Guest dance teacher goes beyond teaching just moves

A woman with all the energy of someone decades younger, Nana Shineflug tried to bring out the same energy in her students.

Students sat on the floor, arms stretched out to the sides. Shineflug didn't walk so much as flow from one student to the next, saying, "Feel it move from the core of your body outward."

It being chi, the Chinese idea that energy flows through the body and, Shineflug said, is an essential element in dance. Controlling chi helps students with balance and in executing smooth, controlled movements, she said.

Shineflug, a 65-year-old dance instructor at Chicago's Columbia College, spent last week teaching Southeast Missouri State University students her style of modern dance, which blends the eastern mind with the western body.

Going beyond simply teaching dance moves, Shineflug taught the students how their muscles reacted to those moves and how the movements affected their bodies.

While in town, she taught six students, all members of the DanceXpressions dance club at Southeast, a dance she choreographed for them to perform at the annual fall dance concert in November.

'She didn't talk at us'

Katie Stricker, president of DanceXpressions, said having the opportunity to work with Shineflug and learn her style was a great experience.

"The biggest thing we learned was the awareness of our bodies, and how we move," Stricker said. "Nana's teaching style is absolutely amazing. She didn't talk at us, she involved herself with us."

Stricker said instead of standing at the front of the room calling out what to do next, she got in line with the dancers and showed them what to do.

Besides teaching the DanceXpressions group, Shineflug served as a guest teacher for 11 dance classes during her stay at Southeast.

"We had originally contracted her to teach four classes," Southeast dance instructor Paul Zmolek said. "But she said she wanted to do more."

Zmolek met Shineflug while he was teaching at a college in Iowa and said he immediately noticed how full of life Shineflug was and how deeply she cared for her students.

When Zmolek came to Southeast he lobbied to get Shineflug to come to campus for a week as a guest teacher. After Martin Jones, dean of the college of liberal arts, saw the proposal, Zmolek said, he was willing to support the idea and they invited her to come teach.

Started at 9 years old

For the first half of her life, Shineflug thought she would be an archaeologist or math teacher, anything but a dance instructor.

In 1947, at 9 years old, Shineflug began training in many styles of dance including ballet, hula and tap as a sort of hobby.

Although still dancing several years later, after high school Shineflug decided to attend Northwestern University and major in mathematics. When she had completed her studies at Northwestern, she, as many other young women at the time did, got married and started a family.

For four years she taught high school math in Chicago, where she had been born and raised, but as a 32-year-old wife and mother in the 1960s, Shineflug realized that she no longer wanted to be a housewife and teacher and began to think seriously about a career in dance.

Abandoning formal instruction, Shineflug hired several dance instructors, each for an intensive, two-week training session.

"I wanted to figure out what dance meant for me, not for someone else," Shineflug said. "I wanted to find out what other people knew and how that affected me."

Over time, as she continued her learning of dance, she continued with her formal education and received masters degrees in interdisciplinary arts and dance movement therapy.

As a teacher, Shineflug lives by the motto, "You cannot teach what you cannot do," which is one of the reasons why she involves herself so deeply in her classes. The other reason is that she has a fondness for the students who are so willing to learn.

"I truly love them," Shineflug said. " I feel their love back and it feels good to me."

hkronmueller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 128