Studio Love
February 1, 2016

We hear it said often—the dancers you meet as fellow students in your (fill in the blank: studio, summer study intensive, college dance program) will become your lifelong friends and colleagues. But the other night at the Dance Magazine Awards, it occurred to me how when we’re young, we can’t possibly know just how much potential our studio friendships hold.

You never know, for instance, when you may be called on to present an award to your oldest friend. Mikhail Baryshnikov and Karen Kain reminisced onstage about the early days after his defection, when he took class in Toronto alongside the dancers of National Ballet of Canada—including Kain, who was a principal dancer at the time. (Misha lamented that he was too short to partner her.)

We all know that magic happens in the studio. But what happens when your mother is the dance teacher? In “When Dancers Follow in Their Mothers’ Footsteps,” we talked with four educators about how their mothers influenced their career choices. And in our cover feature, “An Indian Dance Matriarchy in Minneapolis,” mother and daughter Ranee and Aparna Ramaswamy of Ragamala Dance Company, tell us what it was like to study together—not as teacher and student, but as equal colleagues.

And just as the chance to form meaningful studio relationships continues throughout a dancer’s career, so do the learning opportunities. This summer might be a good time for you to renew old bonds while also updating your teaching credentials. Check out our list of teacher training workshops for summer 2016.

Photo by Matthew Murphy

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