Oscar Hawkins: The Poetry of Dance

Story by Michelle Brosco Christian

When Oscar Hawkins moves you want - er, have - to look. Even his walk is graceful, poetic. A simple lifting and turning of his arm is artistic.

Perhaps it's something inborn, or something that comes from hours upon hours of training, but Hawkins, a ballet dancer, has it.

An early teacher and inspiration saw it, too. At only 17, Hawkins was enrolled at the Duke Ellington School of the Performing Arts when ballet legend Mikhail Lavrovsky (formerly a principal dancer of the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow) saw him and recommended he attend Washington, D.C.'s Kirov Ballet Academy. Hawkins, from a farming family of 10 children in Brandywine, Md., couldn't afford to attend, but teachers saw to it he had scholarships.

Now, Hawkins is making this dream of dancing professionally a reality for young dancers in Southern Maryland at the Ballet Arts Academy at the Old Waldorf School.

"This is one of my dreams - this is a place worth giving to," Hawkins said about becoming the artistic director and ballet master of the academy more than a year ago. "Some of my most gifted students can't afford to attend," he said, adding that scholarships are as critical to developing talented youngsters today as they were for him.

Attending the academy is a commitment, said Ballet Arts Academy founder Jayne Stefani-Keating, who moved overseas when her husband began a new job there. "I feel so confident with Oscar here," she said on a recent visit home where she watched Hawkins work with two advanced students. "He's accelerated the program and the students love him."

On a recent Saturday morning, Hawkins worked with three young dancers on a piece he choreographed. As he showed them movements like birds flapping their wings, his own sinewy arms looked like works of art.

Hawkins demonstrates a combination of movements that would put a Billy Blanks kickboxing workout to shame. At 36, Hawkins appears as flexible and fluid as a 20 year old. He bends at the waist with his hands touching the floor and immediately explodes up with one leg reaching out and up over his head. Effortless. Or that's how it appears.

When students like Alex Walters, 15, of Waldorf, watch Hawkins dance, he said, "We just think, 'Wow!' You have to be very strong (to do this), every muscle is working."

Alex's current dance partner, Sarah Cheney, 14, of La Plata, came to the academy when it opened in 2005, and she said of Hawkins: "He's really good because he keeps us in line - he wants us to be perfect. We're very blessed to have him here."

It's Hawkins' flexibility, strength and fluidity of movement that have often been noted by the public. In a review from a Silicon Valley, Calif., online publication MetroActive, the author writes: "During his three-minute piece, Strange Fruit, Oscar Hawkins vaunted his Cirque du Soleil conditioning in yogic-strength poses often held still against all apparent laws of gravity."

It seems to have gone against all laws of chance that Hawkins went from rural farm boy singing in the church choir into the world of national dance and principal dance roles with the likes of the Washington Opera, and guest appearances with Ballet International, Deutsche Opera and Dance Theatre of Harlem.

But it might not seem odd to Hawkins, who said he was used to working hard in the hot sun on his parents' farm. He knew about pain and hardship and he was dedicated to doing what he loved, which, at first, was singing. He started at Washington, D.C.'s Duke Ellington School as a vocal major, but when he needed dance skills to land a part in a play, he found the school required ballet. "I'll do it if I can wear my jeans," he recalls telling the ballet teacher, not wanting to wear tights.

Those days in school are long in the past, as Hawkins has since traveled the world guest performing with some of the most famous ballet companies. He's even appeared in Las Vegas with Cirque du Soleil, appeared in a movie and made a CD of his original songs.

So what brings this successful performer back to his hometown? After the death of his father while Hawkins was working in Germany, he realized he wanted to be near his family and friends. After returning to the United States, he'd taught some master classes at the Waldorf academy for boys.

"I've got to do all the roles I wanted and worked with all the choreographers I wanted," said Hawkins. "There wasn't much left that was that interesting, but I knew I could give my gift to others (at the academy). … All the kids here are serious (about ballet) - they want this. The academy is there to give them that background. There's a lot of hidden talent here and Southern Maryland is ready for it."

The Ballet Arts Academy is located in the Old Waldorf School at 3074 Crain Highway/U.S. 301. Visit its Web site at www.balletartsacademy.com or call 240-377-6390 for more information.