Stephanie Clemens.

Oak Park, Illinois, acclaims itself as arts-friendly by continually reminding visitors that Frank Lloyd Wright, Ernest Hemingway and Doris Humphrey were Oak Parkers. The Academy of Movement and Music (AMM) housed in this Chicago suburb is part of its arts community.

AMM's director is Stephanie Clemens, whose father was a portrait painter; her mother, a sculptor; her baby sitter, a Ruth St. Denis dancer; and her next-door neighbor, a Diaghilev alumnus, Adolph Bolm.

Clemens began her ballet training with Bolm, later studied with Lila Zalli in California and St. Denis-assistant Karoun Tootikian, and then attended the San Francisco Ballet School and the Juilliard School in New York City. She performed with American Concert Ballet and a California-based opera company, and attended the University of California at Los Angeles, earning a degree in physical anthropology. After her marriage to a professor at Duke University in North Carolina, she began teaching creative movement to youngsters in her living room and at an elementary school. By 1974 she was teaching creative movement and ballet in a storefront in Oak Park, and by 1982 her growing school was moved to its present building, co-owned by Clemens and faculty member James Tenuta, who assisted in planning the building's renovation.

The Academy of Movement and Music is housed in a three-story building (formerly a military school), where 12,000 square feet of space accommodates two large dance studios and three classrooms for creative movement for the very young--all with sprung wood floors--four music studios, offices, dressing rooms, a photography studio, storage rooms, a study room for students who come directly from their academic schools for a daily dance class, and the 150-seat Doris Humphrey Memorial Theater.

Seven hundred students attend the Academy weekly. Four hundred are dance students, two hundred pre-school tots are in the creative movement classes, and one hundred study only music.

Clemens explains: "Youngsters as young as three years old are in the early learning program where they are taught basic motor skills through creative movement. The focus is on listening, concentrating, following directions, and rhythmic movements. All these prepare the children for the study of ballet. At the age of six or seven, students move into the traditional approach to ballet with simple barre and a few very basic steps.

"The philosophy of the academy is that we believe that all children are gifted, and it's up to us to identify that gift."

Noticeable throughout the school, is that students have exceptionally fine posture and move with ease. Clemens's knowledge of anatomy inspires her to inculcate fine posture. And then, her own superb carriage is consciously and unconsciously imitated.

Clemens explains the professional training she offers: "Those who become strongly attracted to ballet enter the preprofessional division and take more classes, starting with two a week and increasing to three or four. Many children come to the Academy when they are three and stay all the way through high school. There is a stability in Oak Park that allows for that."

In addition to classical ballet, students are required to take modern dance and dance composition. For those interested in character dance, jazz, flamenco, and mime, there are additional classes. Pianists accompany the ballet classes and specialized forms. Tapes are used for creative movement.

A showcase performance presents students at the school's theater. I witnessed an especially endearing event at one of these informal recitals, indicative of the school's ambiance. A dance composed by a thirteen-year-old girl was performed by a twelve-year-old schoolmate. As the performer responded to the applause and bowed, the youthful choreographer presented her with a bouquet and kissed her--just as they do at performances at the Metropolitan Opera House.

At the end of each season there is a large-scale performance in a local high school auditorium. This always takes the form of a story ballet performed to classical music. Recent productions were A Midsummer Night's Dream, I See America Dancing, Adventures in Oz, Save the Animals, and Peter Pan. The students pay a modest fee at the beginning of each season to provide for new costumes. However, most of the costuming is imaginatively improvised from the school's large accumulated wardrobe.

AMM has thirteen teachers on contract as faculty. Most of these teachers have university degrees. Several are former students who started in the school, went to college, and returned to teach. A distinguished recent addition to the faculty is Russian Valery Dolgallo, trained in the Vaganova Academy in St. Petersburg. There is very little turnover. Most teachers have been with the school for many years. An invaluable veteran is Larry Ippel, a modern dance teacher who has been with Clemens for twenty years. Mime is taught by Tenuta, a theater pro.

Connected with the school is Momenta, a professional performing company of twelve dancers. These include several faculty members who trained as dancers and now find that teaching and performing make a satisfactory dance career. A Junior Momenta offers experience for advanced students when larger casts are needed in productions by the professional troupe. Momenta also offers opportunitites for new choreography by members of the company, as well as by local and national choreographers. In addition to frequent local appearances, Momenta has performed in New York and Washington, and in Brazil.

Clemens has a deep interest in and knowledge of early American modern dance and has had historians stage accurate revivals of dances by Ruth St. Denis and Doris Humphrey for the company. Clemens herself regularly performs St. Denis and Humphrey solos. The company, under the auspices of the National Doris Humphrey Society based in Oak Park, is preparing a Humphrey Festival for this year's Humphrey centennial. These works will be performed throughout 1995 and will include the St. Denis/Humphrey collaborations Sonata Pathetique and Soaring.

The Junior company will perform Humphrey's earliest works, choreographed by a teenaged Doris for her classmates in the studio of Mary Wood Hinman, an educator who inspired Humphrey to seek a dance career. The charming little dances have been reconstructed by Clemens from Hinman's published notes.

A number of graduates of the Academy have won places in national dance companies. Tanya Wideman is a member of Dance Theatre of Harlem, Ayisha McMillan is an apprentice with Houston Ballet, and Sandra Kaufman is dancing with the Martha Graham ensemble. There are also alumni in ballet and modem dance companies in Arizona, Kansas, and Montana.