Windsor Farm Elementary didn't get the memo. They had an assembly that was pure fun.
On Wednesday, the entire student body was treated to an eye-popping display of athletic dance. The performance was by the dancers and instructors of Studio 180 Dance, located at 130 Gibralter Ave. The trio of women demonstrated that dancing is just as tough and as spectacular a sport as football, soccer or baseball.
"Our program is called 'Dance Hard, Dance Strong,' and is a message about dancers as performing athletes," said owner Katie Carpenter, 26. She was a member of The Collective in Baltimore while she earned her bachelor's degree in French and French Literature at the University of Maryland. She earned a master's degree in European policy and politics at New York University.
A native of Columbia, she fell in love with the Annapolis area and recently set up the dance studio with her younger sister, Meghan, 22, and several of Meghan's friends and classmates from the University of New Hampshire.
To perform for the awestruck students (and equally amazed teachers and administrators), the group assembled a 20-foot high rig that just barely cleared the ceiling in the school's multipurpose room.
"We bought this rig in Colorado. Four of us girls can put it up quickly," Ms. Carpenter said. She glanced at the studio manager, Jake Bernier, 24, who pretended to get busy with his sound equipment. "When we disassemble the rig, it fits right into a small SUV. At our Gibralter studio, we hang from reinforced I-beams instead of the rig."
One dancer, Brooke Bowlin, 23, was not performing. She'd hurt her foot walking - not dancing - and was wearing a cast. The other three, the Carpenters and Diana Palumbo, 24, were warming up by twisting themselves into complex shapes.
"You can dance on the floor and in the air," Ms. Carpenter told the packed room. "Aerial dances can be done with a trapeze or with fabric. Dance is a sport. It increases stamina and emphasizes all your muscle groups. Miss Meghan uses a lot of muscles and strength when she's up on the trapeze," she said as her sister began a series of heart-stopping loops on a trapeze set 10 feet above the floor.
The maneuvers were similar to what the famed high-wire circus family, the Flying Wallendas, used to do. Often, it seemed, only one toenail kept Meghan Carpenter on the bar.
"Miss Meghan's well-choreographed ballet solo on the trapeze is comparable to the efforts you put into a soccer, hockey or football game," Ms. Carpenter explained.
As Ms. Palumbo grasped a length of the blue silks hanging from the rig and began to haul herself up, high over the floor, Ms. Carpenter pointed out the dancer needed to conserve 50 percent of her strength to climb back down at the end of her performance. If she tried to slide down, she would burn her hands and feet.
Like a spider, Ms. Palumbo spun herself into two lengths of fabric, then twirled rapidly like a horizontal bobbin as the fabric unspooled from her body. The kids screamed with delight - and concern.
"Strong motor skills and explosions of power are required for a dancer's leaps, turns, jumps and lifts," Ms. Carpenter said to the roomful of upturned faces.
With her dance partners, Ms. Carpenter also performed a fun tap dance, a silly ballet complete with candy-colored tutus, and an athletic, crowd-pleasing hip-hop strut.
When she announced they'd be performing their final dance, the kids groaned "No-o-o!" in unison.
Remembering her audience, Ms. Carpenter cautioned: "Don't try to do the trapeze dance on the playground! We start our aerial dance students low to the ground. It takes years of practice before you can perform that high in the air."
"Lots of boys can try dance, too," she added.
Second-grader Kellen Zemanski, 8, wasn't so sure. He shrugged. "I don't do things like that. I do sports like soccer."
Fellow second-grader Katie Garrity, 7, loved the show. "It was cool when a dancer did a split in the silks with her feet wrapped in the fabric. I liked the hip-hop dance because they were moving fast." Katie is already a dance student at Rohanna Dance Productions.
"I liked the tap dancing and the hip-hop, too!" said Julia Amincadeh, 7.
When both girls announced they wanted to try aerial dancing, Kellen shook his head. Guess he hasn't met Peter Pan yet.
Read related story, http://www.hometownannapolis.com/vault/cgi-bin/protect/view/2008/11/02-42.HTM
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Wendi Winters is a freelance writer living on the Broadneck Peninsula. If you have a story idea or news to share, please contact her at Wendi@QuantumStep.com.
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