The Dance Studio Podcast
The Dance Studio Podcast
Competition Judging with Linda Giancaspro
Join Sally as she talks with esteemed Ballet Mistress Linda Giancaspro about what it's like to be a judge at dance competitions. Linda shares her valuable insights from her extensive experience on the art of making critiques that are both entertaining and educational. Enjoy!
Have an idea or suggestion for a future podcast? Call our voicemail:703-981-0718 or email sally at sallyballet@hotmail.com. We want to hear what you want to hear.
Sharing this podcast with other dancers, teachers, and studio owners is extremely helpful and appreciated.
How to rate and review this podcast.
Step by Step Instructions on Leaving a Review on Apple
Step One
Open the Podcasts app on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
Step Two
Navigate to the page of the podcast you want to leave a review for. You can find it by searching for The Dance Studio Podcast or selecting it from your library. Just note that you’ll have to go to the series page which shows all the episodes, not just the page for a single episode.
Step Three
Scroll down to find the subhead titled “Ratings & Reviews.”
Step Four
Under the highlighted reviews, select “Write a Review.”
Sharing this podcast with dancers, dance teachers, and studio owners is very much appreciated.
Thank you!!!
Original music and audio production provided by Jarrett Nicolay at Mixtape Studios. www.mynewmixtape.com
Welcome to the second season of the Dance Studio podcast. This podcast is for dancers, teachers, dance moms and especially dance studio owners. In the first season, we covered topics like scoliosis, eating disorders and point shoe readiness, along with several episodes on different dance career paths and awesome dance programs for you and your dance students. In the second season, you can count on hearing from Tony Award winners, american Ballet Theater teachers, competition judges and so much more. The Dance Studio podcast fans are loving the information this podcast provides. Take it from season one guest, jennifer Moleto.
Speaker 2:My name is Jen Moleto and I am a former student of Sally's, now dancing professionally at Disney. As well as teaching dance as a college professor, sally has been my mentor through my entire dance career. What I love about her and her podcast is that she is not only willing to be completely open about everything that she has learned in her career, but she is also so curious about what others have learned in their unique experience, and she wants to share all of it with her listeners. There is a reason why I have stuck with Sally all of these years she is committed to advocating for the success of the dance community. If you are a studio owner, teacher, dancer or aspiring to be any of those things, do not miss this podcast.
Speaker 1:Welcome dancers, dance moms, dance teachers and, especially, dance studio owners. Today we have my good friend and ballet mistress, linda Jean Casper, joining us on the podcast. Welcome, linda. Hello, so happy to be here. Thank you so much for being here. Our topic today is judging ballet competitions, but I'd like to start by you telling us a little bit about your dance career and how you became a ballet mistress.
Speaker 3:Ah, that's a long journey. A ballet mistress is a tough position, I think to acquire you need a lot of background in choreography and training and coaching. For my point of view, it's very interesting to see the difference between those things. And when you are ballet mistress, that is all-encompassing. That is one of the most important features your coaching technique. You're working with dancers that are at a high level. So now it comes to the next step bringing out the artistry, and that's where coaching comes in. So how?
Speaker 2:did I get there?
Speaker 3:I think that a lot of artistic people follow a path that is quite winding and sometimes you go to places and you're doing something that you never even thought about and it just leads you on an amazing road, and I think that I have just been quite lucky on my winding path. I started my own small ballet school and it stayed a ballet training school for almost its entire life. I did have to add jazz and other things to keep people coming, but it was really a ballet school, so I started my own little program. From there I was hired by St John's University and I worked on the university level for 20 years. I was there, Never thought I would be working at a university, but here I was, Very much enjoyed it and learned how to be a great teacher.
Speaker 3:When I was at St John's University and from there I was always going to Manhattan and I was very strict about my own training and taking classes with amazing teachers all over Manhattan. From there I developed a great friendship with a Madame, Nina Stroganova, from the Ballet Rousse, and I became sort of her. I would call myself almost a sidekick to her. She was a very elderly woman at the time. She took me under her wing and she would always say to me Linda, I want you to take over my classes when I am no longer here. And she taught at City Center Studios on 56th Street for many, many years and when she passed I took over because she introduced me to everyone there and she said this is my person that I want to take over. And I think that step was very important in my life because it put me in a different realm. I was working with Manhattanites and dancers of all levels at that point, you know, and not levels. It was a professional level class, but it was people who were maybe retired from dance and they're still training. It was young dancers coming into the city. So I met a lot of different people.
