Michael Reckord, Contributor

Some 50 Jamaican dance students are currently learning a bit more about love and dance, and love of dance, than they probably expected when they signed upfor summer classes. Their teacher is the gifted American dancer-choreographer-teacher, Iquail Shaheed, who is now conducting a two-week series of dance workshops at the Tony Wilson Dance Centre.

Iquail has a big smile and a firm handshake. He later confirms a suspicion his rich baritone voice had raised: he is a singer, too. In fact, he had a singing career in mind while in junior high school at 13, 11 years ago.

"But I fell in love with dance," he said.

That was when he was formally introduced to the art, when he enrolled at Philadelphia's Performing Arts High School.

He was led there, by divine guidance he believes, after favourable experiences in his high school's production of the black musical, Purlie.

That love, and more, is what he is now passing on to two workshop groups in 20 daytime classes for children and advanced teens, and 10 master classes for adult advanced dancers. They are learning the methodology and vocabulary of the Horton technique, as well as, jazz and the Dunham method.

Trained many

Iquail fondly recalls the few classes he had with the legendary Katherine Dunham. "She was about 93 at the time," he says.

He also trained at the Martha Graham Center for Contemporary Dance, The Julliard School, Jacob's Pillow, Pennsylvania Ballet and International Ballet Theatre. His awards include the Philadelphia Dance Award (Rocky), the Marion D. Cuyjet Award, the Promising Artist Award and the Dr William Ross Scholarship Fund Award.

His college graduation dance work, Condemned (based on the Medea Greek myth), placed second in an international field of 600 applicants in the Dance Under the Stars Choreography Festival in California. He received his BFA in Dance (Ballet) last year, and is currently an MFA candidate at the State University of New York, Purchase College.

The artistic director of his own company, Dance IQUAIL!, he teaches part-time at the Ailey School with New Dance Group and his own dancers. He has also taught at Alonso King's Lines Ballet School (California), Centre Stage and Steps on Broadway.

On Broadway he appeared in Hot Feet, he danced in Omaha in the opera Aida and toured the US with The Lion King. His first performance with the last named was emotional.

"I cried," he said, when he walked on to the stage and heard the applause and screams of delight from the audience.

Adventurous performances

It's doubtful that anyone noticed, for he was 18 feet high in the air, on stilts, dressed like a giraffe. Happily, he didn't stay up in the air: over the next two years with the show he played other animals, including a wildebeest, a gazelle and a hyena. His roles involved singing and dancing eight times a week.

"Dance was just something I had to do," he says. "Dance is the ultimate expression of the soul. I associate dance with acting. We are actors who share our stories and our soul through movement. Technique is just one piece of a thousand piece puzzle.

"Dance teachers and choreographers appeal to audiences who don't necessarily understand technique. But they should be able to feel what the choreographer feels, whether it's happy, sad or painful. The audience should feel that, not just see pretty shapes."

When he first started dancing, Iquail went to dance classes in studios all over the city, learning everything he could. In the white studios he learnt primarily techniques created by white dance pioneers; in the black schools, the techniques and methodology of the black pioneers like Dunham. This helped to make him versatile.

Versatile dancer

He says: "It was always instilled in me that I was to be a versatile dancer. So I have a bachelor's in ballet, my career has been with modern dance companies, Africa- based companies, and on Broadway, which is jazz and hip hop-based."

When he was 18 he took a one-year break from college and got his first professional job. It took him to Greece, which was "an incredible experience".

He declared his delight with the passion that many of his Jamaican students bring to the classes, and finds them usually more passionate than American students at the same level. He mentioned one medical student on internship, who came to class after a 36-hour hospital shift and only three or four hours of sleep.

He also saw, he said, a lot of raw talent in many of the younger dancers, and he wished they had the opportunity he had as a teenager of going to a performing arts school.

In the dances he creates the themes, including love and closer human relationships, as with one called Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love. The reference is to that city's actual motto. Themes come from all sorts of places - his relationship with his deceased mother, his family situation (he is now helping to raise his brothers) from the Bible, from the classics, from male-female relationships.

After his teaching stint ends next Friday, Iquail said, he was looking forward to a trip to the north coast and to lying on the beach, and also to seeing the National Dance Theatre Company's production.

"I was going to say you're lucky," The Sunday Gleaner began "but ..."

"I'm blessed," Iquail said.