Alan Scofield

dance, master teacher, storyteller, consultant

Alan Scofield

The Little Bird Stories

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The Little Bird stories by Alan ScofieldKids are hungry for my original “Little Bird Stories”. They know that if they “make good choices” during our class time, then they will reap the reward of hearing one of my fifteen Little Bird stories at the end of my kindergarten dance classes.

So how did the Little Bird Stories begin? Ten years ago, I began to make up a story for a class full of restless rainy-day kindergartners, who needed a dose of enchantment to calm their spirits. Now, thousands of children in the Marin schools are hooked.

It began with Mama Robin building a nest and welcoming her three children into the world. Like most children, they were very different from each other. Little Bird was the curious one, always asking questions. Big Brother was the competitive one, who always wanted to be first and of course, well known. Little Sister was the family’s old soul, wise beyond her years, who loved stories. Each of them bumped into the lessons of growing up and with each story a gentle lesson was learned.

Take for instance the story: “Big Brother flies to the Moon.” In it, he asks his sister to tell everyone in the forest to gather at midnight, to watch him fly to the moon. His glorious attempt is foolish but he gives it his all, soaring upwards to a great height, only to fall from grace into a muddy lake. He gets a moment of fame but it soon fades. He despairs, until his sister confesses that he is a hero in her eyes, for trying the impossible.

For the first couple of years I thought I should name the birds, but no names stuck. I realized that a specific name would limit who they were. For these birds were every child that tries to spread their wings and learn.

The children adore and remember these fifteen stories, even to the point of asking when they are older if I still tell them. Why not? They are simple, funny and true.  Rather than blockbuster tales about super heroes, these stories celebrate the moments in life that we choose to be a hero for our self, or someone we love.

I created my Little Bird stories for children through the magic of live storytelling, but now I have written down all fifteen in a manuscript, and with luck, soon they will find their way to you in a book to be shared.

RDA Pacific Festival 2016 – An experience to treasure

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Alan and Marin ballet and utah ballet 2 RDA 2016 resized 400In 1993 Mitch Albom wrote a terrific bestseller about “The Five People You Meet in Heaven”. In it, a man passes from this world and enters heaven where he encounters five key people whose lives he touched, and by doing so, is shown his life’s meaning.

This kind of experience happened to me last week and I was right here on earth in Phoenix, Arizona! I had been invited by Debra Rogo of Mid-Columbia Ballet, to join the faculty of the Regional Dance America Pacific Dance Festival 2016, serving not only as a master teacher of musicality, but as a co-adjudicator of the Monticello award given to emerging women choreographers.

Over and over, I had the pleasure of meeting many of my former students, who introduced themselves to me and helped me recall the connection we had made and inspiration they had felt from studying with me or dancing in one of my pieces.

I met a popular guest teacher who told me that she had had an awakening to music and contemporary dance while she was in my class, that propelled her to study and become a choreographer and teacher. I met a mother I had taught who brought her daughter to my musicality class, telling her to learn everything she could in the time she had with me. And there was a young man who came up, who towered over me and said: “I was the little boy you taught in the summer workshop classes in Vacaville, California.” I smiled, remembering his keen, eager eyes.

Company directors appeared and recalled the festivals at which I’d taught, ones they had hosted. And lastly, I spoke and reflected with Gretchen Vogelzang, the president of Regional Dance America, who, many years ago was my student at Marin Ballet, the place I first introduced my course: Musicality and Performance Skills for Dancers. So many connections coming full circle.

Now, at this festival, there were 12 new companies for me to teach, each full of talented, well trained and motivated young dancers. In these sessions, the history of my musicality class, the arc of growth that had taken place from its planning at Lincoln Center, NY, to its tenure at San Francisco Ballet, Sacramento Ballet and Richmond Ballet, Virginia, and finally to this festival, became clear. There was so much instruction I had gotten rid of along the way. The ideas and exercises in my current work had become simple, clear and impactful. Musical history, imagination, melodic phrasing, time signature, tonality, texture, theme and variation, musical markings and instrumental voices were now woven together in a joyous journey of discovery.

The teaching load was dense and challenging, but I loved all of it. And each night, as I fell asleep in utter exhaustion, a wonderful kind of happiness crept over me as the smiles of the students I had taught each day swirled in my mind. The joy on their faces and the gratitude in their eyes glowed brightly. And each day, as word spread about my class, more and more people came to watch the energy and expression bursting from the students as they danced. Their enthusiasm was contagious; allowing me to conclude that dance in America will be alive and well for a very long time. I still look forward to opening many more young hearts and minds to the rich world of music, dance and performing. And that, for me, is a heavenly thought.