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Pierre Dulaine: All the World’s a Ballroom

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To those that know of him, Pierre Dulaine is an elegant professional Ballroom dancer that went on to found a famous children’s dance and social engagement program in New York City public schools, a dance-world legend once played by Antonio Banderas. To those that know him, his students like myself, he is an eccentric dance instructor and beloved mentor who never misses a birthday, holiday, or accomplishment, and signs-off on his congratulatory Facebook comments with the rose emoji.

I first met Pierre at the Dancing Classrooms studio in Midtown Manhattan, where I was munching on gummy bears (co-founder Otto Cappel kept a giant bin in his office for the families) and waiting for my brother to finish his lesson. I was 7 years old, engrossed in a book, and not expecting to be approached by an adult, certainly not this white-haired debonair man with an impossible-to-place but definitely fancy accent. After a brief introduction, he scolded my posture and (gently) hit me with the end of his tie. I later learned that this is a gesture particular to Pierre, a playful reminder to straighten up. It would prompt one little boy, Pierre recalls, to guess that Pierre was a comedian, not a dance teacher, which makes him laugh until he cries: “I’ll never forget that!”

Pierre’s signature tie is missing during our Zoom call, which is about the only indication of the passage of 6 years since our last meeting and the current state of quarantine in New York City. Pierre notes that “this lockdown ain’t easy,” but says he’s pretty lucky and has been reveling in the newfound fresh air from his apartment balcony. Sans tie, Pierre is almost casual, though he still wears a crisp white button-up shirt as he sits at his desk, in front of a wall full of old family photos, a Palestinian flag, and various knicknacks. 

Born in Jaffa, Palestine in 1944 to a Palestinian Catholic mother and Irish Protestant father, Peter Gordon Henney was a world away from Pierre Dulaine. He and his family fled Palestine at the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, moving to Amman, Jordan, where Pierre spoke “English at home, Arabic in the streets, and French at school.” His mother made two meals for the family each day: one Palestinian for herself and the kids, and a separate plate of British food for his father, which was a shame, as “British food is so bloody blah,” Pierre recalls with a laugh. The Suez Crisis in 1956 forced the family (now targeted for being British) to relocate to Birmingham, England. 

A persistent school friend convinced 14-year-old Pierre to take dancing lessons, which he describes as disastrous. “I was very, very, very bad… she was shouting at me ‘NO! It’s 1, 2, 3!’ I grew up with Arabic music, I had no idea what bloody English or European music was!” Eventually, though, he found his rhythm, becoming a Ballroom dance instructor in London, where he’d change his name after thorough consideration. Known already as Pierre from his French school days, Pierre Henney wasn’t quite stage-ready. “Dulaine” then, was crafted for symmetry: to match the French sound and the two syllables of Pierre, while being easy enough to spell and pronounce for a Brit or American. 

 Pierre Dulaine traveled to New York for a “two week holiday” in late 1971 that has lasted 48 years and counting. Enjoying a successful career in dance with his partner Yvonne Marceau, Pierre decided to volunteer as a Ballroom teacher at a Manhattan public school. His experience transforming “thirty unruly children” into “ladies and gentlemen” sparked the idea for Dancing Classrooms, a program that, through dance, would teach public school children confidence, respect, and compassion. Nearly twenty years later, Dancing Classrooms would bring me and my brother from our Queens elementary school to Pierre’s Manhattan studio. 

After the program became successfully established in New York City, Pierre began to think more about bringing it home to Jaffa. When he was approached about teaching the program there, Pierre replied he would only do it “if we were to bring it to Arab schools, to bring Jewish and Arab children together.” His typically light tone turns earnest. “There are people in Jaffa, because it is a real Palestinian, Arab city, living on opposite sides of the street, and they don’t talk to each other.” 

When I ask about the experience of bringing Arab and Jewish schoolchildren together to dance, Pierre doesn’t mince words: “it was the hardest thing I have ever done. The families were very reluctant.” He recalls individual meetings with parents, winning them over with coffee and native-accented Palestinian Arabic. He convinced one Palestinian Muslim father, hesitant to let his daughter dance with a boy, that the program would be good for her academic and personal development— “Then whenever I had a problem with other parents, I’d send him to talk to them!” 

