Lesson plan: student teaching with David Dorfman.

A residency with cutting-edge modern dance choreographer David Dorfman might seem like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for any aspiring dancer. But the experience proved equally life changing for future dance teachers during an innovative project in Arizona.

In January 2004, Phoenix's Arcadia High School invited Dorfman to spend three weeks creating a collaborative work on the student company. The school's dance teacher, Denise Rapp, also asked nine students from Arizona State University's dance education program to take part as full-fledged participants in the new piece, improvising and collaborating alongside the high school students five days a week. Rapp thought the presence of the ASU students would help to land a grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, and she was right. She also thought the college members would learn new teaching methods, but she never guessed how deeply their pedagogy would be influenced.

From the first day in the studio, Dorfman worked in revelatory ways. He led the dancers in guided warm-ups using improvisation, employing key words like "lengthening" and "folding." He asked the dancers to contribute creatively to the piece by writing poems or drawing pictures, and let them choose the theme (segregation). Instead of using counted phrases, he led the dancers in performing related movements with different timings, and rather than having the dancers audition for parts, he arranged their improvisations into a 20-minute work, Here, that let each of them shine.

High school kids who had had little or no experience improvising were soon sharing their feelings with boldness, moving in deeply personal ways instead of copying steps from the latest Britney Spears video. For Dorfman, it was just another day in the studio. "I walk into the room regarding everyone as collaborators," he said from his office at Connecticut College, where he is now on faculty. "I teach almost the same style of class to beginning as to advanced students. The idea is that we're in this together--we need to make mistakes; we don't need to be perfect."

That idea of positive reinforcement was what most struck Marlene Strang, an ASU senior who danced in the new work and made researching the Dorfman residency her graduating thesis. "He would never say, 'Susie, that's the wrong foot,'" Strang recalled. "He'd say, 'Let's try it another way.' It's critical, because how many times as dancers do we hear, 'No, that's wrong'?" Instead, Dorfman's favorite phrase was "What if ..."

Mila Parrish, the assistant professor of dance at ASU who co-designed the project and collaborated with Strang on research, was thrilled to see her future dance teachers find such a role model. "It was an opportunity to put educational theory into practice," she said. "David made a commitment to create life in this moment instead of turns and big kicks, which are usually part of the mind-set of high school dance." In a state that requires each high school to have one or two full-time dance teachers, Parrish is confident that her ASU students will get jobs and that Dorfman's example will prove inspiring.

But not everyone was ready for Dorfman's style of creativity. Though audiences at the community premiere of Here clapped wildly, the high school students' peers responded with boos during a performing-arts assembly. Several of the dancers were heartsick, but Dorfman was indignant. He talked back to the audience, prompting the school officials to reform their assembly rules and winning the gratitude of both the high school and college-age dancers.

Dorfman said he acquired his positive leadership attitude from his own teachers, including Daniel Nagrin, who taught him to be "a thinking dancer," and Kei Takei, whom Dorfman recalls saying, "Beautiful performance, everybody," after every show, no matter the mistakes. "The idea that we're people is so important," he said. "I did a lot of athletics in high school, and I hated nasty coaches. We're told that if you're positive you can't also demand, but that's just not true."

Now his methods have been passed down to a new generation of teachers. A few months after dancing in Here, Marlene Strang began student teaching in another Arizona high school. "I used a lot of his techniques," she said. I'd say, 'I don't know the arms; can somebody show them to me?' I used student feedback, and my students were a lot more devoted to their projects. I used a lot of improvisation. And I told them, 'Try the left foot.' It's so effective."

Rachel Howard writes about dance for the San Francisco Chronicle. She has a memoir forthcoming from Dutton in July.