Dance Program

In 2000, the British film "Billy Elliot" generated a flurry of admiration on both sides of the Atlantic. Something about this story of an 11-year-old boy, who decides to study ballet even as it makes him a major oddity in his northern England mining town, touched a nerve. Five years later, transformed into a musical with a score by Elton John, "Billy Elliot" became a runaway hit in London's West End. It went on to win a slew of Tony Awards, including Best Musical, after its 2008 Broadway premiere.

In 2000, the British film "Billy Elliot" generated a flurry of admiration on both sides of the Atlantic. Something about this story of an 11-year-old boy, who decides to study ballet even as it makes him a major oddity in his northern England mining town, touched a nerve. Five years later, transformed into a musical with a score by Elton John, "Billy Elliot" became a runaway hit in London's West End. It went on to win a slew of Tony Awards, including Best Musical, after its 2008 Broadway premiere.

The dance program at Towson State University is all-encompassing. Students are expected to study and be proficient in all forms of the art.Accordingly, the program that the TSU Dance Company presented last night at the campus Fine Arts Center contained a potpourri of styles reflecting the varied interests and talents of the student troupe.With seven premieres on the programs among eight dances shown, the 21-member company featured works from two student choreographers, Jennifer Koehler and Linda Cormier, plus offerings from artistic director Susan Leslie Grubb, managing director Dennis Price and guest choreographers Nancy Wanich Romida and Karen Mucciolo.

Most of Lutherville resident Brooke Kuhl-McClelland's day is spent in a dance studio in Howard County. When this veteran dance teacher's students give a public performance, she prefers to be off to the side - watching as her students bask in the applause. But last month the spotlight and applause were for this teacher, who instructs dance students at Hammond High School. Kuhl-McClelland's career earned her one of the four Howie Awards, handed out at the 15th annual "Celebration of the Arts in Howard County" on March 24 in the Peter and Elizabeth Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center at Howard Community College.

Count almost 300 pairs of dancing shoes tapping, whirling, leaping every week, and you'll be in the midst of the dance program of the North Carroll Recreation Council.The dance program opens spacious new quarters this fall in the North Carroll Shopping Center. The new air-conditioned studio takes the place of a pet shop between the Eastern Chinese Restaurant and the former Ames department store."The location is very good, between Hampstead and Manchester," says dance program director Michelle Stricklin.

GREAT FAMILY entertainment has been the reason for the sold-out, standing- room-only performances by the dancers in the North Carroll Recreation Council dance program.There are bouncing pre-school ballerinas in tutus, pre-teens in glitzy spangles hopping to jazz tunes and sensitively choreographed adults.Every sort of dance and melody, including cartoon tunes, are woven into a steadily building two-hour performance designed to showcase the effort of every student in the rec program.Even before the finale, when more than 300 dance students cram the stage, chances are you'll have discovered plenty of talented friends and neighbors in this annual production by dance director Michelle Stricklin.

Glen Burnie High School showcases its students' interests each semester with "An Evening of Dance." Tickets to the school's semiannual event often sell out. Saturday's affair will consist of 33 performances, many featuring some of the more than 250 students who are either enrolled in dance classes or members of the two after-school dance clubs. With 18 different sections, Glen Burnie has the state's largest dance program at a public high school. Much of the enthusiasm derives from the "Dance for the Athlete" class, which helps boys and girls develop coordination and agility for sports such as lacrosse, football and basketball.

Most of Lutherville resident Brooke Kuhl-McClelland's day is spent in a dance studio in Howard County. When this veteran dance teacher's students give a public performance, she prefers to be off to the side - watching as her students bask in the applause. But last month the spotlight and applause were for this teacher, who instructs dance students at Hammond High School. Kuhl-McClelland's career earned her one of the four Howie Awards, handed out at the 15th annual "Celebration of the Arts in Howard County" on March 24 in the Peter and Elizabeth Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center at Howard Community College.

Author to give talk on military history of St. John's College St. John's College will welcome alumna Emily Murphy, author of A Complete and Generous Education: 300 Years of Liberal Arts, St. John's College, Annapolis, who will give a free lecture at 8:15 p.m. Jan. 18 in the Francis Scott Key Auditorium. Her talk is titled "Annapolis' Other Military College: St. John's College in the 19th Century." Known as the "great books" school, St. John's also served as a private military academy, and in 1905 the War Department declared the college one of the 10 leading military colleges in the nation.

