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player ready...Pam McNeil, 47
Title: Dance faculty member
Employer: Columbia College
Salary range: $30,000 to $35,000 full-time; $3,000 per course part-time
Q. What is your educational background?
A. I graduated from Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Mich., with a bachelor of philosophy degree, with a specialization in dance. After I graduated, I went to New York City and trained there in modern dance and ballet with the Erick Hawkins Company. And I was recently in Authentic Pilates at the Pilates School of the Midwest in Evanston. Pilates is a form of exercise started by Joseph Pilates. It builds core strength utilizing the mind, body and spirit.
Q. When did you become interested in dance?
A. I started dancing in my teens outside of Detroit. I had a very inspirational modern dance teacher named Betty Appleton. Then in college I started taking dance classes and fell in love with dance. Grand Valley had a small but very good dance program and brought in a lot of guest artists from New York. One of them invited me to come to dance with her company in New York–that’s how I got there.
Q. How did you decide to become a dance instructor? What was your career path?
A. I started teaching dance to support my performance career in New York. I wanted to make my living dancing instead of waiting tables (which I also did!). I ended up dancing with independent choreographers and studying and doing some of my own work at performance venues while I taught.
I taught mostly children and worked at the 92nd Street YMCA and at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music. I also taught at a private college as a guest instructor, and spent 3 1/2 months in Taiwan teaching ballet. We came to Chicago in 1991 because we’d had our first child, Emily, and found it difficult to raise her in New York. I auditioned with Mordine & Company, which was the resident dance company of Columbia College until last year. That’s how I got into Columbia and started teaching.
Q. What is a typical day at work like for you?
A. My days are not too typical–they vary a lot! Basically I get to work, warm up, teach, meet with students and work at my desk. It really depends on the day and the class. I can spend as much time planning as I do teaching.
If I’m teaching I get to work, change into my dance clothes and go into the studio. I teach a 90-minute techniques class of 30 students. It’s done to live accompaniment. I also teach dance composition, which is the craft of making dances.
I run a high school masters class program through Columbia. We send people out to schools to teach, and I coordinate that effort to get the schools and the teachers together.
In the fall, I’ll teach experiential anatomy for the first time. That’s a class about the anatomy of the body and teaches different practices to find those parts of the anatomy in your own body.
Q. What do you like most about your job?
A. I like the fact that it’s not routine and who and what I’m teaching always changes. I love teaching college kids–to see them evolve and grow. It’s a creative outlet as well as a physical challenge. I love teaching technique because I’m always intrigued by how the body works and by the technical skills involved in dancing.
Q. What do you like least?
A. If I’d have to pick something, it would be that it does get harder as I get older to keep dancing the way I did when I was young, although there are different areas I can move into. It’s a field where everyone seems perennially young!
Q. What three attributes are essential to doing your job well?
A. You need a lot of energy and persistence because the field is very competitive. You need adaptability. And you have to be able to communicate your ideas to your students as a teacher.
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Q. What advice do you have for people who want to teach dance?
A. Don’t just teach the steps, but the principles behind the movements. And teach from your love of dancing–teach from your heart.