Dancing Into Youngsters’ Hearts, Minds

It is 30 minutes into the 45-minute dance program, and disruption, like a dry, angry wind, blows through the audience.

Marla Bingham has worked with the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre and the Joffrey Ballet. She’s performed in Broadway musicals and taught master classes for Paula Abdul’s Company Dance.

But on this Wednesday morning, she is facing her toughest critics yet--the boys of Marina West Elementary in Oxnard.

While the girls are focused on the three ballerinas and two male dancers--a preteen girl’s vision of romantic splendor in sea green satin and tulle--the fourth- through sixth-grade boys are ready to mutiny.

One sticks his fingers in his ears and rocks back and forth, trying to quell the intense headache caused by Antonio Vivaldi. Others fidget, fuss and punch one another. Teachers swoop in and pluck out the squirming, noisy offenders, separating them from the herd.

Amid the bustle and clang of cafeteria workers preparing lunch, the “touring company” of Bingham’s Thousand Oaks ballet troupe valiantly struggles to maintain a connection to children who have a lot of experience with MTV but limited exposure, if any, to classical and modern dance.

Judging by the response, the future of ballet seems on less than secure footing.

“Dance is a tough deal,” Bruno Artero, Bingham’s husband and the company’s managing director, said the day before the demonstration. “There is a lot of apprehension around it. For one, it is considered Eurocentric, and it’s seen as High Art.” By this he means it has a tradition of elitism.

“Through our school outreach program, we hope to reach the segments of the population that are underserved,” he said. “That is part of our mission statement.”

But it’s a mission that’s easier stated than accomplished.

“Girls tend to be receptive to it, but they lack experience,” he said, “while for boys, especially as they get older, there is a perception that dance is for sissies.”

Indeed, the sissy factor seems an overwhelming obstacle for many of the older boys at Marine West. When the performance is over, they shove and flail--one even barks like a seal--as they push their way out the cafeteria door.

Fifteen minutes later, the younger grades--K through 3--arrive and offer a dramatic study in contrast.

After quietly assembling in the cafeteria, they watch and listen to the introductory dance survey. The warm-up movements thrill them, but some of the words--frappe, develope, arabesque--cause young minds to wander and little bodies to follow.

Then Bingham steps to the microphone.

A Wampanoag Indian from the Mashpee tribe in Massachusetts, Bingham has created dances for the American Indian Dance Theater and incorporates many Native American themes and movements into her choreography. In March, the company will premiere “Firebird” at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. The one-act ballet is a reworking of a classic, with the original music by Stravinsky but new choreography by Bingham that draws on her Native American heritage.

She and Artero moved to Thousand Oaks from New York five years ago and formed the Marla Bingham Contemporary Ballet in 1996. Central to her mission, she says, is educational and social outreach.

Bingham--a diminutive but commanding presence--asks the pupils if any of them knows what a choreographer is. A few arms are gingerly raised. She asks if any of them has seen the movie “Toy Story.” A hundred or more arms shoot straight up. She explains that the dance they will see is based on the relationship between Woody and Bo Peep.

Two dancers, dressed as a boy and a girl doll, perform “Hoe Down,” a piece choreographed by Bingham to the music of Yo-Yo Ma. The two dancers jump, spin, hug and mug broadly. The children respond with oohs, ahs and squeals of delight at every movement and gesture. The only break in concentration comes at the end when several of the smallest kids, caught up in the excitement, try to join the dancers. They quickly come to their senses, reclaim their rightful roles as audience members; composure is restored.

Where “Hoe Down” is acrobatic, the next piece, “Amazing Grace,” is elegiac and restrained. The music is a blues-, jazz- and tribal-influenced version of the traditional spiritual. In a Native American robe, Bingham weaves modern and tribal dance movements to create a moving all-American dance. The young children are entranced.

“That’s why we like to get them early, before they become too self-conscious,” Bingham said later. “There are so many popular influences--television, music, MTV (not to mention sports)--that are distracting them at a young age.”

And many of these influences, she said, act as barriers to ballet and modern dance appreciation.

“We used to see this loss of interest with high school boys, then it was junior high school boys and now it is as young as the elementary school level,” she said.

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It is the main reason, Bingham and Artero both said, that the couple began doing school programs, competing with the smell of institutional meat wafting through the cafeteria and the milkman making the morning delivery.

“Dance can build self-confidence and pride,” said Bingham. And by combining traditional forms with contemporary social themes, dance can have relevance for all children.

“Dance can open doors and transport children. It doesn’t matter where kids come from, you can find a way to motivate them and inspire them. Even if they can’t dance, they can still feel a part of it.”

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The MBC Ballet premieres “Firebird,” a one-act ballet to music of Igor Stravinsky, with choreography by Marla Bingham, set to an original story by Andrew Roa, at Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, March 13 and 14 at 7:30 p.m. For tickets and information, call 449-2787.

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Staff writer Wendy Miller can be reached by e-mail at wendy.miller@aol.com

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