Speaker 3:And then I did make a move and I moved up to Connecticut and those two things put me with New England Ballet and that was where I became Ballet Mistress after I was there about a year. It was interesting because I was sort of the assistant Ballet Mistress to the Ballet Master, Steve the great Stephen Hyde, and when he was leaving I thought, oh no, this is going to be big. And I was offered the position and I knew what that was going to entail. It was going to be a 24 seven job and it was, and I did it for 17 years and I did it while I ran my own dance studio. So it was a lot. I was working seven days a week and it was 17 years of that. Okay, you know our hours are not always, you know we don't work eight hours a day all the time, although I did quite a bit for the company. But I was able to do it. I was able to swing it and I think that's how I became Ballet Mistress. That was my, my path.
Speaker 1:That's so interesting. I'm always curious about the fear factor. So this teacher at City Center Studios takes you under her wing and then when you have to teach for her, how intimidated are you.
Speaker 3:You know I'm very funny with that. I don't have a thing with that. Once I go into what I call Ms Linda mode, it's such a strong being in my personality that it just takes over. And this is something that's very interesting, perhaps, to a lot of people who run studios and who teach every day. I never plan a class, and it could be on the highest level, I don't care who I'm teaching, I don't plan it. And sometimes I could be walking to my spot and this happened to me at City Center many times where, okay, I was a little bit nervous maybe that time and I'm walking to my space and I'm like in the center of the room and I'm thinking I don't know if I have a combination, and then I just hit it and I something comes out of me and I don't know. It's just strange, it's just it's there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's all in there, but the interesting part is that you're able to think on your feet literally I do, and it's the spontaneity Sally.
Speaker 3:Spontaneity for me is a major lifeline in my teaching. If I can't be spontaneous, I don't know if I can't teach.
Speaker 1:Well, that allows you to teach the people that are actually in the room. Exactly, instead of creating a class for people who are invisible.
Speaker 3:And that's where my strength came at City Center, because I was in the room every day. I never knew who was going to show up. It's a city class. I could have had very great people. I could have had some, you know, people who were retired, who wanted to enjoy themselves, but and somehow I would shake it up and make it good for everyone.
Speaker 1:I've seen you teach Linda and you are simply fabulous. Thank you. Yes, absolutely. I've had you come and teach master classes for my students several times and I love your class. But let's talk about judging dance competitions. How did you get into that?
Speaker 3:That was again a little blip on my road of going where I'm going and I literally, you know, back in the day you sent your resume by mail, snail mail and I sent my resume to a very amazing man in the field. I didn't even know, I didn't know much about the competition world ballet people. We weren't into the competition world like that we would do, you know, performances in different places, that was our thing, you know, to gain strength as a young dancer. Now everybody's doing competition world because that's where you get a lot of stage work in. But back then I really didn't even have a hook. So I somehow it was a lucky stroke I sent my resume to dance Olympus, dance America, to the wonderful Richard DeSarno and I think he just needed a ballet person and they were.
Speaker 3:Dance Olympus was very, very loyal, as I found out years later, to their staff and they rarely bought people in and of course the old ballet people were like on staff. That was it. They were there for years and somehow somebody couldn't make it and he my resume was sitting on his desk, I guess and he called me and he was like you know, can you go to like Dallas? And I said, yeah, I can go. And then I met on that particular city. I met Sam Fiorello, who's a fantastic jazz teacher, jazz man, tap man, and he and I just connected and hit it off and he was very close to Richard and he called Richard and said you have found an angel. And I always tease, sam, because I'm like you know, you're the one who put me in this dance competition world, sam and he laughs. And then Richard just kept hiring me after that.
Speaker 1:So I don't, it was just snail mailing my resume, sally literally back then there was a stigma for serious ballet people and the competition.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Not anymore, I don't think, but they probably did need good ballet people. What do you think a person with a solid ballet background brings to the judging?
Speaker 3:Well, okay, everyone knows the big thing, we know the technique and we're going to speak about the technique and that's technique, technique, technique. It's like practice, practice, practice. But there needs to be another element, because if you just watch those dancers with that eye, you are going to be what I would consider too critical, too nitty gritty. And, after all, these people are there giving you their heart and soul, and they could be dancing a different, whole different genre than what you're used to. What I look for are people that have a line, and it doesn't have to be my line. It's someone that has been trained. I can see they're trained. It's not my training, it's someone else's world of training, but it's there, it's strong, I can put my eye on it and I can relax and watch them and enjoy the show. And that's exactly how I judge genres that are not in my world.
Speaker 3:Tap is one of them. I'm not a tapper, so I you know tap. I totally look at with that eye and I do believe that my background is so vast at this point. And I've watched. I've been doing the competition circuit for over 20 years, so I've watched a lot of different dancers with a lot of different styles and I've learned to appreciate their look, their training. But, with that said, I still have that evil eye of the ballerina where I'm looking for and I'm going to say it, the high releve. Right now, that seems to be one of the biggest things that I'm on when I'm judging.
