As Citystep celebrates its fifth anniversary, the dance company continues to reach out to Cambridge by touching the city's heart through its children.

The program began in 1983 when Sabrina Peck '84 and a small group of Harvard students taught dance at a Cambridge public school. From those small beginnings, the program has grown into an immense organization comprised of 40 undergraduates and 100 fifth through seventh graders.

During the school year, Harvard students travel to three Cambridge public schools twice a week and work with school children on dance-related games and specific dance steps. While working in separate classes at the Tobin, Longfellow and Graham and Parks grammar schools, the undergraduates wear a number of different hats including those of dance teachers and of Big Brothers and Big Sisters.

All the work that the Citystep instructors put in with the three individual classes from September to May is geared towards a massive, dramatic dance production held in April. This year's show, entitled Where Go Our Feet?, will be performed on the Loeb Theater Mainstage on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The show marks the culmination of the year's work. But participants say that the bi-weekly classes--and a special Saturday segment for more advanced students--are the most significant part of the Citystep program because they can have a direct impact on the lives of the school children.

In each 45-minute class, a Harvard undergraduate works with two or three children, teaching them simple dance steps. "We start with simple movements like how to move quickly and slowly--really basic things," says Citystep instructor Magdalena Hernandez '90. The movements gradually become more complicated, she says. The children pretend to be different animals including a borsch bear which is a really heavy movement", a "cool cat", a "slithery snake where they slither across the floor" and a "fierce fox where they run and jump."

Hernandez, who worked with the Graham and Parks School, says that the process of preparing the children for the end-of-the-year production was a gradual one. "Slowly we taught them the finale, and we would just drill and drill until they got it."

At the beginning of each session, the director of the class--one of the seven or eight undergraduate instructors in each class of about 20 children--warms up the children and then begins to teach new steps to the group, Hernandez says. While the director teaches the steps, the other dance teachers dance alongside of the kids, helping them to learn the movements, Hernandez said.

Following the initial instruction, the teachers seperate the fifth-graders into smaller groups of twos and threes and work with them further on getting the combinations, she says.

Because Where Go Our Feet? is a dance show with relatively few words, the instructors spend a lot of time teaching the children "how to convey a feeling to the audience." Hernandez says. In the show, the Graham and Parks students perform a dance about a street gang, so "we worked on looking cool and getting that image across to the audience," she says.

The classes work best when the they are small, because it is easier for the Harvard students to get to know the children and help them with personal problems as well as teach them dance steps, Hernandez says. "It's nicer when you have a small group because no matter what, you can't have more teachers. You also get to know the kids better," she says.

The Citystep program goes into different schools each year, and instructors say the group's character varies by school. Vivian A. Newdick '89, who taught at the Harrington School last year and now teaches at Tobin, says that at Harrington "there was a more troubled student body as a whole." As a result the children in the dance classes were sometimes inattentive and unwilling to participate, she says.

Wildly Energetic

By contrast, Newdick says the Tobin children are basically a great bunch except that occasionally they get out of hand. "They're wildly energetic and not easy to keep under control. They're unwieldy sometimes," Newdick says.

In addition to teaching dance, the classes and the show help the kids develop positive self-esteem, says Stefanie H. Roth '89, who has taught classes for two years. "Performing arts are not the center of the universe, but it has a lot to do with feeling good about yourself," Roth says.