Professor's love for dance inspires
Dance teacher puts spirit into students' steps

By NANETTE BITTING
Collegian Arts Writer

"One, two, three, four and flex two and extend two" resounded like a chant through the studio in time to snapping fingers. On count, students, lying on their backs, raise their legs, point their toes then lower them.

A typical dancer's bun of brown hair adorns the head of the woman dressed in a black sweat suit. A white T-shirt pokes out at the neck and white socks bunched around her ankles as she gracefully sweeps in between the rows of students, helping them achieve the perfect form.

Coordinator of the integrated dance minor, Patricia Heigel-Tanner stops one of the students in her Exercise and Sport Science 272 class -- dance fundamentals --to demonstrate a proper leg placement.

"Very good, folks," she compliments while adjusting her glasses as her students finish the exercise. Heigel-Tanner has been helping University students perfect dance moves since she was hired in 1964. Since then, her job has expanded to include directing the University's 35-class, 50-student dance program and the dance troupe, Orchesis. She is also considered one of the best assistant professors at the University by many of her adoring students.

"It's simply her enthusiasm. She really loves dancing. She's here because she cares about helping people," said Dana Verdoorn (junior-psychology).

It is Heigel-Tanner's energy and love for dance that make her the object of her students' praises, Verdoorn said.

Dance student and Orchesis member Tameka Brown (junior-theatre arts) agrees that Heigel-Tanner is an important instructor within the program.

"She's open-minded and willing to help anyone in any way. She's very effective in relaying what she wants done, but she's open to suggestions," she said. "She's helped me grow a lot as a choreographer. I owe a lot to her."

It is Heigel-Tanner's love for dance that prompts her to put all her efforts into helping students develop their dancing skills. Even after hundreds of students and thousands of classes, Heigel-Tanner still enjoys her work and its rewards.

"What excites me is seeing the students' progress, not only technically but also creatively," she said. "You nourish and support that talent that you see."

Heigel-Tanner's students are just as excited to work with her as she is with them. Verdoorn has worked with Heigel-Tanner in Orchesis for two years and said she thinks Heigel-Tanner is a wonderful instructor.

"She took charge of everything, kept everything under control and was there for personal support. She is one of the nicest people I met, a great asset to the program," Verdoorn said.

The passion Heigel-Tanner's students see in her began at age 10 when she saw a performance by the Dayton Theatre Group at a vaudeville show her father's company presented.

"I got so excited about the dance. He took me backstage to meet the dancers. Mary Virginia Malone urged me to enroll in their classes, and I did and I haven't stopped since," she said.

Heigel-Tanner began taking class once a week at the Schwarz Dance School and made her stage debut that year as a silver birch tree in the production of Hansel and Gretel.

"It was a wonderful experience. The school had a real strong philosophy of working to create dancers. They also wanted them to have fun," she said.

At age 13, she was accepted into the school's Children's Ballet Company and at 16, she moved on to the Theatre Dance Group within the school. It was there that she got her first taste of teaching.

She began helping the younger classes by demonstrating dance moves to earn money to pay for her frequent lessons.

"I was practically living at the studio," she recalled.

After graduating from high school, she served as a teaching apprentice for a year before she began teaching on her own at the school. While at Schwarz, she spent summers at Connecticut College where she worked with Martha Graham and Alwain Nikolais. She also attended the American Dance Festival.

"You just ate, slept and danced," she said. She spent other summers either rooming with a friend in Greenwich Village, N.Y., and studying with Robert Joffrey or living in Steamboat Springs, Colo., and taking lessons at the Perry Mansfield dance school.

Heigel-Tanner's first invitation to State College came from Betty Jane Dittmar, a friend she met at the American Dance Festival. Dittmar asked her to be an instructor for the Strawberry Hill summer program for students in the arts. But Heigel-Tanner turned down the offer and instead traveled to Europe for a break from dancing.

Dittmar was persistent and offered the position to Heigel-Tanner again the following year. This time, Heigel-Tanner accepted but only for a summer.

"I decided I needed a break from dance for a while, so I stayed in State College for a year," she said. "And that is when the job at the University opened up. So I applied."

While working at the University, Heigel-Tanner had an impact on her colleagues as much as on her students. Dance instructor Renita Romasco said it is Heigel-Tanner's energy and spirit that makes her so popular.

"Pat is a very generous person. She is generous with her time and is always there to listen and to give advice. She really believes in the program and her students, and she helps them get the best out of it," Romasco said.

Heigel-Tanner said her enthusiasm comes from her passion for dance.

"It's a love -- a love to move, to create, to teach, to perform and to be part of the process of art," Heigel-Tanner said. "It's something inside of you that is a desire and if you don't do it, you're not fulfilled. It's in your blood. It's part of you."

It is evident Heigel-Tanner instills that desire in some of her students as they gather around her at the end of class to review the moves learned that day. Then, she dismisses the bunch who chat rapidly and laugh about the class as they get their belongings and leave the dance studio with Heigel-Tanner beaming at them.