Speaker 3:I feel, like the high releve, and it's particularly in the contemporary genre where the contemporary people seem to be taking liberty in my mind, and they're all spinning out on their heel. Now what I say is I can watch any kid in their living room spin out on their heel. A trained dancer spins on a high releve and you are on a high releve because spinning for the audience is a moment of freedom. They don't know what we're doing, but they're feeling that freedom of just spinning. And when you spin on a high releve your leg looks amazing. Your foot becomes part of your line. There's just a million reasons why you should be in a high releve and not spinning out on a heel. So I will take great pains in my critiques and constantly go over that detail.
Speaker 1:I find every place I teach if I just go up to their foot and push it higher in a high releve, they're always so surprised at how high they can go. There you go. I haven't seen that a lot of people are forcing them to get as high as they can actually be in their releve.
Speaker 3:People think about turn your hip out. I mean that's like an obsession with dancers. But the next obsession should be raise that releve. And another quick detail that I do give how do you get them to get into a high releve? Children have tightness everywhere and ballet teachers, jazz teachers were all great at stretching their legs and their backs and things like that. We need to stretch their feet, stretching underneath the toe area. That poor kid. They can't just she or he, they cannot just, you know, crunch I call it high crunching that big toe, without stretching it a little bit.
Speaker 3:they've got to give a little spread those toes, toes, so I point that out to my in my critiques to that teacher should be giving some flexibility to the toe area and with that flexibility then they can gain the strength in the foot to pull up in the high releve.
Speaker 1:You know, in the old days you were writing down your comments, but now you're actually talking them. So if you're feeling all this passion about releve and it needs to be higher and everything, how do you do that for so many hours in a row and still sound kind? You know, you don't know if the teacher is going to allow that student to hear that recording of you.
Speaker 3:Oh, I believe they are. I tell myself those children are listening.
Speaker 1:I'm almost you have to yes.
Speaker 3:I tell myself I'm teaching to the teacher and the child and possibly the mom and dad. So I speak to everyone and, sally, you don't laugh, but it's going to be. Miss Linda is in the house. If I'm sitting in that chair in that theater and I could be there, I mean I have been there from 730 in the morning till one in the morning. I've done it many times and if I'm sitting there for that long, miss Linda is in the house. My professionalism will remain with me. My voice will remain constant. I will not act like I said that before. I will say it and I will keep saying it. I try to shake it up, I try to look down a little bit and know if I'm. Oh boy, I just said that to Studio G 15 times and I know it's Studio G and, by the way, we don't know who the studios are, which is great.
Speaker 3:They just give us a letter code normally and I will make sure that Studio G is entertained but learning and feeling good about themselves throughout my critique. And how do I stay so fresh for so many hours? They do give us some breaks. And another big thing that I use to my advantage is when someone comes out or group comes out. That's really good. I regroup myself, I get excited, I try to make myself feel happier and sometimes it can be tedious. But again, if somebody comes out who's really good, they will shake my world and I'll get right back into it again.
Speaker 1:It definitely sounds grueling. That many hours and you're putting on a show in the microphone.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's how I look at it. It's another side of performance for me.
Speaker 1:It has to be. What would you say is the most challenging or most difficult part about judging a dance competition?
Speaker 3:You know I love what I do so much that I don't focus that often on what aggravates me about things. I like to work for people who treat me nicely, who act like I'm in their hands, because I am exhausted and I don't want to have to drive and get lost. You know, like when they cart me around and treat me well, I'm happy. So I think that would be the difficult thing, like when I'm lost on the road and I can't get back from the theater and it's late and I'm tired and I happen to be driving. I usually value it when I just feel like I'm being taken care of. There are some great ones out there that do that. There are many competitions at this point and there are some really good directors out there who care about the students first, then they care about the teachers because they have to those are their clients and then they really do care about us, the judges.
Speaker 1:What is your favorite part about judging?
Speaker 3:The dancers. It's intoxicating for me at this point to be able to go out there and be with the world of young dancers. So that has always been my igniting point when I'm in with dancers. They could be 3 or 33. It doesn't matter, they're all the same to me. I just I wash them into this one little dance person. I'm just so excited to be there with them, to watch them, to speak to them later.
Speaker 3:I am that weird, crazy judge who I don't even know if I'm allowed to do this. Can you believe this After all these years? I'm not even sure if I'm allowed, but I will sneak backstage, I will talk to the kids. I try to make it around so nobody thinks I'm not talking to them because I know them. I'm the ballet person so they don't bring me into their studios that often. Often they have great ballet teachers there. I do get invited, but I think for the jazz and tap people and contemporary they bring in a lot of choreographers and they know the studios that's another whole discussion of. Are you sitting in front of a judge that knows you? That's not fair, but mostly.
