Already, d'Amboise has introduced dance to more than half a million children through his National Dance Institute, an organization he founded in 1976 that teaches dance in schools, most of them in the New York City area and most of them public. His work last year earned him the National Medal of Arts, the country's highest honor for cultural contributions. But he has only about 200 teachers trained in his motivational techniques, of whom 20 are currently active. He wants to increase that number to at least 2,000. Though sore and still coughing, d'Amboise on this sunny morning was striding at a swift pace along the banks of the gurgling Penobscot River a few miles from the base of the mountain, his boots crunching on a canopy of fir needles with so much vigor it seemed the previous day had been a bad dream.
Dance is magical.
Plato said you could not be a voting citizen of Athens unless you could dance and sing. We've lost the wonder at what is a human being and what is the universe. The arts express that emotion. D'Amboise isn't trying to turn every child into a professional dancer. Rather, he sees dance as a tool to inspire children and teach them discipline and perseverance that they can use for the rest of their lives.