 More difficult were the children, who at first were “kicking each other, spitting at each other [and] refusing to dance.” One can only imagine this came not only from children’s typical refusal to follow directions or unwillingness to touch and dance with one another, but also the internalization of their parents’ fears and hatred. Pierre describes conversations with Arab parents that saw dancing with Jewish kids as “dancing with the ‘enemy,’” and Jewish parents that didn’t want their child to dance with a “dirty Arab.” After a few weeks, though, Pierre says there was a “softening” in the children and he began to see his familiar ladies and gentlemen emerge. Maybe it was the Arabic, or the tie comedy bit, or his Taurus-like-stubbornness, but, as always, Pierre got the kids dancing. His mother was proud. He’d later take the program to Northern Ireland, in honor of his dad.

 Why did it work? For Pierre, the answer is simple. “If you can get to talk to people one on one, play some music, and just dance and just move to it, eventually that brings them together.” 

 

Interview Transcript (edited for length and clarity)

Can you talk a little bit about your background, your family… What made you fall in love with dance?

You know, it’s most unusual that a person like myself would have ended up in dancing, but I’ll give you from the very very beginning. I was born in 1944 in Jaffa, Palestine. In 1948 at the creation of Israel we had to flee, there was a war, etc etc. We ended up in Amman, Jordan where I grew up, I went to a French School. My father wouldn’t allow us to speak anything other than English at home, so we spoke French at school, Arabic on the street, and English at home. I remember my mother used to have to cook two sets of meals every day: one Arabic for us, and one British for my dad. Honestly! You know, British food is so bloody blah. [laughs]. 

So that’s growing up, but then in 1956, we fled Jordan because we were British— there was the Suez Canal Crisis in Egypt. So we left very quickly and came to Birmingham, England. There, when I was about 14 I started dancing, very much because a school friend, a girl, in my class said “why don’t you go to this dancing school?” It was close to my school, and so I started taking classes. I was very, very, very bad, I mean, she was shouting at me “NO! It’s 1, 2, 3!” The problem was I grew up with Arabic music, I had no idea what bloody English or European music was! But eventually I really got it, and then when I was in the Silver class I stayed and helped with the Bronze, because there were never enough boys, and so on.

Later I moved to London, the big city, and that’s where I started working with Arthur Murray, got myself a partner… Then I boarded a ship and I got off in New York. I thought I would spend two week’s holiday before I went back to England, but then I realized I really had nothing to go back to. So I went into the Arthur Murray studio and they desperately needed an advanced dance teacher, so I said ok, I’ll stay for three months. That was the end of 1971, and now I have been here for 48 years! [laughs]. 

A couple years later, Yvonne came in looking for a job. Her last name was Mason, but there was already a Miss Mason at the studio, so she changed her name to Marceau. A year after that, we became dance partners. There’s a word in Arabic, I mention it in my book, maktoob— it means destiny. Her name being Yvonne Marceau, and my professional name being Pierre Dulaine, many people thought we were French, or maybe Canadian… And so we began to get somewhat famous, winning awards and things etcetera, and we appeared on Broadway in The Grand Hotel.

During the Grand Hotel days I volunteered at a public school, PPAS, Professional Performing Arts School, and I met 30 unruly children (laughs) that eventually became ladies and gentlemen. They seemed to eventually like it, and I loved it, and that was the seed of Dancing Classrooms… and this is the reason we are talking, when you think about it!

Basically, if I was to look back, for a Palestinian (half Palestinian) who was a refugee, who had to flee, for me to have ‘made it’ is really unbelievable. I take pride in it, not in a bigheaded way, but at the same time it is my parents who really suffered, because we lost our homes. Just imagine sitting where I am right now [gesturing to his home], and we have half an hour to leave or we will be killed. It must have been hard for my parents. But I’m glad to say that, had all of that not happened, as bad as it was, I would not be here, wouldn’t have made it. But I’m very blessed, I’m very lucky. 

That’s basically my background… and voila, here we are talking!

Quick follow up question, I’ve always wondered… What made you pick the name Pierre Dulaine? What was your thought process?

