Tiffany Hanssen: This is All Of It. I'm Tiffany Hanssen, in for Alison Stewart. Coming up on the show on Monday, fear not, Alison is back, and she will be talking about the new documentary cover-up with director Laura Poitras. She'll also wrap up the show's Go Local conversation about spending money in your own community. Locavore founder, Caroline Weaver, will be here to talk about some of the great places in Queens to buy gifts. That's coming up on Monday. Let's get started right now with a golden anniversary celebration.

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Tiffany Hanssen: Every year, the National Dance Institute in Harlem reaches over 6,500 children in the city through dance. This fall, NDI kicked off its 50th anniversary. It started in 1976 with the late, great New York City Ballet dancer Jacques d'Amboise, who believed that every child deserves an access to dance. His convictions and his life work became the subject of the 1983 Oscar-winning documentary about his work, He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin'. For generations, the organization has continued to send teaching artists and live musicians into public schools around the five boroughs to offer free training to students.

Joining us to talk about the NDI's 50th anniversary is its artistic director, Kay Gayner. Kay, welcome.

Kay Gayner: Thank you so much.

Tiffany Hanssen: Also joining us is Daniel Ulbricht, a principal dancer of the New York City Ballet and a member of NDI's board of directors. Daniel, welcome.

Daniel Ulbricht: Thank you. Nice to be here.

Tiffany Hanssen: Listeners, we'd love to hear from you. Did you participate in any of the national dance institutes in school programs or ones at the center in Harlem? Are you a dancer? What benefits did movement bring you in your life? You can call us, you can text us at 212-433-9692. You can also find us on all of the social medias, @allofitwnyc.

All right, Kay, 50th anniversary. If I just said 50 years, what comes to mind for you?

Kay Gayner: Children, generations of children just being ignited and excited and energized by high-quality experiences in dance. We really believe that the arts are essential for every child, for every human being to become a full human being, and really understand what possibilities are available to them.

Tiffany Hanssen: Daniel, dance has evolved a lot over those 50 years. Talk about how that has changed, how the culture of dance has changed.

Daniel Ulbricht: Well, I think the whole idea about dance has always been a voice for so many. I think with NDI, it has only evolved to give more people a voice in dance. Being a professional dancer, I had the benefit of studying that very seriously, very concentrated. When you go into the schools, and you are giving access to people who just don't have that, and you're giving it at such an impressionable age, you're really pruning the next generation of creative thinkers. Not only just artists, but citizen artists.

This has the ability to change their lives and then become such a way of communicating for themselves and teamwork, and all the other wonderful things. I think it's always been there. I think with 50 years, we have so much more to talk about, actually, with it.

Tiffany Hanssen: Kay, you served as an assistant to Jacques d'Amboise from '87 to 1990, before teaching at the National Dance Institute. Tell us what he was like. What set him apart from the other dancers when it came to his vision about outreach and education?

Kay Gayner: Jacques was a larger than life personality. He was magnanimous. He was incredibly charismatic and joyful. He really felt that being at New York City Ballet, studying with Balanchine, he used to say all the time, "I was on stage, and Marc Chagall made the sets, and Stravinsky was in the pit, and Balanchine was the choreographer.

Tiffany Hanssen: Crazy.

Kay Gayner: He said truly being surrounded by artists at the height of their craft transformed how he understood himself in the world and who he could become as a human being and as an artist. As he approached the end of his career, he genuinely wanted every child on the planet to have the same opportunities that he did. He was hilarious and joyful, and he was a whirling dervish of a human being, and he never forgot you.

I was just telling Daniel earlier today, I just came from teaching at P.S. 199, and there's a teacher at the school who was a student in the early days of NDI. She said she was sitting next to him in a bus or standing next to him in a bus, and she leaned over and said, "I was an apple in 1985." He said, "Oh, my gosh. I remember that time so well. You were so beautiful." He took her name, and he wrote her a postcard afterwards. She told me today she still has that postcard.

He was like that with everybody who crossed his path, and he kept people in his orbit. He was like a magnet and a really beautiful, challenging, demanding excellence, and really living up to your potential is a huge part of who he was.

Tiffany Hanssen: Obviously, from that story, paying attention. I mean, so much when it comes to kids is just paying attention, is paying attention to what they want, what they need, what they're looking for. We're talking about the 50th anniversary here of the National Dance Institute with artistic director Kay Gayner and Daniel Ulbricht, who is a principal dancer at the New York City Ballet and a member of NDI's board of directors. Listeners, your reflections. We're looking for them about NDI, about dance. 212-433-9692. We're going to bring Paige in Brooklyn into the conversation here. Hi, Paige.

