Anyone ages 5 through 85 can participate in the School of the Arts dance and drum classes, which are grouped by age. The classes serve about 20 people on average, but enrollment tends to surge after each concert. Senior members of the company teach the classes. Perkins, who is currently teaching the adult drum class, has a serious master-student philosophy of teaching. The new generation, he says, is too impatient to learn things right.
People think they can skip the whole process.
The dance class is equally demanding. Though every shape of person is represented, African dance is not for the faint of breath or weak of knee. After the warm-up, dancers' arms are in constant motion and their legs are always bent when they are not bounding off the floor. The class is not for the easily intimidated, either. To develop conversation skills between dancers and drummers, the students, two at a time, execute their first steps within an arm's reach of the drum circle, looking straight at the drummers.