Speaker 2:I don't know them.
Speaker 3:So I will sneak back there and I will give them a little comment and I will say something motivating. And as I said, I am very careful about making it around to each studio so it doesn't look like I know somebody and I'm being partial, but I love that. I love getting there and smiling at the kids and talking to them a little bit. Love it, love it.
Speaker 1:I'm sure they love it yeah.
Speaker 3:And that's why, when I was younger, I would only work for competitions that hired me to teach also, so it had to be a competition and master classes. But now I'm kind of like, why don't I just go and sit the whole time I have to go and sit. So now I do work for people who hire me just to judge. Oh that's funny it was fun to be able to judge and then see them the next day in class. I mean, come on.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:For me that's like ice cream. It's wonderful.
Speaker 1:So that leads me to the question of age. Do you think that there's an age that a student shouldn't compete?
Speaker 3:You know, the old ballet mind would say eight and ten. It used to be even ten, like the big houses would only take you at ten, believe it or not. But I think the dance studio industry has turned that around because we're in business and we needed to have bodies. We couldn't be so strict and say, okay, we only take you at eight and ten. We'd lose half our business for the next five to eight years. So as dance studio owners we turned that world upside down a little bit and took in little ones. You know, everyone knows, I think that my little ballet school survived because of what I called the Beanie Baby Ballet, because everybody wants their little one to be in a two-two on that stage.
Speaker 3:They're not seeing them as jazz and tap and contemporary dancers yet. So my school stayed alive and, trust me, I was taking them much older. I think seven was my year when I first started, because I was coming from that. I was trained very strictly Vaganova with Madame Paraslavic from the American Ballet Theater and Ishvan Robofsky from the Bolshoi. So my background was you know, you will do it this way. So I started off in that tone and I started finding out I need students. So I started going younger and younger and then I came up with Beanie Baby Ballet and I turned my Beanie Baby into more of like a love you're going to love ballet program, more than training them to be in a high releve and doing all of this wonderful stuff.
Speaker 3:But I feel like studios are now having these little tiny ones, you know, really going for technique and strength. In my studio I probably would let them start around seven or eight and that would be as a soloist. Even today I don't think I'd allow a soloist to start before eight, like if you wanted to do a solo at a competition you would need to be about eight years old. For me, I would allow the littler ones to be in group numbers and they should be fun and enjoyable and theatrical.
Speaker 3:There are some great studio owners out there who are fabulously theatrical and I love it.
Speaker 1:Our studio uses Aketa software and we absolutely love it. If you want to take control of everything, from employees to parents, costume ordering to registration, try Aketa today. If you don't love it, they won't charge you a thing. Go to aketasoftwarecom, akada Softwarecom, to inquire about your free trial today. What advice would you give a dance teacher to best prepare their students for a competition?
Speaker 3:My advice is, of course, practice, practice, practice. You know rehearsal. I can tell who's put great rehearsal time in. But I also say and I'm thinking, I'm laughing to myself, thinking this is how I used to have my children perform, because, really Truthfully, my studio never went to a competition.
Speaker 3:We were in a competition studio even when I was so immersed in it. We just didn't do that. What we did was we went the old-fashioned route and we did performances in nursing homes and libraries and schools and Parks, you know, wherever you can come up with a nice venue for your students. That's where I had my students perform. So, to be on the competition stage, I would go back to that idea of bringing my students to all different places to perform and Then you know months later, okay, now we have our competition and this is after you've Donated your time to a nursing home and made those people smile, and donated your time to the library and what have you. So I feel like you're also teaching the student community awareness and You're getting stage time in. So kids need to have performance time to be a great competition dancer.
Speaker 1:That's really good advice. What advice do you have for the performer? What would you like every dancer in front of you to know?
Speaker 3:Take class and keep taking class and take class. You know, I'm gonna say at a minimum of five days a week. Well, especially if you want to be a high-level performer. If you don't, then you can take three days a week or two. If you want to just do it as a hobby, do it one.
Speaker 3:I Say take class at least five days a week, study with different people, but you need to have consistent training.
Speaker 3:I like the consistency, so you need that consistent teacher that you're with, but then go out and do extra where you're on the road, you know, seeking out other training. And then when people are with me and I'm, like you know, the guest teacher, I will tell them that you may see or hear me say different things and Especially if they're a little bit older, I'll say and if you see that it works for you, take that advice and put it in your pocket and take it out when you think you need it in different situations. Let me add to your training. I don't want to come here. I'm not changing your training, I'm adding to your training and this is what young dancers should be doing. They should be going to these competitions and trying to take the master class teachers and and going home with this stuff, not just laughing and having a blast in those big rooms because it is fun in those rooms, but take home stuff with you and you're like, oh my god, I think that really helped me with whatever it is.
