Hello,
My name is Michel Maling. I live in sunny South Africa in the seaside city of Port Elizabeth.
I am a dance teacher and studio owner (Dance Dynamics Port Elizabeth). We specialize in Classical Ballet, Modern Dance, Hip Hop, Acro, and Social Ballroom. I have been dancing all my life and teaching for nearly 30 years and can’t imagine myself doing anything else.
I particularly enjoy working with younger children, which is why I started this blog. I am sure there are many other teachers of dance that find younger children very challenging. My aim is to share ideas and also tell you what has and hasn’t worked for me over the years. I believe you are never too old to learn new tricks when it comes to dancing or teaching.
I also love learning more about dance history, as I believe all students of dance should, so I explore various famous dancers’ lives and also touch on the history of some of the world’s most famous dance companies.
Please feel free to leave a comment or question below or anywhere on the site and we can share our ideas for all to see. You can also email me at michel@dancersforum.com
I trust that Dancers Forum will be a helpful resource for teachers, dance moms, dance dads, and students everywhere, and we can all learn from each other.
What a wonderful of a topic to share with all of us and to be able to share it with your family as well! Well done Michel.
Hi Michel:
What a neat website. Thought you might be interested in what I have just begun following a 50 plus career in dance I am doing weekly blogs. Right now I’m focusing on a piece that I co created with another choreographer, Louis Johnson. Here’s a link to it:
http://mostlydance.com/2018/06/08/a-chain-of-meetings-leads-to-let-my-people-go/
In addition I’ve worked with a group of domestic violence survivors and made this film and here’s a link to it.
https://vimeo.com/259920776
Congratulations on the great work you are doing in educating about dance.
Great to meet you JoAnne. Always good to have another dancer visit and share.
I am always amazed at the breadth of talent within the WA community . Just by chance, I was reviewing this website and found your post. Not only is your account of “Let My People Go” a surprise but your writing is so expressive and complete that I was mesmerized by the account of the project that you led. Thank you for sharing.
Hi Michel,
Thanks for sharing! I really like your website and your education on dance. I’m getting back into ballet after leaving it as a young child. I absolutely love it but finding a studio with adult ballet classes has been by far the hardest challenge for me. So far I have one, and I’m really trying to go on pointe one day but this studio only offers one hour-long class of ballet a week. I want to do more to really try and improve my technique and (hopefully) be able to go on pointe. Is there anything you recommend? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you so much!
Ideally, you should be having two to three lessons a week to get strong enough to go onto pointe. Maybe your teacher will let you join in with the teens if you don’t mind dancing with them. You also need to be patient and work hard as it takes time to build up the strength for pointe work.
You could also start preparing your ankles by doing lots of foot exercises each day and rises are also great for strengthening your ankles.
If you can go to a pilates class too, this will benefit you greatly, as you also need a strong core before you go onto pointe.
All the best and keep working hard at your ballet.