Paige: Hi. I never do this, but I was listening, and I was so glad to hear this program brought up. Jacques d'Amboise, he was my instructor. I was at P.S. 59 at a time where a ton of arts education was falling apart. I was saying the message was, drop dead, New York, and all these artists pushed into the public schools and kept all these kids' lives, made them better, and brought light and love, and I think that's what we need right now. I was just encouraged to call in.

Tiffany Hanssen: Aw, thank you so much, Paige. All right, Daniel, when you hear that, what do you think?

Daniel Ulbricht: The dancer part of me says, "What did Jacques do in his career?" Then I think to myself, "What does Jacques do as a legacy?" As Kay said, at the end of his career, the fact that he was able to pivot and-- A dancer spends a lot of time looking in front of the mirror of practice and an audience. Really, when you turn to an educator, your back is against the mirror. You're looking at who's in front of you. That's a very big move for somebody who is having to hone every skill and strive for this high excellence.

To see that story just reached, and that person felt so important from somebody who made such an indelible mark on the dance world. Especially as a male dancer, that was something that made that possible. That just shows me that Jacques was not-- it was greater than his talent. It was his heart that was greater than that. To see that and to see him pour that-- He taught me how to bow. "You go over here, you go over there." I'll never forget this. Then he could then turn and give that same gratitude and graciousness and belief that he has a performer to this next generation of students. I don't know, when you bow, you're really saying thank you.

When I hear that story, it means you're at peace when you can do that and be on the other side of it. I think the fact that something has been around for 50 years, by the way, what's around for 50 years anymore? Think about it. It means something's in there. There's truth to it. It's been tested, it's gone through COVID, it's gone through ups and downs. The pillars of what Jacques believed in are what made that still important today.

I just search for things that have been around for so much time, and we look at the same things. It's the core values of what they stand for. Whether it is in 1976 or coming up on 2026, the same pillars exist. I think that's just Jacques' vision to give the greatest of all art to not just students, by the way, but to artists who are active into that. He was able to make that impression on me. That's why I joined the board. I go, "How can I extend this vision and offer to be so close, to offer anything I could do to see that vision continue, not just for the generations in the past, but the ones going forward?"

Look at a student's school day. This gives them hopefully something to look forward to and developmentally, and to think and to be creative. By the way, there's no phone existing with this. This is them having to actually develop that teamwork and skill set. It seems so low-tech that it is actually a human skill that I think we all need.

Tiffany Hanssen: We have a text here. "I was a dancer in the SWAT team and Celebration team from the free NDI classes we got at P.S. 40 from 2005 to 2009. Kay Gayner was my teacher. At many points in my time there, in a single mother household, NDI gave me spatial confidence, professional training, and experience in the stage to continue my career in theater, which I do to this day.

Kay Gayner: That's amazing. [crosstalk]

Tiffany Hanssen: I'm set now to make you cry, right, Kay?

Kay Gayner: Yes. I'm not usually the one who cries, but that's very, very moving. They belong to us. We are devoted to them for life once they have come through our doors, and especially those who have come to the scholarship programs on Saturdays for multiple years. We love them dearly, and we get to know them and see them through cycles of new choreography and their imaginations being lit up. I'm so happy to hear that.

Tiffany Hanssen: Well, let's continue. Sophie in Washington, D.C. Sophie?

Sophie: Hi, this is Sophie.

Tiffany Hanssen: You know Kay.

Sophie: Yes.

Kay Gayner: Hi, Sophie.

Sophie: I'm 199.

Kay Gayner: I was just at 199 this morning, Sophie.

Sophie: I just wanted to say thank you. No, it's the best. NDI wasn't very confident before, and it really gave me a voice. Being able to also intern with Lighthouse, it brought me on a path of education. Now I teach first grade, and this is my 10th year. I really owe that all to NDI. Thank you, Kay.

Kay Gayner: Thank you.

Tiffany Hanssen: Aw, Sophie, thank you so much for that. We have a question here. "I've heard NDI works with elementary school kids, but I'm a PTA president of a secondary school, grade 6 through 12." Any opportunities exist for programming in public schools for middle or high school kids, Kay?

Kay Gayner: Right now, we primarily partner with elementary schools. We do have one program at a middle school, so it's not that we are not open to that. We do work with middle school students, but that is primarily in the scholarship program currently.

Tiffany Hanssen: You talked, Daniel, about inviting all the kids into this and then bringing everybody into the fold. I'll be honest, that was not the message I got as a kid. I was a little bit bigger. I didn't have really great coordination. I really would have loved to have that opportunity, I think. My question to you is, how do you spot those kids in the group and go, "You know what? All right, I'm going to make it my mission here to bring this person into the fold"?

