12 or 24 different dances... preparation and good habits are key!

I missed out on teaching my Adult Beginner Ballet class yesterday, and I was thrilled that my substitute was Beth Goheen. Beth is a teacher whom I first encountered while I was still a performing dancer, and I loved how her classes were always attentive to the most basic details of dance and movement.

By the time I retired from performing with Paul Taylor Dance Company, our annual New York performance seasons at City Center Theater, could cover as many as 24 different dances spread in a different combination of three or four dances for every show! And in my day, they were all dances choreographed by Taylor himself. 

Grid of Taylor dances in 2025 Lincoln Center season of PTDC, November 4-23.

Today, Taylor's dances still make up the majority of dances being performed by the company with exciting world premieres by resident and guest choreographers. 

As a ballet and modern dancer working for concert repertory companies, I was unsure of how varied the scope of Taylor's repertoire would be when I joined his company. I was not disappointed with the challenges of Taylor's many different choreographic works, all of which were created to be different from what he had done before. Dancing the range of works created as far back as 1956, through my retirement in 2008, provided a profound breadth of technical and artistic challenges that filled my fifteen years as a dancer for Paul Taylor.

Knowing how much I enjoyed being able to perform such a variety of dances upon demand was cultivated through great habits. I was privileged to have had great training to execute the most basic of physical actions as instinctive habits. These habits are the focus of my classes for the adult dancers who have found their way to join me on Tuesday evenings!

2025 screen capture from video of teaching Adult Beginner Ballet in October.

My previously mentioned experiment of videoing me teaching class has been started, and I have been able to post the videos on a YouTube channel that I share with the students in class. These are not meant as polished public clips, but more as review aids for dancers in class.

A fascinating boon for me was seeing how my exercises progressed through class in ways I had not necessarily anticipated. Back when I was still a teenager, one of my teachers took the time to explain how to build a class based on just one movement sequence (enchainment) broken down into its parts from pliés, to transference of weight, to center drills, to an adagio version, a petit allegro version, and ultimately a grand allegro version. This approach has anchored much of my teaching technique classes both in ballet and modern.

The concept of deconstructing, and building variations on the same movement phrase is also a common chreographic device, used to great effect by Taylor. Prime Numbers was created back in 1996, and two solos were built at the same time as a single sequence. Then my counterpart got to perform it to a slow adagio tune to open the dance, while I performed it much later as a quick allegro. 

1996 - Prime Numbers. Photo: Lois Greenfield

Articulation... is a good thing, especially in dance.

So... the Fall (autumn) season of dance in NYC has begun, and live audiences have an abundance of choices to make. If you have ever watched a live performance and wondered how it is possible that someone like you might be doing those amazing moves, those performers started training many years earlier. Yet you can start learning those basics in Adult Beginner dance classes, especially here in NYC! 

I love this recently published article about starting to learn ballet as an older person. Ballet at 70 ...

Every dancer eventually learns that there are infinite ways of using their feet, beyond just standing, walking and running. This is particularly true when avoiding trips, falls, sprains, and more serious injuries. Mostly, our feet are our connection to the ground, and paying attention to articulately using them builds good habits for complex choreography. 

1981 or so, a shot of my feet in rehearsals...

Indulge me for a minute when I speak about learning diction as a part of my early education under a British school system. Students started out by learning to enunciate our pronounciation of words (no matter our accent, I have a decidedly West Indian island lilt to my speech) and how words could be broken down into syllables. Ironically, I still have trouble determining how many syllables are attributed to different words, because of how my native accent might pronounce certain words. Take away from my digression, that I perceive physical articulation as akin to vocal enunciation.

Ballet is a great way to learn how to use our feet and build not only strength, but also understanding how they help us to balance and move. 

2025 candid shot of me rocking as I speak. Courtesy of my cousin, JoAnne.

As a dance teacher, I am often looking at how dancers use their feet in ads and now all over social media. 

Tiler Peck once guested with Paul Taylor Dance Company, and she is featured this season at our former home theater, City Center, while PTDC now shares her home theater at Lincoln Center! This is one of her Instagram promo reels.

Professional performers are expected to be the best of the best, and I am going to be blatantly biased as I include the preview for Paul Taylor Dance Company in their upcoming NYC season at Lincoln Center. I only ever performed with the company at City Center, but our new studios where I am teaching now lives easily within reach of both theaters. 

PTDC promo reel on Instagram.

The Taylor Center for Dance Education is filling with a huge range of dance and fitness offerings with exceptional teachers! Please come check us out on the

9th Floor, 307 W 38th Street, NYC, NY 10018, and you can sign up through 

our website Taylor Center for Dance Education