Car­ol Quash

The ben­e­fits de­rived from dance are mul­ti­fac­eted. From its aes­thet­ic flu­id­i­ty to its abil­i­ty to cre­ate phys­i­cal, men­tal and emo­tion­al ful­fil­ment, the art form has long been a go-to from a holis­tic well­ness per­spec­tive.

For over two decades, founder and artis­tic di­rec­tor of the &5678 Dance Stu­dio, Char­lene Har­ris, has ex­pe­ri­enced first-hand the pow­er of dance—the ben­e­fits of which she has been shar­ing through her an­nu­al va­ca­tion dance pro­grammes, which be­gan on Ju­ly 13 and will run un­til Ju­ly 31 at the Carl­ton Cen­tre stu­dio in San Fer­nan­do.

Har­ris has long been a cor­ner­stone of dance ed­u­ca­tion in the south­ern city, hav­ing trained at the Caribbean School of Dance, the Dance Acad­e­my of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the pres­ti­gious Laine The­atre Arts in Ep­som, Sur­rey, Eng­land.

“I start­ed this pro­gramme in 2015, so this year is ac­tu­al­ly our 10th year,” Har­ris told Guardian Me­dia, proud­ly at­tribut­ing the suc­cess­es of many of her stu­dents to the dis­ci­pline and con­fi­dence they de­vel­oped in her stu­dio.

“Many of my stu­dents are now in lead­er­ship po­si­tions, and they have ex­celled aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly. Their par­ents have all giv­en some of the cred­it to their de­vel­op­ment through dance at &5678.”

Har­ris beamed as she re­called how it all start­ed.

“We had just moved to the Carl­ton Cen­tre. I my­self wasn’t too sure what I should be do­ing there in this whole new space, which was so beau­ti­ful.”

But that ques­tion was quick­ly an­swered when par­ents be­gan ask­ing her to do dance class­es in Ju­ly.

“I quick­ly cre­at­ed a pro­gramme… By the sec­ond year, it was a lot more struc­tured. I got peo­ple to come and start help­ing me. It wasn’t as big as it is now, be­cause we used to have it on evenings from 4-7 pm, so the kids would on­ly get three class­es an evening.”

Grad­u­al­ly, the time was ex­tend­ed to 8 pm, then even longer hours.

“And then I asked, ‘You all mind giv­ing them to me dur­ing the day? What if we do some­thing from 9 am to 1 pm, to test the wa­ters?’ And it just grew. The next thing you know, we’re there full-time, whole day, danc­ing.”

Har­ris’ aim was to de­vel­op her young stu­dents not on­ly as dancers, but as strong, dis­ci­plined in­di­vid­u­als. She con­tract­ed the ser­vices of a team of ex­pe­ri­enced dancers in their re­spec­tive gen­res, in­clud­ing T&T-born, Juil­liard-trained Ronald A Tay­lor; US-based Pene­lope Kalloo, who holds an MA in Dance Ed­u­ca­tion from NYU and is a Dhar­ma yo­ga mas­ter teacher; and Ai­ley School alum­na Hana De­long.

To­geth­er, they de­vel­oped a pro­gramme that ex­pos­es stu­dents to train­ing in a di­verse range of gen­res, in­clud­ing Limón, Hor­ton, Din­go­lay, con­tem­po­rary, bal­let, folk, hip-hop, yo­ga and Pi­lates. It was di­vid­ed in­to two cat­e­gories – Young Dancers, a post-COVID ini­tia­tive cre­at­ed specif­i­cal­ly for chil­dren aged nine to 13, which runs from 10 am to 4.30 pm; and the In­ten­sive lev­el, which runs from 9 am to 5 pm and tar­gets stu­dents of any age who have com­plet­ed Grade Five and above.

“So you’re like at an in­ter­me­di­ate lev­el of dance, be­cause there’s a de­gree of dif­fi­cul­ty that we’re go­ing to be bring­ing to the pro­gramme that we want you to keep up with. It’s not for some­body who’s been danc­ing once a week or twice a week for the last two, three years. This is for a dancer who is danc­ing five, six times a week, and you have a cou­ple gen­res un­der your belt,” Har­ris ex­plained.

She added that even though both pro­grammes have al­ready start­ed, reg­is­tra­tion is still open and par­ents have the op­tion of pay­ing week­ly.

Tay­lor, who will fo­cus sole­ly on the in­ten­sive co­hort, has in­tro­duced his sig­na­ture Din­go­lay tech­nique, which is a com­bi­na­tion of Caribbean folk, mod­ern dance and clas­si­cal bal­let.

“It’s an in­ten­sive pro­gramme, dur­ing which we de­mand re­spect, dis­ci­pline. And I al­so al­ways talk about the watch­words of Trinidad and To­ba­go: dis­ci­pline, tol­er­ance, and pro­duc­tion, all of which is need­ed in or­der for the dancer to be­come an artist,” he said.

Kalloo, a re­tired high school dance teacher, will in­cor­po­rate the heal­ing as­pect of yo­ga rou­tines in­to her class­es.

“I will be do­ing Hor­ton, even though I’m trained in oth­er styles. But this is the one I like be­cause I find that the stu­dents progress rapid­ly…But some­times dance can be very one-sided, so once you do that yo­ga Nidra or Savasana, at the end of a class, you kind of bring every­thing back. It’s al­most like you’re restor­ing the body to fac­to­ry set­ting.”

De­long is al­so a fit­ness train­er, and she be­lieves a bit of con­di­tion­ing will help her stu­dents de­vel­op as dancers.

“I’m notic­ing their up­per body strength isn’t as strong as it could be, so I think dance and con­di­tion­ing will re­al­ly be a great com­bi­na­tion for them to do. I think it’ll tough­en them up a lit­tle bit more. It’s very im­por­tant to teach chil­dren about car­ing for their bod­ies from young, that they un­der­stand how the body works. Pi­lates helps you be have bet­ter con­trol of your legs, and I think in long term, it’ll def­i­nite­ly help them.”

Har­ris as­sures that par­tic­i­pants will see im­prove­ment in their move­ment and mind­set by the end of the pro­gramme.

“It’s men­tal, it’s phys­i­cal, and it’s emo­tion­al for them. So, there’s a huge growth be­cause dance is very holis­tic.”

Par­ents and in­struc­tors, too, will get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to rev­el in their ac­com­plish­ments.

“At 5 pm on Ju­ly 31, we in­vite fam­i­lies and friends, the cheer­ing squad, to at­tend to have a grand time in­side the stu­dio as the chil­dren per­form,” Har­ris said with a chuck­le.

There are a lot more projects in the &5678 pipeline, in­clud­ing mas­ter­class­es and work­shops, and Har­ris is look­ing for­ward to see­ing her stu­dio grow fur­ther.

“I would love for us to add more gen­res to what we’re al­ready of­fer­ing.”

But more im­por­tant­ly, she wants to see what her stu­dents do with the gems they’ve picked up from the time they’ve spent un­der her team’s tute­lage.

“Be­cause once they fin­ish with my in­ten­sives and we’ve got­ten them to a cer­tain point, of course I would love for them to go abroad and ex­pe­ri­ence the world of dance there as well. “But I al­ways say, if you want to be a dancer, that’s great. If you don’t want to be a dancer, that’s still great. I just want you to be the best at what­ev­er it is you’re do­ing. I want you to be pas­sion­ate about what you’re do­ing be­cause that way you en­joy it, you in­vest in it, and I know you’re go­ing to suc­ceed at what­ev­er it is you re­al­ly set your heart to do.”