Daniel Ulbricht: One thing that I've noticed through any of the NDI events, it's the ability to actually give each student the ability to shine, whether that's doing their runs and leaps or flipping the room or highlighting somebody in the back who might look quiet. That's the whole part of training educators, right? I think about a classroom as a room full of light bulbs, and I want them all beaming. Some flicker and some have to be replaced. I think any teacher wants to see everyone beaming. I think one of the things that I've seen from the performances or I've seen from what they do in the schools is that every teacher goes to every person in that room.

By flipping the room, somebody who's in the back now becomes the front. We look at that in just whether you're a line leader or you're now in the front of the room. That gives people a really unique way to feel a sense of importance. Then you can individual and tailor that, but I think the idea of designing these exercises and dances that are all inclusive. It's so funny. At the end of the day, I think dancers stress over how well they stretch their knees and point their feet. Those are what we call the rules of dance. Fine. I think we forget there's just people also performing for other people.

Tiffany Hanssen: And feeling good in their body.

Daniel Ulbricht: Yes, exactly. Exactly. I think the rules sometimes get ahead of what the actual connection of what art is supposed to do. The technique is a means of how we convey that. That doesn't include the music and the intention and the care that goes into that room. There's so much back end of that. A curtain goes up, and we arrive there. When you go back a few steps, and you see, "How did we get there?" It's from these teaching methods that NDI creates in those classrooms. When you see the event of the year, or you see Art Nest, and you see these things, all of a sudden, you're capturing, I don't know, hundreds and hundreds of students.

When I saw the event of the year last year, it was the best show I've seen. Like, hour and a half, no intermission. I was the one who pulled out my phone. Here, I'm the artist who says you shouldn't pull out your phone in a show. I was out there like six times. Like, "I have to catch this." I was moved, and the audience was moved. As I said, we try so hard to hit the note and stretch the knee, but how much are we really connecting? I think when I see it through a child's eyes, you get to see that is so impactful, impressionable on them. These opportunities for them to feel, let's call them a principal dancer for a moment in time, is life changing for them.

Tiffany Hanssen: Kay, I'm curious. We're talking a lot about the kids here. What do you hear from parents and caregivers?

Kay Gayner: The community, that is built through NDI.

Tiffany Hanssen: The community of grown-ups.

Kay Gayner: Yes. The community is the strongest part. The parents become friends with each other. The caregivers and guardians connect in the hallways. The children, even. I, at one point in my career, did interviews with children, kind of saying, "What was the most memorable experience for you?" Expecting them to say working with Jacques or dancing at the White House. All of them, to a person, said, "The friends I made, who I never would have met except for in this room and through this program." The parents, I think, and guardians really feel that viscerally and experience that.

We also have programs. Sophie referred to the program at the Lighthouse. It was then called The Lighthouse for the Blind. We currently now have a program called the Dream Project, where we partner children with and without disabilities and create original choreography that highlights every child's ability. I think the parents in that program get to sit back and be an audience and get to let go of the role of caregiver and see their child in a whole new light. The children without disabilities, who participate, are utterly transformed by the experience of really getting to know, and we call it learning your partner.

They'll never see somebody who's a wheelchair user across the street again in the same way, and avoid or walk the other way. They will know, have tools, how to interact and engage with each other. I think that's so much of why the arts are important as a whole is it knits us together as souls and as human beings in a common activity that really is about sparking imagination and helping us understand ourselves and the world better.

Tiffany Hanssen: Let's hear from a parent here, Vicki in Newburgh. Hi, Vicki.

Vicki: Hi. Both of my kids were NDI kids. They were at P.S. 183, and they both went through SWAT and then went into Celebration and then continued on to become a teacher with NDI in New Mexico for a while. The experience for these children is just hard to imagine. It gives them this sense of who they are, who they can be. They can be anything. They can stand tall. I remember when it was announced that all the fourth grade was going to start doing NDI, and my son said, "What? Me, dance? You're crazy. I won't go."

Of course, he said he did go, and he fell in love with it, as did my daughter. Then got to go to the White House and perform there. Not the White House, sorry, Kennedy Center that year-

Tiffany Hanssen: Love it.

Vicki: -which I mentioned only because of what's going on with the Kennedy Center.

Tiffany Hanssen: Definitely some good memories there for you, Vicki. Lots of happy memories, it sounds like. Daniel, as a kid, you went to the School of American Ballet. I'm curious because you have-- Obviously, that's meant for people who are-- this is going to be their career path, but how would you compare the methods? Not necessarily compare, but what do you think about the methods at NDI that make it so special when you compare it to something where it's very driven, it's very clearly driven for kids who are like, "This is what we're going to do"?

Daniel Ulbricht: Yes, it's a great question. I think when you look at conservatory schools, we'll call it that, you're trying to find the next Joshua Bell violinist, you're trying to find the next Baryshnikov. I think while those institutions provide the resources and the training to achieve that, I think when you look at the broader picture, one person can't save arts. I think when you look at a whole room, and again, hearing from these families and hearing from the students, the community in that classroom have so much more power than one singular person.

