“Dégagé,” Jessica Petchenick demonstrates for her 2-3-year-old Wiggle Toes class at Tiny Dancers on S. Washington Street. Photo by Shirley Ruhe/Gazette Packet
The warm up music begins from the corner. "Are you ready?" Jessica Petchenick, instructor at Tiny Dancers on S. Washington Street, asks, "Can you dance with your eyes?" Moms and leotard-bedecked children blink at each other. "Can you dance with your nose?" Noses wiggle including five mothers and one father who has accompanied his daughter to today's Wiggle Toes class for 2-3 year olds. After wiggling ears and patting tummies, at last the answer is "You dance with your feet."
"Show me your foot, everyone point your toes. No, no back on your tippy toes." Petchenick's hands are curved above her head as she demonstrates the élevé position. The music changes to "Late Last Night” as the girls all curl up the floor. "1-2-3 wake up." They stretch and stand up ready to dance. Meanwhile several younger siblings are snuggling with mom, and one sits by the mirror making faces at himself.
Petchenick places alternating yellow and red circles on the floor. "OK Lorelei, jump over the pancake." Lorelei leaps from one foot to the other in a pas de chat and lets out a whoop of delight as she lands on the other side of the pancake. "Good job!"
"Ready for the bar?" Petchenick pulls the pint size bar to the middle of the room. Each girl crowds into a place and clings tightly to a space on the bar, her moves reflected in the large mirror covering the wall. "Dégagé," and Petchenick moves her leg straight off the floor with toe pointed to remind them of the movement. Little feet struggle and point in all directions. "Plié," knees bend outward with feet together. This class has been together since September and even though their bodies may not be entirely cooperative, they know many of the positions.
"Are we ready to read our story?" Little voices respond and run to the corner to get a good place on the floor in front of Petchenick. Today's story is Pinklecious. It begins, "It was a rainy day, too wet to go outside." The story is about a little girl who eats too many pink cupcakes and turns pink herself. It won't wash off. The girls reenact the story. "Shall we get dressed up?" as Petchenick opens a deep drawer full of surprises. Petchenick pulls out a pink frilly dress and one by one each girl scoots into her identical costume and becomes pink herself. As the girls dance around the circle, they try everything to return to their normal selves. They plié over a large sparkling cupcake. "Hold your cupcake up high, take a pretend bite." No luck — they are still pink. Faces light up as magic wands emerge from the large drawer. "Look mom," but despite waving them around, the girls are still pink. It is only a bite from the grand blue cupcake that returns them to their normal selves. Petchenick says she likes to work the dance steps into something fun and this way they pick up the basics. But she explains you have to be flexible because sometimes you have planned something and it doesn't work.
Petchenick has been dancing since she was 3 years old and her mother put her in dance classes. "I played soccer but I kept coming back to dance." She minored in dance at William and Mary and taught children in the recreational center there. "I really fell in love with the William and Mary program." She has been teaching for four years at Tiny Dancers in Alexandria and has been the manager at that location for the last year. She teaches 15 classes full-time on Tuesday-Saturday. After college she spent one year as an intern and one year as an employee at Dance Place in D.C.
Petchenick says Tiny Dancers has a creative director who puts together the story boxes. The drawer changes every week with 60-70 different stories available for the theme of the day. The classes start with Wiggle Toes for 2-3 year olds (mom and me — or maybe a dad) and go up to the 10-year-old age group. At 3 the child becomes independent and can attend classes without an adult.
This class is officially over. Moms sit on the floor and chat with each other while tiny ballerinas practice pointing and pivoting and chasing each other. Petchenick says, "We all feel like we're family here."