Not one teacher but a team: how IDC guides a child

When parents choose serious development in dance for their child, logistics usually begin: dance here, acrobatics at the other end of town, acting or singing somewhere else again. Each teacher sees the child once a week and has no idea what happens in the other lessons.

At IDC we have brought all of this into one place — and, crucially, into one team. A child is worked with not by one teacher but by several specialists sharing a single plan: everyone knows which competition or concert we are preparing for, what stage of development the child is at, where their strengths are and where we need to push.

What it really looks like: Liza's case

Yelyzaveta Sahalai is seven years old, and this summer she brought home three gold medals from the Dance World Cup in Dublin. Behind every one of them is the work of a team.

The physical base. Liza has been training since she was three, so her body is ready for any movement vocabulary her teacher wants to give her. This is the foundation without which nothing else works.

Acrobatics. Flips, somersaults, cartwheels — a complex and potentially dangerous business, so the tricks are drilled individually with an acrobatics coach. A thousand times on the mats, so that on the thousand and first it is perfect and there is no injury in the dance.

Acting. Every competition routine is a story with a meaning. If a child does not understand what they are dancing about and cannot convey it through emotion, then the judge seeing the routine for the first time will not see it either. So separate lessons are devoted to living and showing emotion.

Splits and work in pairs and trios. Synchronicity and cohesion are a separate skill that cannot be trained alone.

Singing, though, is not part of Liza's programme. "She is a professional dancer, her superpowers are elsewhere," says the centre's founder Kateryna. The team does not load a child with everything going — it selects what works towards their particular goal.

Why there are two teachers in a group

From this season our groups have two teachers each — and we are keeping this format. First, synergy: one may be stronger at staging routines, the other at day-to-day technical work, and two professional perspectives on one task always give a better result. Second, continuity: when one teacher travels to a competition with a group, classes do not stop and nothing drops out of the curriculum.

Different styles — a signature of one's own

We deliberately invite teachers and choreographers with different authorial styles — even within a single direction such as contemporary there are very different personalities. A child sees that variety, takes the best from the best — and that is how their own individual style is born.

"A narrow specialist is the best specialist"

That is how the studio's senior teacher Yuniia Furman puts the principle: "you can't be scattered across many factors." On a specific routine it looks like four steps:

1. Staging. The choreography and the storyline appear.
2. Acrobatics. Right away, while the piece is still being staged, the acrobatic component required is discussed — and passed on to the acrobatics coach.
3. Acting. Every routine has a storyline; that storyline is discussed with the acting teacher.
4. Three people working in parallel. Yuniia "cleans up" the routine technically, the acrobatics coach handles the tricks, the acting teacher the emotional side.

"And it works extremely well," says Yuniia. "Because I, as a choreography teacher, don't know all the tricks and subtleties of acting. And that's the truth. We all work together towards one goal — and nobody's attention is scattered across other factors."

Emotion that is lived, not acted

The hardest part of this chain is neither the trick nor the technique. According to Yuniia, the acting teacher told her that the hardest task was the one set by the studio's founder: not a rehearsed emotion of "I have to smile here", but children learning to feel for themselves.

Kateryna Badikova, who watched every performance in the category at the Dance World Cup in Dublin, describes the difference like this: "I saw a great many technically strong children — but with put-on emotions, where a child simply knows: grimace here, smile there. And in our children I saw that they live it."

A fresh eye: why teachers watch each other's routines

"I look at the same routine 150 times," says Yuniia. "Some mistakes I notice more, and others I don't notice at all." So at IDC the teachers come to each other's routines and give notes. "It's a fresh eye, and they really do help enormously."

Hence a piece of advice that may surprise you: the studio's senior teacher openly advises parents not to limit themselves to one teacher — including her. "Every choreographer has their own signature, if you like. And the more teachers there are, the better a child's skill base develops. I actually advise everyone not to come only to me for individual lessons." There is no fear of losing a student in this: "I'm not afraid, because I know I do my job well. What I need is for the child to develop all round."

What a year with two teachers per group produced

Yuniia describes the effect with a simple metaphor: "Every teacher has their own circle — their background, their experience. When we work together, that circle gets bigger. Each of us can work in the aspect where she is stronger."

She rates the result emotionally: "This group produced a stunning result this year. The second half of the year — I hadn't even counted on it. Because the circle got bigger, the children's development increased enormously." The studio's founder confirms it from the other side: "I'm not present at the classes, I see the result — at the showcase six months ago and now. And I see that difference. It really is a scheme that works."

Want to understand what route the team would build for your child? Come for a trial class (UAH 300), and if your child already dances, book an audition for the professional groups.