I was always known as Pierre, because Pierre is Peter in French, but Pierre Henney just did not sound right [laughs]. So I met this guy, and we sat down and came up with the name Pierre Dulaine: Pierre, two syllables, Dulaine, two syllables. It seemed to be right. At the time I was a 21 year old dance teacher. You change your name, and then everyone calls you “Mr. Dulaine,” and it just becomes part of it. 

But it was chosen because if you don’t speak French, and you see it written, you would say it “Dulaine.” And if you hear it, you could spell it within reason the correct way. I wanted another name, Pierre Aulin, a-u-l-i-n, which is a really nice sounding name. But if you don’t speak French and you see “Aulin,” you’d pronounce it Ow-lynn. So it had to be a French name, to go with Pierre, that could be heard or written by English-speaking person. Because the British people, just like the Americans, no offense, only speak one language [laughs]. 

*Brief interlude where we discuss that I do speak another language*

I wanted to ask you a bit about when you brought Dancing Classrooms to Northern Ireland, and Jaffa. What was your inspiration to do that, why did you want to take it internationally?

You come to a place in your life where you want to give back, and that’s how Dancing Classrooms came about, originally. But then I wanted to give a gift to the children from the place I was born, and that was Jaffa. There are people in Jaffa, because it is a real Palestinian, Arab city, living on opposite sides of the street, and they don’t talk to each other. And so when they did Take the Lead, I got to really know the producer, Diane Nabatoff, and I told her “I have a dream, I want to go back,” and she said “I’ll come with you!” I made it happen through a woman named Miri Shahaf-Levi who lives in Israel— she visited New York, wanting to meet me. We met, and she didn’t realize I was Palestinian with the name Pierre Dulaine [laughs] and I said I would only take Dancing Classrooms there if we were to bring it to Arab schools, to bring Jewish and Arab children together. Her eyes lit up, she opened up, and that’s how it started, that I went to the place I was born and we did Dancing in Jaffa.

So I did my mother’s side— she never saw the movie because she passed away, but she was happy knowing I was doing something for society with the children of Jaffa. It was the hardest thing I ever did, because the families, the parents of the Palestinian children, were very reluctant. But because I spoke Arabic with the Palestinian accent, they somehow trusted me. You have to remember, I’m sure you’re aware, Muslims typically don’t allow boys and girls to dance together. But because this was before puberty, and because I really got through and told them it would be good for the curriculum, good for their school work etcetera, they trusted me. Now the bigger problem was dancing with a Jew, dancing with the “enemy.” And that was a big big big thing. But they knew I had no ulterior motive, and they accepted it within reason. The Jewish families more easily accepted having to dance, but to dance with a “dirty Arab,” and to have it on film… but it happened. There was one Palestinian father who did not want his daughter to dance, so I took him aside, we spoke over coffee or tea. I told him it would be good for her confidence, that we are living in an international world now and she will want to travel, she will want to be more confident as a woman, and her school work would get better as well. Then whenever I had a problem with other parents, I’d send him to talk to them! So it really worked out very well.

Winding forward, I said to myself “I did something for my mother, now I must do something for my father.” I love my father so much that he is Protestant, and my mother is Catholic. And he’s Irish. And you know Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, they don’t talk to each other, they fight. So I got a hold of  friends in Northern Ireland, I worked in Catholic schools and Protestant schools, and there as well I brought the children to dance, together. It was successful as well. 

So you talked a lot about how the parents reacted, but how were the children? Were they reluctant to dance? 

UUGH! I mean, the Jewish schools, they were very reluctant. The Arab schools, they were IMPOSSIBLE. I broke all the rules of the Dulaine Method… I had to teach the boys alone, the girls alone, and throw some of the boys out for disruptions at first. And that was just in their own school! Once a week, we brought them together, the Jewish kids and the Arab kids… we had them kicking each other, spitting at each other, refusing to dance. The first three lessons were useless. But there was the softening over time, and at the end I was amazed… who knew they were like that!? It wasn’t easy, but it happened… I’m a Taurus, you see! I don’t take no for an answer. I have to say, speaking Arabic was the clue. Another teacher, say from America, could not have done it— they would have needed to translate, it wouldn’t have worked. 

What do you think is the role of dance, or art more generally, in situations of deep conflict or injustice?