Speaker 1:There is something with age, you know, going to those conferences too early. I think it when you're getting really good training, because sometimes the child is too immature and thinks that if the teacher said something a little differently, that it contradicts what their teacher says. They can't see the bigger picture.
Speaker 3:Yes, I Agree with that.
Speaker 1:There's just a maturity to all of it. I think the conferences and the competition that I like to have with my students that too young can be too much. A Little bit of overload and they can't really grasp exactly what they're being taught.
Speaker 3:I agree with that and that's why I make it a very that's a point that I will make, that if you will hear or see me Say something different, I'm going to guarantee it, but that has nothing to do with what you have been learning from your wonderful teachers. So I do I do try to point that out and that's that's important that dancers feel good about where they are, because you don't feel good about where you are you can't improve and a lot of times what you're saying doesn't contradict what the teacher's saying at all.
Speaker 1:It's more of the way it's been heard.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's true. So there is a maturity. I and when, you know, when you said the word maturity, I wanted to make a point there that isn't it wonderful in our profession that we are. We spend our time with People that would most adults would say, oh, those are a bunch of immature kids. But we never say that, or we, I? I rarely think that, because Dancers are mature, I really are. Like we demand so much Discipline from them, and I know that.
Speaker 3:You know, people often ask me how do I go in that room? And and I have known for this I can walk in and I will change the sentiment in that room, like that, when I do it, because I have a bun on, you know, my ballet bun, the way I enter, the, what I'm dressed like, and I will change that room and they will be in the palm of my hand and there they will step up. They know I'm going to start demanding discipline from them and they get maybe a little bit like, oh no, here she comes, the ballet person. I'm gonna hate this. But then I shake it up, I love it, I show another side of myself.
Speaker 3:But when I first enter I'm very clear hey, you're gonna be riding this out in my hand and I think that's a good teacher does that and then you can make it fun. It doesn't have to be all you know, like drudgery and this is too hard and it's too serious. It doesn't have to be that at all. But I try to do that, especially in the junior room, where you know you're walking in after you know a fun I'm gonna say a hip-hop class or you know something, where it's really highly energized and they take a look at me and I've seen like everybody just you know, their shoulders go down. They're like At once, and I will not allow that. I always say to myself they will not leave here remembering that other guy. They're gonna remember me.
Speaker 1:That's right, and they do yeah. I let you. I met you at a dance competition in Manhattan in New York, yeah, and I loved your class and you do do that. I mean it's very important to take charge of the room, let everybody know you're in charge and then guide them through a great time and Teach them a lot. And you do it. You do it every time, thank you. What is your feeling about competition for every student? Do you think that everyone that signs up for dance lessons should compete?
Speaker 3:I do not, I think, the schools that they have something called the competition team or the competition company. I like the reference competition company only because it sounds a little more dance world and I think that they should audition for it because, again, it's part of our world, it's what we do and you know, letting them have a taste of that is good and then putting them in the level you want them in as the professional you know, in that competition company is a good thing, but I don't think it's for every every student and it's it's a lot of that would be. It's a lot of pressure, it's a lot more. I think it should require a lot more rehearsal. A lot more training should be involved. So it's definitely not for every student in every studio.
Speaker 1:I agree we had all kinds of gates before you could compete. You had to pass certain shaketti levels and you had to be taking certain amount of classes a week, and I think it naturally keeps out the people who aren't serious, even though if they're 10, they might think they want to compete. But sometimes the teacher can be doing a disservice to a child by putting them in a competition when they're really not ready, just because mom wants them to compete or they want to compete, and then they get out there and they'll feel worse about themselves. They really need some seriously solid training and guidance Exactly.
Speaker 1:And guidance before you put them in that world.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's my opinion, yes, I agree with you, Linda.
Speaker 1:what are you working on now?
Speaker 3:Yay, I was hoping you were going to ask me that, so I am you're going to laugh when I answer. I am working on myself at the moment.
Speaker 3:Yourself, yes, and I don't say that lightly and it's become a passion of mine and you know how people are like it's all about me. Well, a little bit right now it is all about me. I've given myself so much to others for so many years that right now I am in a mode of recreating a woman who can find strength in herself. And I'm going to use physically because you know, we dancers, we are physical, that's what we do. We were physical day and night and I'm working on myself physically again to find a comfort place for me to be able to work out and maintain my strength. Because I was starting to find out that I was like kind of avoiding getting on the floor, like if something, like if I had a kneel down and crawl out to pick something up, I kind of was like avoiding it and I thought to myself, well, that's not good, I'm avoiding it because it feels hard to get up. So I'm like that is not happening here.
