Dance Students

SIX YOUNG dancers from Carroll County Dance Center in Sykesville are going to a New York dance studio to perform Sunday. They will be accompanied by family and friends who are eager to witness a performance that is the culmination of years of dance lessons and hours of rehearsal. Dedicated parents and dance instructors have played a key role in their success. The six 11- and 12-year-old girls - Becca Conkling, Lisa Feroli, Megan Franey, Stephanie Hettchen, Catherine Whiteford and Brittani Williams - share a devotion to dance that began as early as age 3. They take tap, ballet and jazz classes for up to 12 hours a week.

EVEN THOUGH Dianne Rosso-Freeman attended college on a teaching grant, she says she never thought she would have a career in education. She planned to teach for two years after graduation - a grant requirement - and move on to another profession. It didn't play out that way for Rosso-Freeman. In her 29th year of teaching at Glen Burnie High School, she says she would never want to teach anywhere else. The Anne Arundel County native finds herself in a win-win situation at the school. "I get to teach a wonderful group of students a subject that I love," she says.

SHOPPERS AT Carrolltown Center in Eldersburg were treated to a Christmas show by dance students of the mall's Talent Express. "We enjoy entertaining shoppers," said Terrie England, director of Talent Express. England said her show of 300 students was so large that she broke it into four shows Saturday and three shows Sunday. England's daughter Holly Belanger assisted with the show by operating the stereo mixer. The mall was filled with proud parents armed with cameras and camcorders. Many shoppers stopped to watch the dancers, who ranged from 3 to 17 years old. Dressed in colorful costumes, they performed tap, ballet, jazz, acrobatic and Hawaiian dance.

The master class is under way and Stephen Greenston roams through the small dance studio, his eyes intent on finding tiny flaws in the students' posture and technique."

With little fanfare, a long-running tribute to a pioneer Maryland dance educator celebrates its 21st birthday this weekend at Morgan State University.Eighteen dance companies from the Baltimore region and several out-of-state guests will converge at Morgan State's Murphy Fine Arts Center for a two-day event that raises money for the Dorothy P. Stanley Scholarship Fund.Sankofa Dance Theater is among the performers. The group is directed by the husband-wife team of Kauna Mujamal and Kibibi Ajanku, with assistance from their extended family.

When Sandra Woods opened her small dance center seven years ago, she hoped to attract at least 40 students, enough to cover the rent in downtown Sykesville.Her school, the Carroll County Dance Center, opened in September 1990; and by December, more than 285 dancers had signed up for classes. Her rent was covered.Since then, Woods has watched a group of children, initially interested in once-a-week creative movement classes, blossom. "And now they are talented dancers," she says.Some of them study as much as eight hours a week.

Flowers, ocean waves, sand bars and tropical island sounds transformed the basement of Kas Nakamura's Pasadena home this week, as she and four of her dance students, rehearsing for a competition in Hawaii, dramatized nature's beauty.Four women gathered in a circle for a pule, saying the Lord's Prayer in Hawaiian, then swayed their hips, made lilting hand gestures, turned in circles and formed lines, using their bodies to depict the shapes of islands, the strength of waves, the movement of sharks, the passage of a memory.

NOTE TO editor(s) and all interested parties: In a cruel twist of perversion, I shall be forced to board a plane and fly to Denver (located uncomfortably close to mountains, I've been told), where I will be subjected to a week of indoctrination by the insurance industry that will most likely make the brainwashing efforts in George Orwell's "1984" look hospitable.I offer this information to allow The Sun the luxury of preparing for my May 15 column, which will either be forwarded early (stop laughing)

Each semester, dance students at local colleges are given the opportunity to demonstrate their special talents in performance and choreography. The students at the University of Maryland Baltimore County are now presenting their program -- a group of diverse works created by faculty members, guest artists and students.The most enjoyable works were those of the guest artists: an abbreviated "Esplanade" by Paul Taylor, and "Blue Feet" by a Taylor Company alum, Karla Wolfangle.Dancers Shannon Connelly, Victoria Francese, Carrie Hammond, Adrienne McGuire and Yevgen Tseytlin turned in a spirited performance in "Esplanade."

The tropics come to Glen Burnie tonight when dance teacher Katherine Nakamura presents a tribute to America's 50th state at the North County library.Nakamura, who has taught Polynesian dance in Pasadena for 10 years, will be joined by several of her students."