Senior teacher: the work parents never see

When parents bring a child to dance, what they see is a class: a teacher, music, combinations, a routine for the concert. But behind it lies a layer of work that is completely invisible from the studio. At IDC that layer is the responsibility of senior teacher Yuniia Furman — and here is what it consists of.

One direction for the whole team

First of all, people. "A very important part of my job is talking to the coaches and understanding where we are going," says Yuniia. "So that we are all moving in the same direction. So that it isn't a case of some coaching one way and others another."

From this follows a duty she states plainly: developing the coaches. Not simply overseeing them but urging them to grow and giving them the material to do it. So that the team is strong not through individual stars but as a whole.

Making sure a child ends up exactly where they need to be

When a mother comes to the studio with a child, someone has to work out which direction to send them in — not "wherever there is a space" but where the child will genuinely be given what they need to develop. That too is the senior teacher's job. "For that I need to know what the other teachers do in their classes," Yuniia explains. So routing a child is neither an accident nor an administrative decision but a considered choice by someone who holds the picture of the whole studio in her head.

Routines and scripts are dramaturgy, not just "putting a number together"

Another large area is concerts and competitions. Yuniia does not simply stage routines — she writes the scripts for whole concerts and structures the programme so that the audience stays interested from start to finish. "There shouldn't be a big dip and then a big lift. Everything has to be right, structured well." Behind that lie hours of work nobody in the auditorium ever sees.

And then there is the "small" work that never gets mentioned at all. "When we travelled to an international competition, we had to enter the passport details of all the parents, dates of birth, certificates — a thousand and one applications," Yuniia recalls. "There is a huge amount of work that nobody will remember." That invisible labour lies behind every trip to an international competition.

Work that does not end in the studio

The most striking part is the part that happens outside the classes. Every morning: calls and conversations with parents. Face-to-face meetings with anyone who asks for one: "Parents want a personal meeting because they want to know that they matter to us. And they really do matter." Yuniia goes to photoshoots with the children, because without her they will not know how to stand for the camera. And in her own free time — sometimes cancelling her own paid work — she takes children to other choreographers, to hear their advice and work with the child.

"There's a mountain of work," she sums up. "A great deal of it is work nobody sees or remembers. But without it none of this would exist."

Values are her territory too

There is one more thing Yuniia herself mentions reluctantly but which the studio's director Kateryna calls crucial: atmosphere and values. Even outside her own direction — if Yuniia sees something wrong in how people speak to parents or children, she steps in. The team is growing and the studio hires professionals, but professionalism and values are not the same thing. "Sometimes we simply don't align on values — and that has to be taken into account too."

That is exactly why a team really does work with each child at IDC — rather than separate teachers side by side. And somebody has to hold that team together as one. That is the senior teacher's job: largely invisible — and important for exactly that reason.

Read also: Yuniia's road in dance, from folk choreography to a calling to teach, and why she stayed at IDC.