Dancers Stage Creative Lesson for Children

Seated onstage at Cal State Northridge’s Performing Arts Center on Wednesday morning, modern dance legend Bella Lewitzky tapped out a slow, steady beat as six of her dancers stretched and flexed in ways that made many audience members squirm in their seats.

This was no group of seasoned arts patrons, however. Instead, the spacious theater was filled with 500 children from five Southern California elementary schools who had come for both an artistic performance and an educational lesson.

During the hourlong presentation, members of Lewitzky’s Los Angeles-based troupe demonstrated not only their mastery of their bodies but also how they use their bodies to communicate.

“Look at this floor and think of it as a blank piece of paper,” Lewitzky told the students, encouraging them to visualize a dancer as pencil or paintbrush creating a spiral pattern with her feet.

For the students, the most impressive routine was the next exercise, in which two dancers carried their immobile colleagues across the stage to create a kind of living sculpture.

The hour concluded with two performances, “Impressions No. 2,” which used dancers to convey the images in Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings, and “Ravine,” in which dancers interpreted the graceful flow of water through a rocky channel.

Joan Boyett, who created the educational program 17 years ago at the Music Center, explained that it’s a way to bring the magic of the arts to children who might otherwise never visit the ballet or an opera.

“I think they appreciate the discipline that goes into it,” she said.