Speaker 3:And then I also, I would notice. As you may remember, I've lived aboard a boat for months at a time with my wonderful husband Andy.
Speaker 3:Oh, I do know, and I would watch Andy like stepping up on high things and I would think I can't step up on that. I need to help with my arms. I've got to pull myself. So I'm like I don't know. I'm losing strength here quickly and I know why I was. I'm insanely still flexible. I have a huge flexibility range and this is taking away from my strength, because dancers need both. We need strength and flexibility. So I have made it a passion of mine now to get back into training myself to be able to have all of this strength back. And while I'm working out, I still adore stretching because that comes easily to me, but I don't allow it. I stretch a bit because it's good for your muscles, but I am working on getting strength back in my thighs and I was also getting like a knee thing. Teachers might find this very interesting.
Speaker 3:I have come up with a quite a lot of exercises specifically for my knee and my knee is doing fantastic. I was having a lot yeah, I was having quite a bit of. I never had anything, never and I was doing single leg legged squats in my pool and all of a sudden I just something was wrong. I hurt my knee and I thought, well, I'll heal. You know, I was doing a single legged squat in the pool. There was no pressure on it, but I did something out of whack and for like a year it was bothering me and I'm like, oh no, I did something that day. I don't know what it was.
Speaker 3:And then while I was sitting on the floor and I noticed that that was my good knee, but that was my knee that was super hyper, extended and super flexible. And now suddenly it was like tight and I wouldn't have known that. I just was going around in pain and I wasn't really working on it until I got on the ground and said this knee has tightened up like mad. So I really it was hard, it was painful, but I went back into hyper, extending it in the back and I have found places in that knee on the sides, here and there where I can get at it in my workout and it feels almost. I mean, it's pretty much no pain.
Speaker 3:And then the other thing we have is the hip flexors are sometimes painful for people, or, right, mine are not painful, but they are loosey, goosey, they're very loose. And this is one of my problems of getting up on a high, like if you want to step up high on something that's I've been working on my hip flexors to try to gain strength and stop being able to do splits and things like that. So that's my. That's really what I'm doing right now. I happen to be working on myself.
Speaker 1:Is that part of ballet busters?
Speaker 3:It is part of ballet busters, but my ballet busters started out as my coaching mechanism with with the New England Ballet Company, where I just felt like my dancers needed. They were such bunheads and they were training five, six days a week seriously in just classical ballet and they needed to do something else. They needed core strength from a different source. So I came up with this ballet buster where you're working out really with like yoga and Pilates, and I put it on them and then after that, I started, you know, thinking I could teach this to other people, and I did, and I brought it to the competition circuit as well, and now my ballet buster is evolving a little bit into, I guess, injury prevention, maintaining strength and stability as you age also, which is very important. And, sally, right here I would like to bring up something that, since I'm one of those people that can get inspired very, very quickly and it inspired me this morning because I thought I'm going to be doing this podcast with the beautiful Sally Tierney I feel this little quote I'm going to give you represents a lot about my road that we discussed earlier, and it's coming from Kim Kardashian.
Speaker 3:I happened to be on Instagram this morning and I was just, you know, strolling around as we do, and Kim's post jumped out at me today and it said something like you sacrifice for what you want and then what you want becomes the sacrifice, and that I don't know. That just like jumped out at me and I thought, wow, that happens to be like that kind of speaks about my entire road of my career, because there was going to be no stopping me. When I was young, you know, there was no sacrifice too great taking class every day, rehearsing, and you know, like there was no sacrifice too great for me when I was a young dancer, I would have done anything to create this career. And now it is a bit of a sacrifice to keep my physicality going where I want it. And I'm going to try to go back to my early mindset of there is no sacrifice too great. You will do this.
Speaker 3:So here's my program that I've given myself. I do this workout, this ballet buster for stability, every other day and it bothers me if I miss one. I mean, you know, I'm still in that old ballet mode, mind, where you don't miss class, you never miss a plie when you're supposed to have it, so I don't miss. I do it every other day.
Speaker 1:Do you enjoy it? It sounds fun.
Speaker 3:I do. It's like after I do it I'm like why do I not want to do this? It's like I just feel so good afterwards. But you know, almost every day you're like oh great, I got to get on the floor.
Speaker 1:You're asking the question out loud that I think every single person thinks to themselves why don't I want to do the things that make me feel so fantastic? Exactly Right. We're old enough to know that we're going to feel fantastic, we know exactly the results we're going to get, and we're still kind of drag ourselves to do the things that we know are going to make us feel fantastic.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm glad, I'm not alone in that.
