• Photo by Sarah Ewald
• Instructor Jimmy Morrow observes his dancers' steppin' skills.

The experience of shadowing dancer Kat Folckomer as she attended classes made me curious about the other classes offered during ADF. I chose three more classes to attend and observe. As ADF asks of its students, I chose two technique classes and one theory class.

I arrived at the Durham School of the Arts’ Upper Studio for the technique class called “Slosh and Fall: Moving with Weight, Clarity and Ease.”

Instructor Abby Yager addressed the intriguing title, telling me that the class "addresses the question of weight [and] how to use gravity to your advantage to move with ease and efficiency.”

“It allows us to access maximum movement potential within the body and through space,” she continued, adding that her class examines the mechanics, or the “how,” of dance, and not just the “what.”

Yager led her class in stretches, instructing students to “get a little bit more snake-y” in their movements. The dancers moved in spirals and arcs, while Yager told them to pay attention to the movements’ nuances.

Her students incorporated yoga moves as well. They bounced on the balls of their feet as they raised their hips upward, posed in the downward dog position.

“Real work comes from getting out of your body’s way,” Yager said, invoking a comparison to the task of childbirth.

After warm-ups, it was time for the choreography. Students performed the routine in groups while Yager issued instructions for perfecting deliberate movements.

“[Move] almost like you could slice the space and the room would fall apart,” Yager said.

The next technique class, on hip-hop, promised to be energetic. Back on Duke’s East Campus, it’s held in the Baldwin building’s auditorium—or, as one student referred to it, “Club Baldwin.” Dancers first warmed up stretching in a circle, swinging their arms and rolling their shoulders. Unlike the other classes I’ve visited, many dancers here wore street shoes to dance in.

• Photo by Sarah Ewald
• ADF student dancers discuss relevant issues in Jesse Zarritt's composition class.

After sitting in on Kat Folckomer’s two technique classes, I follow her to the Nelson Music Room. It’s here where she’ll attend her last class of the day, “Composition, Improvisation: the Practice of Performance.” This class is designated as Section B, meaning that it’s a class devoted to theory.

“We’re only allowed to take two technique classes a day, so the other one has to be theory,” Folckomer says.

“I wanted to take this class because I’m focusing more on technique [theory] and I wanted to think about dance in ways that were more than just movement,” she says. She says that she’s taken similar classes to this one at Hollins University, where she is a student.

When teachers Jesse Zarritt and Lindsay Clark arrive, Zarritt gives the class their prompt. “Where am I in the body of dance?” Dancers spread out across the room, notebooks in hand, to ponder the question and jot down thoughts.

Afterward, the students gather in a circle as Zarritt leads a discussion on the distinction between being interested in a performance as opposed to the actual performance being interesting, and how acting as an observer differs from beinga performer. This leads to discussion of using performance as an idea of practicing presence, and that there always needs to be a “why” attached to performing.

• Photo by Sarah Ewald
• Dancers rehearse in trios in Rodger Belman's Duke Gardens repertory class.

The Repertory Workshop: Duke Gardens Project class met in the wood-paneled Southgate Gym. A mat lay over the small basketball court and, with giant, deafening fans overhead, dancers gathered in groups, chatted and warmed up waiting for class to start.

Professor Rodger Belman’s class stems from a personal project last summer, when he staged a work in the Sarah P. Duke Gardens with 30 students working on their own time. More than 300 attended the performance, so Belman added the class to the ADF school curriculum this year.

“Students learn some of my repertory, dance phrases and partnering, and also contribute to the dance making process by creating some of their own movement material,” Belman tells me, explaining that said movements are inspired by visits to the gardens.

“Through this process, I direct the creation of solos, duets and group dances specific to locations in the garden that culminate in a performance in the garden at the end of the festival,” Belman says.

This summer, Belman is concentrating the class’s Duke Gardens work mostly in the W. L. Culberson Asiatic Arboretum. He had originally planned to cap the class at 24, but robust interest led to a class of 38, including 90-year-old dancer Susan Gittler, with whom he had worked last summer.

• Photo by Sarah Ewald
• Brenda Daniels' students stretch it out.

I meet up with ADF student dancer Kat Folckomer in front of Epworth Hall, where ADF maintains its administrative headquarters. She’s wearing a loose-fitting brown tee, shorts, Birkenstock sandals and sunglasses. It’s 10 a.m., and class starts in 15 minutes.

On the way to her first class, Folckomer explains that classes are held every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. On the other days, students have the option to attend informal classes, such as Pilates, or attend showings of work other students are in the process of producing.

Classes are divided based on difficulty level. On the schedule, levels range in ascending order of difficulty from one to five. But Folckomer says the levels are pretty fluid and open to interpretation. “They don’t really mean anything,” she says.

Her first class, “Cunningham-Based Technique,” (named for Merce Cunningham) takes place in the East Campus’s Brodie Gym. Many students have arrived and are stretching at the wall or on the raised platform.

When class begins, teacher Brenda Daniels takes roll, saying, “I know everyone’s tired from that whole complete week of dancing.” The class stretches to warm up, employing basic ballet. Daniels walks among her students, correcting technique here and there.

In an effort to rid her students of their “loose, Barbie-doll legs,” the dancers break into pairs and take turns balancing while turning on one leg, while their partner turns their leg to facilitate easier movement.

• Photo by Sarah Ewald
• There'll be no Barbie-doll legs in Brenda Daniels' class.

For the second hour, it’s time to dance. The class practices several sequences, each one getting more complex. The students divide into three groups of four columns and take turns dancing the routine across the mat to experimental music provided by an accompanist. The routine encompasses a lot of vertical leaps with arms spread out.

• Photo by Sarah Ewald
• Dancers practice a routine in Brenda Daniels' class.

• 2009 ADF / Sara D. Davis
• Kat Folckomer (fifth from right) dances in last year's "Past/Forward Workshop."

You could be forgiven if you thought American Dance Festival was solely about the performances at Duke’s Reynolds Theatre and the Durham Performing Arts Center. But ADF also hosts 385 student dancers from such far-flung locales as Singapore and Cambodia.

One of the students is Kat Folckomer, a rising senior at Hollins University in Virginia. The last two years, she’s taken the ADF’s January intensive sessions in New York City. Hollins also requires that each dancer earning a bachelor of fine arts attend two ADF summers, with credit given out via pass/ fail grades on Duke transcripts, earning a total of 16 credits. Folckomer says six or seven students from her university’s program are attending this year.

Although she’s danced since she was about 10 years old, Folckomer was unaware of ADF’s reputation until relatively recently. She attended high school at North Carolina School of the Arts, where she studied modern dance, and marvels at the fact of having an internationally renowned dance festival taking place just an hour and a half up the road. “I didn’t know how huge ADF was [when I was] in high school,” Folckomer says.

Folckomer spent her freshman year at East Carolina University, where one of her professors told her about ADF. She then decided to transfer to Hollins’ dance program after visiting a friend there.

“ECU’s program was based around musical theater, and you didn’t have much chance to experiment. At Hollins, students play a role in making decisions in the [dance] department,” Folckomer says. She also notes that ECU had a larger program, enrolling over 100 students whereas Hollins boasts a close-knit program of around 20 students.

The first weekend of ADF is termed “preview weekend.” During this time, dancers can take all classes offered and find what fits them best. Auditions for repertory workshops and the Past/ Forward workshops are also held at this time.