Well, I just believe music itself is an international language. Music doesn’t have a nationality (well it does,of course) but you can like a piece of music not knowing where it came from. And if you like a piece of music, you will tap your feet, move… it’s innate in us, in people, in human beings. That is the centerpiece for me. If you can get to talk to people one on one, and play some music, and just dance and just move to it, eventually that brings them together. This is like what folk dancing is, the Hora, or the Dabke, music for those dances alone is fantastic! You put on a bit of music like that, immediately it brings people together. But how you bring opposite sides together in the first place… that is something else.

We just passed the 26th anniversary of Dancing Classrooms; what has changed in that time? What lessons have you learned?

Well yeah, 26 years of Dancing Classrooms, the 26th anniversary of my 50th birthday, they coincide (laughs). Oh I have to tell you something funny! I once went into a classroom, you know I joke around with the children, I ask who they think I am, what they think I do, I hit them with my tie… and one little boy raised his hand and asked “Are you a comedian?” (laughs) I’ll never forget that!

But what I’m admiring now with our teaching artists and this lockdown, our teaching artists are now doing online methods, and reworking the syllabus for the program to give an option for online, so schools have a choice next year. This is something I’m not in agreement with normally, but under the circumstances, until this nightmare is over with, I think it’s a wonderful step by you young people to figure out how to stay connected. I wouldn’t be able to figure it out!

Ok, lightning round:

Smooth or Rhythm?

… Rhythm!

American style or International?

American!

Performance, or Social Dance?

Uh… performance

Take the Lead, or Mad Hot Ballroom?

Oh-hoh-hoh [pronounced the French way, you know the way] Take the Lead!

You have to say that. And finally, gummy bears, or gummy worms?

(smiles) Gummy BEARS. 

Oh my god, Otto used to buy five pound bags from BJs… he used to go every Sunday. I loved it!

A Suitcase Full of Art Supplies

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Vinita Karim tilts her head to get a better look at the canvas. We’re in her art studio in Dhaka, Bangladesh, dwarfed by the huge canvases that fill the space. Karim is dressed in loose-fitted white linen pants and a kurti with minimal embroidery. She pours yellow pigment onto the canvas, disrupting the previous harmony of blue and earthy brown. If I look carefully, I can see traces of an emerging city: rooftops and ports.

I ask Karim how she sees herself. “As an artist,” she replies, “a mother and a global citizen”. While these seem like three distinct identities, they are very intertwined. I know this because in the hour we spend talking to each other, she probably learns as much about me as I do about her. She speaks with the vision of a painter, maintaining the delicate balance between intuition and expertise. Her face lights up with a smile as I ask her to meet Anaya, my fourteen-year-old sister. Excited and embarrassed, Anaya rushes to my side to greet her favorite artist.

From our conversation, it is abundantly clear that there is a connection between Karim’s cosmopolitanism and her art. Her passion and vocation align as she travels the world, getting to know “so many people and experiencing so many cultures”. Born to a diplomat father in Burma, Vinita Karim was uprooted as a young girl and sent to school in Kuwait. It was not an easy transition. Then from Kuwait to Khartoum and then Islamabad. Every time, she started from scratch: making friends, navigating schools, seeking solace and a secure connection to the culture. Later came Stockholm, Manila, Cairo, and many more. By the time she was an adult she was fluent in six languages and, she says, “conversational in another two.” Today, travelling with her paintbrushes, colors and palette knife, she’s learned to create a home wherever she goes. Her solace now is capturing the architecture, history and vitality of cities real and imagined. I wonder if her travels are motivated by her desire to be seen as a global artist? Or is she following her heart wherever it takes her?

She has lived in over 15 cities and held over 23 solo shows across the globe. Her specialty is oil on canvas, accentuated with other mediums including gold leaf and embroidery. A unique blend of bold colors and distinctive shapes, her artworks seek to bring to life what she calls the “chaos amidst the structure” of cities. No painting represents a specific geography. Instead, she superimposes elements of different places as her imagination dictates to produce a set of highly distinctive cityscapes. “I am a fan of all things layered”, she tells me with a twinkle in her eyes.

The one constant in her adventures across the globe has been art. Turning her biggest challenge into her biggest strength, she started looking at “travel as a sort of education”. Karim’s love for cities shines through her contemporary renditions of landscapes. She refers to the cities she creates on her canvas as the confluence of “concrete jungles and cultural heritage”. Each element signifies a different story. Yet, they all tie in together into a union that “no camera can capture.”