Speaker 1:It's the human condition, I think.
Speaker 3:Yes, I really do think it is.
Speaker 1:This episode of the Dance Studio podcast is sponsored by Body Dynamics, an experienced team focused on the many dimensions of your health, from injury prevention to rehabilitation, management to performance optimization. Your physical, mental and emotional well-being is in good hands at Body Dynamics. Located in the Washington DC metro region and offering in-person and online services, body Dynamics aims to support the whole performer. Learn more about their services, including physical therapy, dance, fitness, nutrition, counseling, backstage triage and more at BodyDynamicsInccom. That's BodyDynamicsInccom. Or find them at Body Dynamics Inc on Facebook and Instagram. See how Body Dynamics can help you dance better, faster, stronger together. Linda, this season this is the second season of the Dance Studio podcast I'm going to ask every dance teacher that I interview to share with me their very best teacher tip or trick. You can share more than one if you want, but something that you know. That is all you, and you just couldn't live without it.
Speaker 3:Okay, the first thing I'm going to go to is not physical, it's my voice.
Speaker 3:I've had people say to me oh my god, I miss that voice, or like I hear that voice and I know it immediately and my voice is a go-to for me and I learned that voice from some amazing, wonderful individuals that taught me to be who I am and one of them is Ishvan Robofsky from the Bolshoi in Kirov Ballet. He had a way about him where his voice was. You know he wasn't as loud and demanding as I am with his voice but he was funny and he made funny sounds and some of my sounds like, like, if I do that dancers know I'm extremely happy with them and that's a Mr R thing, that's my Ishvan Robofsky thing and he'll be happy to know that I use that. He's gone now but he was like a father to me but I use those kind of techniques with my students and I really motivate them through my reactions to how they're reacting to me.
Speaker 1:I've seen you do that. I do that in a different way. My students will come to me and say I miss your sound effects. I think that it's really important to keep it interesting for the students with your voice. Your voice is a huge part of teaching your personality. So and I've seen you do it, you're great at that. Thank you, do you have any others?
Speaker 3:Yes. Another tip would be and this is going to go back to where I began with that. I wanted to speak about teaching and coaching and how they're different things. The tip here is that a great teacher knows a lot of details of technique and they can just pull it out of their mind when they need it and they will help the student technically become a technician. But a coach is someone who now takes all of that technique and helps this person, who's a trained dancer, learn how to become an artist and how to nuance every single thing they do, help them nuance and make it their individuality.
Speaker 3:When we teach little ones, we teach them to be almost like soldiers. We're like really great generals and we are really good at that. We're strong and they toe the line and they dance. You know, with the core de ballet they have to look exactly alike. Now, when you're no longer part of the core de ballet and we need soloists, you need the coach to come in and finesse, and nuance is all of my students know the word nuance from very little you know, I would give them an example.
Speaker 3:I would say I came in here today with red lipstick on and that's a nuance, because you were like who is that woman with those lips? And you know that's a nuance that would capture your attention and it's very me. So I use that as an expression for them. And then I come in and then I say tomorrow I'm going to come in with no lipstick on. You're going to think, oh, this is going to be boring. So I really get that in their head and I talk about nuances to everyone.
Speaker 3:It's a very important feature for me because this is I really love that about ballet that we are. We want them to be little soldiers and then we want them to be these amazing artistic stars. Now you have to be able to do both of that for them. You have to explain it, you have to detail it, they have to be taught. Okay, every once in a while we all have that student.
Speaker 3:That is that, and we love them. They walk in the room and they just they're all about charisma and it comes naturally to them. And I know as teachers we could all name three or four or five or ten through our years of experience, but sometimes in a room, in one studio, you know, in one class there's maybe none or maybe just one. So we as teachers, we need to have every tip, every idea in our head of how we are going to be teaching technique and teaching those nuances, how to be the individual, how to be the star, and I love that. My time at New England Ballet Company for that that was a gift given to me.
Speaker 3:I think another great teaching tip is adding acting to your classes. I would do with the little ones something quite fun. I would have them leave the room and come back in in character. I would also allow them to do this, maybe in pairs, because sometimes doing it solo is a little bit scary. So they would leave the room and come back in as their favorite character and of course it's almost like you know you're doing pantomime, you're using everything but your voice.
Speaker 3:I would always go first I'd have all the kids sit in the studio and then I would leave the room and come back in in character and my character would be, let's say, cinderella. So I would have my shoe ready to fall off and I'd come in, dance around, look at the clock and have my shoe fall off and they would all scream out Cinderella and it was great fun and laughter. It really would add lots to the class. It's very enjoyable. I would try to keep it kind of serious that there's no talking while the acting is happening and I would, you know, always interject that dancers don't use their voice on stage. So we have to be great actors and actresses. We have to learn to use our body to tell the story, linda are you hireable as a coach, as a master teacher, at this point?
