Lorraine Spiegler is the Artistic Director of the CityDance School & Conservatory in the Washington D.C. area. Although the administrative offices are in Washington, D.C., there are classes at CityDance School & Conservatory at the CityDance Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, Maryland along with several program locations in D.C., Maryland and Virginia.
CityDance School & Conservatory prepares young dancers for 21st century careers. It is founded on four pillars: superlative training, a diverse curriculum, experience with the professional world, and rich performance opportunities.
CityDance’s students work with professional artists from around the world and learn a wide range of genres, all of which are rooted in a strong Vaganova ballet base. Listen to CityDance Artistic Director Lorraine Spiegler discuss her curriculum and why Vaganova is such an essential element in the Ballet Video below.
At CityDance, various genres are being taught and perfected from ballet to Bollywood, and world-class teachers, coaches and guest artists are simultaneously rehearsing and creating new work on dancers who are looking for inspiration, challenge, growth and ultimately, excellence in dance. These inspiring dance professionals are members of the full-time teaching faculty and their Resident Artists. Others come in from New York, Philadelphia and elsewhere – even as far as Brazil to teach and choreograph and share their knowledge, expertise, enthusiasm and professionalism with CityDance’s young dancers. All of their programming is centered on the one important goal of providing quality training of young dancers for professional careers in both classical ballet and contemporary forms.
CityDance School & Conservatory is not directly associated with just one professional company. Instead, they work with many! In the past two years with CityDance as the dance partner for Washington Performing Arts (WPA), CityDance enjoyed close relationships in presenting companies such as MOMIX, Koresh, Dance Theatre of Harlem and Gallim Dance, as well as the affiliated educational residencies and repertory workshops that CityDance has created that bring their young dancers into close contact with the professionals from these leading dance organizations. In many cases, their young dancers have performed alongside the professional dance artists in world class repertoire like Robert Garland’s “Gloria,” in Roni Koresh’s “Standing in Tears,” and alongside Dayton Contemporary in Robert J. Priore’s “Baiana.” CityDance focuses on quality across the board from training to performance and especially in providing these kinds of opportunities to their dancers.
Lorraine’s goals for City Dance include continuing to provide strong classical and contemporary training with world-class coaches and teachers such as Anatoli Kucheruk. Anatoli has been teaching classical ballet, variations and pas de deux to the highest level Conservatory Dancers both males and females this season. Also, as the first Ballet Master for the boy’s program, it is Lorraine’s hope that under Anatoli’s leadership the boys’ program will grow and flourish drawing even more talented boys and young men to the Conservatory. Andrea Long is another strong teacher who is currently on faculty with Dance Theatre of Harlem and associated with their partnership who Lorraine invited to join the CityDance teaching faculty this season. Michele Jimenez is another exceptional coach who joined the day program this year. These special in-studio teaching mentoring relationships impact each individual dancer as well as the overall curriculum.
Lorraine also wants to strengthen the CityDance Conservatory Alumni Initiative. In their short history, they are proud to say they have trained dancers who have been accepted to traineeships and have gone on to classical ballet companies and high-level college universities such as the Juilliard School, SUNY Purchase and Point Park University. There is a sense of community at CityDance that the students valued during their time here, and because of this they return to continue their training with CityDance when they are home. Additionally, CityDance invites them to continue performing with CityDance in their programming linked to professional companies.
The driving force behind Lorraine’s work with CityDance is the identification, nurturing and promoting of talent – in young dancers, teachers and coaches, choreographers and other dance management professionals that support CityDance’s mission. They have a special partnership with the Dance Theatre of Harlem that provides summer programming and workshops at CityDance with Dance Theatre of Harlem faculty. It offers students from the DC area the opportunity to stay local and still receive New York style summer dance quality training.
CityDance is also honored to be the dance partner of the Music Center at Strathmore. The School & Conservatory programs are surrounded by live music, daily – emanating from the five music partners – Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, National Philharmonic, Levine School of Music, Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra and InterPlay. It is a special gift for their dancers to perform to live music through their annual collaborations with the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra whose Conservatory music students parallel CityDance’s own in dance. This coming December 7, CityDance and MCYO will collaborate when their dancers perform with MYCO’s string orchestra to Piazzolla’s Fuga y Misterio in celebration of the center’s 10th anniversary on the Strathmore main stage.
As a result of CityDance’s teaching and these collaborations, students leave CityDance equipped to pursue professional careers in performance related fields such as dance education, rehearsal director, choreography, arts management and broader fields, i.e., dance anthropology/ history, sports medicine, physical therapy, neuroscience and law for the performing arts.
Although Lorraine has obviously had many proud moments in her coaching career, a couple of recent moments came to her mind as examples of her proudest moments. Last year Conservatory Dancers Ashlianne Shigley and Leonardo Moraes were being prepared for YAGP when Leonardo suffered an unexpected relapse of an injury from the fall they thought had healed. Lorraine had to rework the pas de deux in the very last minute so that Leonardo could accomplish the movement and dance. In the end, they reworked the pas de deux to accommodate the injury and it won first place in the Rhode Island regionals. In the same YAGP Regional, one of their youngest dancers who had just turned 12, Isabella Hughes, was very sick with a bad stomach flu. She had been sick the day and evening before her performances and even though she was very ill backstage, she still won the Hope award. Lorraine felt it was wonderful to have an acknowledgment that hard work and dedication to quality performance preparation over many months is not easily eclipsed by adverse circumstances. She was proud that in dealing with such adversity, they still won a first place award, although they were up against flashier bravura pas de deuxs. Resiliency is one of the most important qualities Lorraine encourages in the training of their young dance professionals and it obviously paid off.
Please post a comment if you have had any experience with CityDance School And Conservatory or Lorraine Spiegler.
If you would like additional information about CityDance School & Conservatory, check them out on their website at http://citydance.net. You could also “Like” them on Facebook (facebook.com/CityDanceEnsemble) and follow them on Twitter (twitter.com/CityDance) . Additionally, you can always call them at 202-347-3909.