Confined now to our houses, deprived of travel to other countries, we are reduced to the truth of our shared experience as humans. Vinita Karim packs up and brings along everything she needs when she’s able to travel. But her suitcase full of art supplies will likely be gathering dust in her basement for the foreseeable future. For her, and for us, the memory and imagination of the artist will have to do for now.

Shada Abd Alkader: Camper, Student, Traveller

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Shada Abd Alkader is what you might call a Global Citizen. Born and raised in Ramallah, West Bank, she started traveling before she could remember. “I have family everywhere,” she explains to me over Zoom from her bedroom in Palestine, “So when I was a kid we used to go and visit them.” Currently, she is in her fourth year at Birzeit University just outside her hometown. She sits on her bed, focused and carefully explaining her experiences in softly accented English. For a brief moment, when someone opens her bedroom door she speaks rapid-fire Arabic to ward them off.

We made our acquaintance through a mutual friend, Kristen Chang, who attended Wellesley College with me and Camp Rising Sun with Shada. Campers apply for the full-scholarship camp. Shada tells me that the application process is quite difficult. Children and grandchildren of past campers aren’t allowed to apply, and references and transcripts are required. The more applicants from a country or state, the more difficult it becomes. “From Palestine, it was pretty easy,” she laughs, though that hardly seems the case.

Camp Rising Sun is run by the Louis August Jonas Foundation which prides itself on 90 years of helping teenagers become leaders. They have separate sessions for young women and young men from 30 different countries and 10 U.S. states. “They look for people who have something to offer,” Shada says. “They have passion and they have potential to do something when they grow older.” Carefully designed activities allow campers to hone their leadership skills and grow close to each other by allowing campers to confide in and lead one another. Shada described the first week as a bonding experience. Counselors ran a particularly challenging schedule, with activities focused on bringing people together. More than a few tears are shed throughout the process. Shada explains that everyone is unbelievably close by the end, “I do believe that everyone was already—I don’t have a word for it, I guess ‘amazing?’—in the beginning, but nobody knew it.”

Shada not only met great people, she learned a lot about herself. Camp Rising Sun emphasizes experiential learning. “You’re isolated from the real world, basically. You live in a tent in the middle of the forest, and I never get to experience that here. For example, you sleep under the stars once a week. And it was very very nice because there are no lights and the stars are very beautiful…We used to build things, like a treehouse or a gazebo.” She says that those experiences—including her first use of power tools—were nothing like what she had expected to do as a teenager.

Shada had a slightly different experience during her time in Finland, where she spent a semester abroad via the EU’s student exchange program, Erasmus. While she found the education style to be similar to her home university’s, the experience was different from the curated experience of Camp Rising Sun. She wasn’t sure what to expect. She tells me that she didn’t have an image of Finland, other than how safe it was. Still, she was surprised by certain things. She describes the simultaneous friendliness and “coldness” of Finnish natives. “They do not try to make you feel comfortable. But they are so friendly. It’s weird.” Where Camp Rising Sun was a conglomeration of many people representing many cultures, studying abroad was an immersion in a single, unified culture. Shada says that often when she meets people abroad “people assume things. But I don’t really get offended.” While she wishes they would try to learn more about her and her culture before making assumptions, it doesn’t surprise her. “I understand that they mean no harm and they’re not trying to offend me, so I’m ok with it.”

She tells me she was more surprised by her own revelations about her culture. “We’re very family-oriented, people really care about each other, as Palestinians. And, I know that—but when I went abroad…It was something I felt was missing.” In Finland, she traveled extensively within the country and to Norway, Estonia, and the Netherlands with friends. Her friends, she says, weren’t Finnish, but others studying abroad and going through a similar experience. Something about being “foreign” in a new place drew them together. While Camp Rising Sun and her semester abroad were quite different experiences, both taught her about herself. “I didn’t think I was able to do certain things on my own and I was able to do them,” she muses. Without her travels, she never would have proved herself wrong.