Classical Indian dance With rhythm and grace, dancers from the Natya Kala Mandir School of Indian Dance will take the stage to perform an evening of Indian classical dance (Bharatha Natyam) Saturday at the Q Theater at the Catonsville campus of the Community College of Baltimore County. Artistic director Vatsala Srinivas leads 12 dancers in 10 dances of mythological stories and dances for Krishna and other gods. Dancers, who range in age from 6 to 19, portray various characters in the dances.

Four vocalists, three instrumentalists, two dancers. That's the field competing this year for the title of Howard County's Rising Star, an honor bestowed annually at the "Celebration of the Arts in Howard County. " This year's gala, Saturday, March 24 in the Peter and Elizabeth Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center at Howard Community College, includes food, a silent auction and the announcement of the year's Howie Award recipients, chosen for their contribution to the arts community.

The Annapolis Middle School Dance Company hadn't completed its first year of existence when the big stage beckoned. Director Kendra Smith received a call last April from a national tour organization for school performers telling her that someone had anonymously nominated her troupe to perform at a college football bowl game. "You know you're calling Annapolis Middle School, right?" Smith asked, knowing that such honors are usually reserved for high school programs. But she was assured that the caller had indeed specified her group and its performance at the Anne Arundel County Public School Dance Festival in February.

Judging by Pascal Center for Performing Arts' increasing audience, the secret must be out about Anne Arundel Community College's many entertainment bargains. A range of professional-caliber entertainment was presented at bargain prices in recent weeks. 'Total Recall' On Dec. 4 and 5, the AACC Dance Company offered "Total Recall," which showcased the choreography of company members and director Lynda Fitzgerald - who established the company 20 years ago and serves as its coordinator and director.

"I'm gonna live forever. I'm gonna learn how to fly High!" - from "Fame," by Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford The biggest mystery about Bilal Smith isn't how he managed to get accepted into the Baltimore School for the Arts' highly selective dance program when he'd never taken a movement class in his entire life. The deeper question is how a kid from Baltimore's inner city first envisioned ballet as a potential career choice. Bilal, now 16 and a junior, grew up in a tough neighborhood in which residents might tolerate break-dance or hip-hop artists, but not guys in leotards.

Washington's Kennedy Center will be the first theater to present August Wilson's monumental 10-play cycle in its entirety. "August Wilson's 20th Century," a monthlong event, will take place in spring 2008. It will feature three staged readings of each play in the decade-by-decade chronicle of African-American life in the last century. "It's one piece of work in a sense," Michael M. Kaiser, Kennedy Center president, said yesterday of the cycle, which will be presented chronologically. "[It]

Mark Ryder, a retired University of Maryland dance department chairman who performed alongside Martha Graham in the 1940s, died of Alzheimer's disease Thursday at an extended-care facility near his Columbia home. He was 85. Born Sasha Liebich in Chicago, he moved to New York with his mother. Family members said that at age 12, Mr. Ryder began his dance training in the children's program at the Neighborhood Playhouse in Greenwich Village, where he was singled out by faculty member Martha Graham.

There's a sense of urgency in the midday rehearsals in the dance studio at Glen Burnie High School, where teen-age girls leap and stretch to the music of New Order."

More than 100 dance students at Glen Burnie High School will take to the school stage at 7 p.m. today in a program that ranges nTCfrom ballet, tap and jazz to '50s and Caribbean dance styles.The dancers are under the direction of teacher Diane Rosso.Highlights will include solo performances by five of Rosso's senior students: Kristen King, Wendy Robinson, Amber Hughes, Brianne Burkhead and Christine DeGuzman.A group of school sports stars will perform two dances, "Cool" from "West Side Story" and a perennial audience favorite, Rosso's "Dances for the Athlete."

When Debbie Meyers was asked to rewrite the dance performance curriculum at Howard Community College last year, she knew it was her chance to raise the bar. Meyers, who taught dance for 10 years at Towson University, joined HCC's dance faculty in 2002 as a teacher and became director in 2004. Using her experience at Towson, Meyers looked to elevate HCC's dance program by comparing it to those at four-year schools. "I developed our [program] so that our students could transfer their courses, and in essence their first two years at Howard would closely resemble their first two years at a four-year school," Meyers said.