AESTHETIC ATHLETICISM: A FORMER HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL AND WRESTLING STAR TURNS HIS FOCUS TO THE ART OF DANCE

The first time he tried Capoeira, an acrobatic African-Brazilian martial arts dance form, Paul Zmolek left his blood on the floor.

"Something told me this was for me," the former high school football and wrestling captain said.

If the earrings and the soul patch hint that Zmolek hears a different drummer than many college professors do, his 6-2 former lineman's frame and his words make it clear that the anorexic and intellectual approaches to dance once popular don't move him.

"Dance is aesthetic athleticism," he says. "I'm training athletes who are artists."

Tonight, Zmolek will sing and play the atabaqui, the African-Brazilian drum, in the sixth annual Fall Dance Concert at Southeast Missouri State University.

The 7 p.m. concert at Parker Dance Studio will present the DancExpressions dancers, the Sundancers, Fraternity Step Performers, Tai Chi, ballroom and tap classes, faculty and student choreography and a performance of a different African-Brazilian martial arts dance form called Maculele.

Zmolek began teaching dance at Southeast in September. He and his wife, Josephine, moved here from Iowa, where they shared a teaching position at the small liberal arts Luther College.

Zmolek may have his high school football coach to thank for his dance career. At Ames, Iowa, in the Title IX mid-1970s, the coach wanted his players to take a dance class to improve their stretching and agility, Zmolek was one of 10 male athletes brave enough to do so.

When his high school newspaper asked why he was taking dance, he pointed out an extra incentive.

"When I looked around at all the girls in skin-tight leotards, I knew this was the place to be," he told the reporter.

Zmolek majored in dance and psychology at Iowa State University. Sensing the Midwest was a difficult place to pursue a dance career, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area after graduation.

There he studied at San Francisco State University, performed in modern dance companies and first encountered Capoeira (pronounced Cap-o-err-a).

Capoeira is a 400-year-old dance form developed by slaves in Brazil. "Slaves could not overtly demonstrate power, so there is a lot of deceptiveness in it," Zmolek says

"It has been called the art of survival and has been used as a metaphor for life."

Capoeira looks like mock fighting. Some people think it inspired break dancing. The dancers are surrounded by a circle of people clapping, playing instruments and singing. "You play rather than fight," Zmolek explains. "... It can be violent or beautiful ... There are no rules."

After moving to Los Angeles, Zmolek met his wife, Josephine, in a Capoeira class. Later they were in a performance together that bombed. "It was a horrible experience and we bonded," he said.

Zmolek received his MFA in dance from the University of California-Irvine. He's proud that he has been able to make a living in dance since graduating from college in 1981. "That's unusual," he said.

He teaches all forms of dance. But next semester Southeast will become one of fewer than 10 universities in the U.S. where students can learn Capoeira. Josephine will teach the class as an adjunct professor, and he will help.

Tonight, DancExpressions will perform a dance form called Maculele, a cousin to Capoeira. In Maculele, the dancers carry sticks that are hit against each other. A different form of the dance that will not be performed tonight employs machetes.

He and Josephine decided to come to Southeast because of the possibilities offered by the River Campus and because they liked the plans of dance program director Dr. Marc Strauss, Zmolek said. "Marc Strauss, like us, wanted to create a program that was not just the same old thing."