Laura Yanasak: Francophile Turned Teacher

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Laura Yanasak never thought she’d end up standing in front of a classroom full of students. When she graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in French, she told herself, “I’m going to get a cool, cool job. I don’t know where or what but it’s not going to be teaching.” Now, as she enters her thirteenth year at the Milwaukee French Immersion School, she looks back at her initial resistance with a smile. Today, her students know her as Madame Yanasak. She has a superpower the average human might dread: teaching a class full of eager kindergarteners. Think that’s not hard enough? Try it in a different language. Her job is to introduce French to her students by immersing them in francophone language and culture.

Growing up as she did in Wauwatosa, a suburb twenty minutes outside Milwaukee, there wasn’t much exposure to francophone culture. It was a chance gift from her mother, a set of French flash cards, that first got her interested in learning the language. Middle school, when she first started taking French classes, presented an opportunity for Mrs. Yanasak to see “what else is out there.” She stuck with the language for long past her initial sixth grade French class. French sparked her curiosity to learn more about the world, a passion which only grew stronger during Mrs. Yanasak’s first trip to France at 16. Visiting Paris and the Loire Valley with her mother opened her mind to how big the world is; “there’s so much more out there,” she says, “than little Wauwatosa.”  

After college, Mrs. Yanasak originally planned to pursue a Master’s in French film from the University of Iowa. She eventually decided against it and set French aside to work at the Journal Sentinel in Milwaukee. After cuts to the newspaper caused by the ‘08 recession, she found herself back in school; this time as a teacher. A woman at a Friends Meeting gave Mrs. Yanasak word that a French immersion school in the area was hiring, and she spent a day volunteering at the Milwaukee French Immersion School. MFIS’ identity as a public school, and one of the few public immersion schools in the area at that, attracts students from all backgrounds. It took a leap of faith to imagine herself working there as a kindergarten teacher. She says the serendipitous timing of an open teaching position made the decision easier–that, and the instant hugs she got from the kids. With only a week and a half of turnaround time in between jobs, she dusted off her French-speaking skills and jumped right in.  

The first four or five years, according to Mrs. Yanasak, were rough: “you basically have to jump in and just start doing and you’re going to make an insane amount of mistakes.” She pulled 12-13 hour days, learning on the go. On particularly rough days, Mrs. Yanasak has to put on her “English necklace,” which her students respond to with wide eyes and gaping mouths.  All classroom communication is supposed to be in French, Mrs. Yanasak says, but when the necklace comes out, the kids know they’re in trouble. Moments like this, which can only be learned on the job, make her laugh. With more and more time in the classroom –she eventually bumped up to second grade and then down to kindergarten again– she decided to pursue her Master’s in Education at the same time as teaching.

Part of her pedagogy’s purpose is to inspire the sense of wonder learning a language brings, one that Mrs. Yanasak felt as a child with her French flashcards. Getting students excited about French means giving them access to the diverse range of francophone cultures across the world. Mrs. Yanasak’s students are young, and she often has to deal with kids biting one another and lots of temper tantrums, but she’s convinced this is the perfect time to jump in and learn about a language and culture other than your own. “I think language learning is one of the coolest things there is because little kids are just sponges,” she says. “They just take it in… It’s still so cool to watch their brains just grow in that way.” Learning a new language can be challenging, however, and Mrs. Yanasak has learned to meet students on their own ground. They are at different developmental stages, with some kids reading at a third-grade level while others cannot identify letters, all of which she must accommodate, in French. She teaches at an immersion school because there, students come together over a shared passion for language learning. 

Mrs. Yanasak took a round-about path to where she is now, but she takes pride in confronting the challenges teaching presents and in the work she does. “Teaching is one of the hardest jobs there is,” she says, “but it’s also one of the most rewarding.” The personal connections come as part of the job, from teaching multiple children from the same family to relying on her peers for support, are why she plans on sticking with this job until the end of her career.  And she should; Madame Yanasak plays an influential role in her students’ lives. The immersion aspect of her classroom, in particular, teaches students the importance of cultural and educational exchange. In the future, Laura tells me, we’re going to have to persuade Americans who don’t believe they need to learn a second language, that in fact it’s essential, if we ever hope to reduce xenophobia and a number of other ills that face our country. “Maybe one day,” she says hopefully, “we’ll have a language policy like every other country in the world.”