Toddlers' Tango in the news!

A KIDDIE MOVEMENT
TODDLER TANGO CLASSES INTRODUCE PRESCHOOLERS TO DANCE, SONG, MUSIC
Linda Ober, Contributing Writer, The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY, newspaper)
November 16, 2004

Fourteen-month-old Ethen Bojarski lies on the carpet and pretends to sleep. He rests his head of soft red hair on his small hands and blinks his blue eyes as the lyrics "in the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight," play in the background. But the tot from DeWitt doesn't have much time to rest. Moments later, the music crescendos and 16 people - half of them children, half adults - explode into song and dance.

Clapping hands, stomping feet, shouting lyrics. Such exuberance is not uncommon in Toddlers' Tango, a singing, dancing and movement class for young children. Tango creator Tamar Frieden designed the class to teach toddlers music appreciation, improve their motor skills and give them self-confidence and body awareness.

This session, which meets Monday mornings at DeWitt Town Hall, is one of 21 scheduled Toddlers' Tango classes. For ages 8 to 24 months or 2 to 4 years old, the six-week sessions cost a total of $60 and each last 45 minutes.

On this rainy morning, the fidgety toddlers sit on their parents' laps. When Frieden starts a CD and the first song's infectious melody plays, the children pick up red wooden sticks and bound to every corner of the room.

Frieden believes the kids should be free to do what they want and to be who they want.

"I don't tell them how to move, I tell them to create the movement," says Frieden, who took two years of dance therapy classes at the State University College at Buffalo before moving to Syracuse in 1995. "I don't tell them how to jump. Jump how you want to jump."

So when Yuval Kelchner, a curly-haired 15-month-old from Syracuse, repeatedly escapes the arms of his mother and wanders over to the instrument box in search of a noisemaker, Frieden doesn't flinch. When Ethen sucks on a wooden stick instead of using it to make sounds, she continues to enthusiastically offer encouragement.

Some of the children are attending their first session, while others are what Frieden calls groupies. These are the tots who have been taking classes for months, even years, and parents who are on their second go-round with a younger child.

Michal Downy's oldest daughter, Shellie, 4, attended classes for two years, and now Downy has enrolled Danielle, 15 months. "It gives me quality time with them and many more great moments at home," Downy says, adding that dancing in front of other people has helped develop Shellie's personality.

Frieden, a 43-year-old Israeli-American, began teaching two Toddlers' Tango classes at the Westcott Community Center in 1999, when she realized there was something missing in children's programs.

"I was looking for diverse, more multicultural and less structured music for children," says Frieden, who includes African, French, Jewish, Spanish and Japanese music in her classes. Five years later, she teaches seven classes, has trained four instructors to lead sessions and dreams of expanding the program nationwide.

She also has released "Toddlers' Tango: Creative Music and Movement," an interactive video which includes rhythm sticks, a scarf, streamers and maracas. The $24.99 video received awards from Dr. Toy, iParenting and Creative Child.

Maureen Macero, of DeWitt, purchased the kit for daughters Claire, 16 months, and Emma, 3 years old. "We have to buy another set of instruments because they're not sharing the shaky egg very well," Macero says, referring to one of the instruments included with the video.

Frieden recently released the "Toddlers' Tango" CD, a collaborative effort with Tom Knight, a singer, songwriter and puppeteer from Ithaca who often performs at the Open Hand Theater International Mask and Puppet Museum in Syracuse. He wrote and performed most of the songs. Frieden and two of her four children, Maya, 4, and Tal, 7, sing on the CD and video.

All of Frieden's projects - the classes, video and CD - not only entertain children but also help raise money for cancer research.

In 2001, Frieden, whose mother died of pancreatic cancer when Frieden was 22, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Frieden had a mastectomy in July of that year and is now cancer-free. In keeping a vow she made while recovering from surgery, Frieden donates a portion of her proceeds to the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund Inc.

Frieden estimates that she has donated about $500 to the fund, whose namesake is a Central New York resident and the mother of the acting Baldwin brothers.

"I personally believe that you have to give constantly to the greater (good) in order to make a change in the world we live in," she says.

Thomas Sabatino, 2, seems to understand this concept of giving, albeit it on a smaller scale. At the end of class, he runs up to Frieden and says goodbye, wrapping his arms around her.