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, I say I'm working on myself, but I am still doing lots of different jobs where I'm out on the road, traveling, you know teaching for competitions, teaching master classes at conventions. I do a lot of guest teaching.
Speaker 1:How do people follow you? Where can they connect with you?
Speaker 3:Yes, look for my name Linda Gian Casperow. Linda L-I-N-D-A, and then, gian Casperow, you might need a pen for this one G-I-A-N-C-A-S-P-R-O.
Speaker 1:Would you ever coach anybody through Zoom?
Speaker 3:Oh yes, absolutely, and I actually. I'm sorry I forgot to say that I also do Zoom and it was even after COVID, so people were back in the studio. But I have actually taught classes for a studio on Zoom and I have taught privates on Zoom.
Speaker 1:It's easier than we thought it was going to be, isn't it?
Speaker 3:I know, and it is a great tool. Now I love it. I think it's great. I don't have a problem with it. I guess Ms Linda is a bit of an actress and I don't mind being on camera.
Speaker 1:Linda, can you please tell us all of the places that you've taught before we let you go? Yes, that would be my pleasure.
Speaker 3:I have taught at Broadway Dance Center, city Center Studios, the new dance group those were all in Manhattan also. Oh, and also Perry Dance in Manhattan. I have taught for the Sarasota Ballet Conservatory. I have taught for the Robofsky Ballet Summer Camp for quite a few seasons.
Speaker 3:I was the founder and director of my own Children's Ballet School and most notably I was ballet mistress and teacher for the New England Ballet Company where I was responsible for over 40 dancers that were in the company and it was my job to train them, get them on stage and just ready for for high-level performance. I also taught for the New York Public School System in the Bronx, and one of the most wonderful things that I've done was I was a ballet repertoire to the Madame Nina Striganova with the Joffrey Ballet Company. I was, I call myself, I was her legs. This was when I was much younger.
Speaker 3:Obviously I was the person who helped her set the ballet lay presage on the Joffrey Ballet Company. So she was invited to recreate this ballet lay presage on the Joffrey because they were doing a tribute to the ballet Rousse de Monte Carlo and she danced with them in the 1940s and she invited me to go as her legs, to be the one to be the demonstrator while she was trying to set this choreography. She was in her 80s at the time, so I'm proud of that, and that was. That was just a one-day job, but it was something that was incredibly interesting, and it was great to be with the Joffrey Ballet for the day and also to listen to her explain the details of what it was like and what the nuances were for the ballet Rousse de Monte Carlo, and this ballet called Lay Presage, and it was a ballet that was done by Leonoy Messine.
Speaker 1:Do you have someone, a protégé of your own, that you would like to follow? Take over for you someday?
Speaker 3:I think my answer to that is that I have in the past hired many of my own students and who I also brought with me to Manhattan to my teachers because I wanted people that were trained by me. But I thought, well, I'm not the be all end all, they should also go to the city to my teachers and train also with them. And I did that. So anyone who taught for me in my studio also did that along with me and it was fun. We went together to take classes and I had young girls who did that.
Speaker 3:Sadly, my studio has closed and it closed during COVID and at that point I wasn't there all the time teaching. I had my teachers there and I just said I cannot run this without me physically in the building doing this whole COVID, cleaning and COVID everything. So I made the decision to close it. So my mentoring of creating someone to take over my teaching probably is not there and I am not working with someone right now to do this road thing, although I will. I mean, I do give advice to people if they call or ask me, and that's another thing I love about social media. A lot of my former students do contact me with questions and I'm always happy to answer, so I'm there as a mentor. I think you know, if people need help in finding a job or thinking about how they could get a lead, I'm there, I'll help you.
Speaker 1:I strongly suggest that people call you and have you come into their studio, because I think that they'll be amazed what joy you bring to a ballet class. So many competition studios make their kids take ballet. It's like they have to take ballet but then they get to do all the other quote-unquote fun kinds of dancing. But you and I know ballet can be the most fun when taught and danced in the right way and you have that joy. You bring that with you. So if anybody doesn't think ballet is fun, call Ms Linda and have her come and teach at your studio and she's going to change your mind forever.
Speaker 3:Yay, I love the idea. Bravo, ms Sally Very excited and thankful for that. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for answering all of our questions about being a competition judge, and thank you so much for your time, linda. I always love talking to you and I really appreciate you being on the podcast and sharing with all of our dance teachers all of your valuable information.
Speaker 3:Thank you, sally, it was fantastic.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening and don't forget. Please rate and review this show and share it with a friend.