Teaching!

Previously she thought she was too strict to be able to be a dance teacher, but now she knows for sure that this is really the profession for her. ‘Helping others to be a better dancer, and seeing that they enjoy it – I get a kick from it.’ That’s what Anneroos de Wit (21) says; she’s a third-year student in the Bachelor of Dance in Education programme at Rotterdam Dance Academy.

There is a great demand in ‘the working field’ for well-trained dance teachers who have a feel for the steadily changing metropolitan multicultural society. In the Netherlands a dance teacher can set to work in primary and secondary education (including ‘broad schools’), in neighbourhood centres, in the educational department of a dance company, in ballet schools, in a theatre group for young people, and so on. Over a period of four years, the Bachelor of Dance in Education programme of Rotterdam Dance Academy prepares its students – both young women and men – for this. Anneroos de Wit, busy doing her third year, is one of them.

Contrary to many other young girls, Anneroos (Huizen, 11 December 1988) didn’t go to the local ballet school as a 4-year old. ‘I had some prejudices regarding dance,’ she laughs. ‘But when I went to that school along with a girlfriend, I was completely sold on it.’ She was then ‘11 or 12 years old’. After primary school Anneroos did the ‘vwo’ secondary school level in her place of birth. During the last two years of this she went to the Schakelklas in Rotterdam on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings, one of the preparatory courses of Rotterdam Dance Academy. ‘The dance programme of the Schakelklas prepares you for the auditions of the Bachelor of Dance in Education programme.’ Subsequently she took this audition – ‘also for the Bachelor of Dance programme, by the way, but the competition from candidates with much more dance experience than me was really very big’ – and she was accepted. ‘I’m still incredibly happy about it.’

You have to be well-motivated for the training to be a dance teacher, says Anneroos. ‘Because all in all, the programme is quite tough. We get many extra dance subjects, for example tap dancing and non-Western dance, and of course theory subjects such as teaching methodology and pedagogy. And we have internships. Even three, this year, including an independent internship. I’m now teaching jazz dance at a dance school in Hoogvliet, based on lesson plans I’ve drawn up myself. Really nice!’

Anneroos already has sorted out her (important) external internship, that is part of the coming fourth and last year of her study. In August and September she is going to give dance lessons for four weeks in an orphanage in South Africa, near Durban. ‘Many children there are HIV/Aids patients. I am going to investigate how I can help to make their lives a little more pleasant. A first step is to let them experience pleasure in movement. I hope to be able to conclude this project with a performance which I will create on the spot with the children.’

And after one more internship and rounding off the practice and theory subjects, Anneroos will be completely ready for ‘the working field’. If you’ve done the Bachelor of Dance in Education programme of Rotterdam Dance Academy, she tells, you are not only a teacher and a dancer, but also a creator, researcher and entrepreneur. ‘What am I going to do? Teach! In as many styles as possible and to different age groups. Where, that doesn’t matter very much to me at the moment. I feel like a world citizen.’