “These provided multiple opportunities to develop more
in the fields of
ensemble, improvisational, and technical performance,” she
said. She has
performed in works by Bill Evans, Kathy Posin, the Dance Collective,
and the
Harvard Summer Dance Center, as well as with members of the Martha
Graham
Company, the Jose Limon Dance Company, and those in her own
companies.
“Dance comes from the heart and is born in joy,” she
said. “I look forward to
sharing my passion and craft with each member of every class I
teach.”
For information on the JCC classes, please contact Silka
Rothschild at
617-558-6488. For information on the Boston Ballet School classes,
please call
617-695-6950