NEW YORK, NY.- The roots of Ballet Tech’s Kids Dance took hold not in a dance studio but on the subway. It was 1977 when choreographer Eliot Feld found himself sharing a train with elementary school children. To an ordinary person, they were just kids, but Feld saw something more: These were potential dancers.

He teamed up with the New York City Department of Education and started a training program and eventually an independent public school. Today, Kids Dance, created in 1994 as the performing entity of Ballet Tech, is under the artistic direction of Dionne Figgins. Over the past few years, the kids — from sixth to eighth grade — have been through a lot — the pandemic didn’t just interrupt their academic learning but their dance training as well.

On Friday, the group returned to the Joyce Theater, lighting up the stage with a winning mix of discipline and courage, as they explored ballet, modern dance, tap and jazz. They fought for artistry: When their pirouettes didn’t go the way they hoped, they didn’t crumble. They moved on.

They had a worthy example right before their eyes: Johnson Guo, a Ballet Tech alumnus and a member of the Limón Dance Company, performed José Limón’s “Chaconne” (1942) on the program. He was in the original cast of the evening’s opener, Feld’s charming “A Yankee Doodle” (2015). Wearing white unitards adorned with blue and red stars or a stripe down the side of the leg, the young dancers bounced on their feet before tilting forward and back to the propulsive beat.

They sparkled in solo moments. They saluted with style. And Guo, with elegance and the ability to carve positions in space expansively in Limón’s solo, was a sign of the future if these young dancers choose to pursue it.

There were new dances, too, including premieres by Figgins and works by faculty members: a collaboration by Robert La Fosse and Brian Reeder, each former members of both American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet, and Men Ca. In his earthy “Embers Of…,” Ca echoed Alvin Ailey’s “Revelations” — a billowing piece of fabric at the back of the stage was the most obvious touch — and paired modern dance with John Coltrane’s “Blue World.”




There were rigid, righteous arms, which the dancers held up, bent at the elbows before hinging their torsos over. The dancers were serious, but what were the embers they were pining over? It was never quite clear. There was more jazz with La Fosse and Reeder’s “Ad Lib City,” a zingy ballet — the best new work of the night — set to Duke Ellington. Here, the choreographers peppered the stage with steps from the dancers’ training, a potpourri of small jumps and turns, while giving them occasions to be playful.

In moments, they stood still, staring out, with crossed arms. They struck out an arm with a snap. Wearing black tights and Mondrian-inspired tops designed by Vernon Ross, the dance had a vintage flair with choreography, jaunty and musical, that sent the dancers darting across the stage in reconfigured groupings — mini kaleidoscopes of motion and color. As they flew into the wings and back out again, you had the sense that the cast had multiplied.

By this point in the program, the kids started to relax into their steps and the fun of dancing together. That was on display in each of Figgins’ two new works, both collaborations, starting with in “1956,” set to the Gershwins’ “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” as performed by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.

Figgins and Curtis Holland, who teaches tap at Ballet Tech, created a sweet dance battle; the dancers were split into two groups, one dedicated to tap, the other to jazz dance. Spruced up in midcentury modern ensembles, again by Ross, the dancers used gestures to mimic the lyrics. For “The way you hold your knife,” they struck out an arm out with menacing glee; “The way you sing off key” led to a finger over the mouth — as in shh. It was adorable.

For the finale, “Achoo, Adieu,” set to music by Ludovico Einaudi, Figgins shared choreographic credit with the class of 2023. It started out set in a dance studio; the dancers wore practice clothes — leotards, tights, T-shirts — as they progressed through their daily exercises. A blackout shifted the scene; a voice over, in the form of a news report, announced that the mayor would be shutting down the New York City school system “to stop the spread of coronavirus.”

Aiden Concepcion stopped dancing to play a snippet of Einaudi’s score live on a keyboard at the front of the stage. The mood had sobered. Masks made a brief appearance until, in the end, the dancers formed a circle before splintering offstage in two lines. When they returned, graduation gowns were draped over their arms. They put them on and dashed to the front of the stage, smiling and hamming it up for the finale: a class picture. They made it!

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.