Dance Studio

The Carroll County Family YMCA has relocated its child care center to allow for the expansion and renovation of its Health and Wellness Center and the construction of a dance studio. The 5,500-square-foot child care facility has been set up at 2103 Sykesville Road, about a half-mile from the main YMCA building at 1719 Sykesville Road. It opened June 2. The child care program has been enlarged and now allows for the care of 100 children, up from the previous limit of 60. The YMCA is leasing the child care building, which formerly housed the child care organization Rainbows and Reasons.

The second case against Jose Anibal Macedo, the Ellicott City ballet teacher accused of sexually molesting three students, stalled yesterday afternoon over legal questions that could potentially derail the prosecution. With all witness testimony presented in a single day, lawyers haggled yesterday afternoon over a key point: whether proof of Macedo's age - he is now 42 - had been adequately offered into evidence during the prosecution's case. The point is important, lawyers said. Three of the charges require that Macedo be at least four years older than his alleged victim, a 15-year-old girl who said she was 11 and 12 when her ballet instructor touched her under her leotard and tights during her private lessons at his Baltimore National Pike dance studio, Advance Dance Academy.

Over the past decade, children, teen-agers and senior citizens in Severna Park have been swimming, meeting and painting in an old, crowded YMCA building on Baltimore-Annapolis Boulevard. But by next year, members of the growing community outside of Annapolis will have a new, $3.5 million center - complete with a therapy pool and a swimming pool, basketball and volleyball courts, dance studio and meeting rooms. Construction on the 36,000-square-foot community center began last summer, and the center has raised $2.5 million for the project, much of it in donations from residents.

In an appeal for a new trial, lawyers for Ellicott City dance teacher Jose Anibal Macedo say they have polygraph test results that show "no deception" in his denial of allegations that he tried to rape a teen-age student. The test is part of a document filed in Howard Circuit Court by Macedo's new lawyers this week to supplement legal papers filed by the 42-year-old ballet instructor's original trial lawyers. Macedo was convicted of attempted rape, child abuse and related sexual offenses in July.

An Ellicott City ballet teacher convicted of sexually abusing one of his young students during private lessons cannot teach children while he is out on bond awaiting sentencing, a Howard Circuit judge said yesterday. Judge Dennis M. Sweeney stopped short of revoking Jose Anibal Macedo's $10,000 bond and allowed the 42-year-old dance instructor to remain on home detention. Still, Sweeney said, he was concerned that Macedo was continuing to teach youths at his Baltimore National Pike dance studio.

Lawyers representing an Ellicott City ballet instructor being tried for the second time on charges he sexually assaulted one of his students said yesterday that they may call witnesses to testify about the "truthfulness" of his teen-aged accuser. Defense attorneys William C. Mulford II and Gregory P. Robinson hinted at the new strategy yesterday - a likely attempt to break the stalemate that left jurors deadlocked during the first trial last month - in arguments prior to opening statements before Howard Circuit Judge Dennis M. Sweeney.

Charles D. Zarachowicz, a dancer and dance instructor, died in an automobile accident Sunday while on vacation near St. Augustine, Fla. A resident of Southeast Baltimore, he was 67. Mr. Zarachowicz, known professionally as Charles Zara, was born and raised in Highlandtown. A graduate of Patterson High School, he began working as a secretary before breaking into modeling in his early 20s. He appeared in fashion shows and print advertisements selling a wide range of goods and services, including luggage and health spas.

Perhaps Louise Muse is part cat. That would explain why feline roles came so easily to the supple ballerina, as did her ability to fall asleep while sitting in a split, her forehead pressed to the floor. It might also explain Muse's cat-like twist and landing when a car once struck her, a move she said spared her from more severe injuries. And then there's the fact that cats, themselves, have always gravitated to Muse, sensing a kindred spirit in human form. Hundreds of devoted dance students also gravitated to Muse during her long teaching career in the studio of the late Estelle Dennis, for decades Baltimore's grande dame of ballet and modern dance.

If you've never thought much of the dance scene in the Baltimore area, this coming season is going to make you change your thinking. Along with classic traditional ballet and modern standards, this year brings a host of area premieres that feature extraordinarily physical dancing in all styles and genres from around the globe. International-caliber companies from the United States, Russia, Mexico and China will grace area stages, presenting new works and showcasing virtuoso dancers. Kicking off the season this weekend, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center presents Doug Varone and Dancers with an area premiere and the "indoor" premiere of a new work.

But for the baggy T-shirts and Lycra leotards, this could have been Pierre Duport's Baltimore dance studio of two centuries ago. The dozen dancers -- bodies perfectly erect, arms precisely held -- were carving the elaborate patterns of early 19th-century social dance around the Todd Studio at Goucher College early this week. These are the members of Choregraphie Antique, a decade-old combination of historical research project and performance troupe that reconstructs dances of the past.