What I will say is, my training, you could call elite training. Fine. I had to do a lot of it myself. As a dancer, you're very driven. You move from Florida to New York, and you pursue that, but it's really individual-driven. When I go into an NDI room, it's class-driven, it's community-driven. When I see a whole group take that pride in a piece, again, front or back, up or down, right and left, and then they each get that, I sometimes think the elite schools automatically kind of feed like, "Okay, here's the top talent, here's the top talent." What NDI does is it means everyone has talent in some way, shape, or form, and they have the ability to hone that.

Again, it's not a matter of this person doesn't know that jump. When somebody is doing their flying leap across the floor, it's about the spirit of that person in that moment. I heard a quote from one of my mentors. He said, "Your mom and dad are going to love you no matter what because they brought you into this world, but why not show them?" I never thought this could be possible. When I watch these kids, it's that moment, I never thought that'd be possible. I think they're showing themselves and their classmates or their team or their teachers or their families. I never could see my kid that happy in that moment, just leaping.

Again, we grew up with all these rules, and they're really important. They create structure. I'm a person of structure, but I think the arts allowed for that one little bit of that voice to kind of come out. If it comes across a leap, that is somebody with no care in the world for one and a half seconds. Wouldn't we just die to have one and a half seconds of no--

Tiffany Hanssen: Flying.

Daniel Ulbricht: A flight. Exactly, exactly. It's not just the gravitational sense, but of the heart sense.

Tiffany Hanssen: Let's bring DJ in Brooklyn into our conversation. Hi, DJ.

DJ: Hi. I just wanted to offer an appreciation of the work that NDI has done all the length of its existence. As a young choreographer, I recruited two NDI students: Marc Weitz, who's gone on to be a stage director, and Jason Allemann, who I've lost track of, but was a cousin of Michael Jackson. They transformed the piece that we did together, which was all-- the rest of it was all adults. For many years, I'm one of the people that has co-produced the Dance Parade since its inception and will have the 20th edition.

I tried very hard to get Jacques to be Grand Marshal. As someone said earlier, he is so gracious when he finally said, "I'm not going to be able to fit this into my life," when he was getting towards the end. He wrote me a very nice letter, and I knew that that was it. He was very direct with everyone and opened worlds to hundreds and thousands of kids.

Tiffany Hanssen: DJ, thanks so much for that reflection. Another nice note from Jacques has made its way into our conversation. All right. Oya in Long Island, I hope I'm saying your name correctly.

Oya: You are.

Tiffany Hanssen: Okay.

Oya: Oh, my gosh. You absolutely 100%. Hi, Kay.

Kay Gayner: Hi. Oya.

[laughter]

Oya: Oh, my gosh. I'm in Long Island, teaching at Cherry Lane Elementary School. I walk, I get into the car, and I hear Kay Gayner, and I'm like, "You've got to be kidding me." NDI is all over the place. I'm at NYU also, and pedagogy is there. I taught at NYU, studied abroad, Uganda, and the pedagogy was there. NDI has tentacles all over. I'm so grateful to have been a student and then a teacher and then an alumni and whatever else they need me for. It's infectious. It's contagious. It's what the world needs, not just children. Adults, educators. I'm so proud. In every space that I go to, every space, NDI is there.

Tiffany Hanssen: I love it. Thank you, Oya, for that. As we're headed out here, Kay, the multi-generational tentacles of this after 50 years must put you on kind of a high as you're headed into this anniversary.

Kay Gayner: It really does. We are expanding our definition of what it means to be an alumni or an alumna or alumnus of NDI to include all of these families and parents and staff who have gone on to have other jobs, and anybody whose lives were impacted by NDI. We are making a big call out. We want to claim all of you. We want people to come back, and we want you to claim us again. We are expanding the definition this year and making categories for all of the different people.

One of the things I'm very excited about in the 50th is this idea that if you ever danced for NDI, or if you know somebody who danced for NDI, or if you care about the arts and believe that they matter in people's lives, come to the NDI. What can I say? Nationaldance.org. We have a new landing page called for the alumni network.

Tiffany Hanssen: Say it again so folks know.

Kay Gayner: Nationaldance.org.

Tiffany Hanssen: Nationaldance.org.

Kay Gayner: Go to the alumni network page.

Tiffany Hanssen: Love it.

Kay Gayner: We want to hear from you.

Tiffany Hanssen: We've been talking about the 50th anniversary of the National Dance Institute with Kay Gayner, the artistic director, and Daniel Ulbricht, who is a principal dancer at the New York City Ballet and a member of the NDI's board of directors. Thank you both so much for your time in the conversation.

Daniel Ulbricht: Thank you.

Kay Gayner: Thank you so much.

Daniel Ulbricht: Happy holidays.