YoungARTS Week: Featuring finalists in dance performances. 8 p.m. Free. Ransom Everglades Upper School Auditorium, 3575 Main Highway, Coconut Grove. 305-377-1140.

Home Court Advantage

For 25 years, students from two Miami art schools have claimed cash and prizes during Young Arts week

By Cynthia Archbold

Every December, as the tents come down from Art Basel, another major art fair for 17-year-olds stirs to life in Miami — the Young Arts competition, a sort of Super Bowl for high school artists that gives them a chance to win cash prizes up to $10,000 and, maybe, meet the president.

Young Arts events, scheduled for venues throughout Miami from Jan. 8 to 12, are sponsored by the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts (NFAA), a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating and inspiring young artists, performers and dancers since the late Ted Arison, founder of Carnival Cruise Lines, and his wife Lin founded it in 1981. Out of 8,000 applicants from across the United States, 150 are picked as Young Arts finalists for internships, college scholarships and cash awards of $100 to $10,000. The foundation, the exclusive nominating group for the Presidential Scholars in the Arts program, also nominates 50 Young Arts finalists for presidential scholarships. From that group, 20 will be chosen.

In this year’s contest, the South Florida home team boasts eight formidable competitors.

Coral Reef High School, an arts magnet school, had one winner this year, Irish dancer Carolyn Ho, who won after training in a private dance studio. The rest of the winners had help from their teachers at New World School of the Arts and Design and Architecture Senior High (DASH), schools that often sweep Young Arts competition.

New World has five finalists: dancers Gentry George and Melissa Fernandez, and Sheena Limoskio, Cathryn Garcia and Roman Arevalo in visual arts. DASH has two visual arts finalists, Alex Grignon and James Sprang.

“I really didn’t believe it,” said George of New World, who’s applying to Juilliard and seems determined to make it in the professional dance world.

“I was really happy, giving everybody high fives and jumping around,” said Sprang, a senior at DASH who wants to be an artist, recounting how he felt when he heard the news. “I’m hoping to get into Cooper Union — the Harvard of art schools.”

Every year, New World and DASH make an all-out effort to capture awards. The two magnet schools have an intense rivalry in visual arts. The ongoing battle is partially fueled by the fact that New World art teacher Tom Wyroba, a passionate proponent of the NFAA competition, is married to Dr. Stacey Mancuso, the principal of DASH.

Throughout the years, Wyroba guided five New World artists to win that highest national honor. For those achievements, Wyroba himself has been honored as a Distinguished Teacher in the Arts five times by his presidential scholar students. “It’s an award given to me by my students. That’s what’s really cool about it,” Wyroba said. Another New World colleague, Jim Hunter, was also named a Distinguished Teacher in the Arts in 2005 for helping to shape NFAA winners.

Thanks to dedicated teachers like these, the two Miami schools have cleaned up in Young Arts awards the since the late ’80s, according to the NFAA. In two decades, New World has won more than 300 NFAA awards. In fact, New World students have won so many of the top awards in dance, visual arts, dramatic arts and music during the last 20 years, that in 2006 the school received the Coca-Cola Distinguished School in the Arts award, won by only five schools in the nation.

DASH, meanwhile, just earned another huge national honor from U.S. News and World Report, which named it the 2007 top magnet school in the U.S. and the eighth-best high school overall.

Both New World and DASH are “A” schools in FCAT scores, with 100 percent graduation rates. Virtually all of their graduates go on to distinguished art schools and universities.

‘He knows your potential’

Watching Peter London teach a class in Martha Graham technique at New World reveals clues about why the conservatory consistently dominates the dance awards. On a recent Thursday afternoon, 50 teenagers in tights stand in formation, stiff, spines straight, staring at their teacher in front of the mirrored dance studio wall. London, born and raised in Trinidad, was a principal dancer in the Martha Graham Dance Company and has been a modern dance teacher and choreographer at New World for almost two decades. Standing 6 feet 3 inches tall, London commands the classroom with his charisma just as he commanded the New York stage.

As London spoke in a sonorous baritone, his words vibrated through the room like a cello. The dancers all dropped to the floor, with the soles of their feet together and their legs making perfect triangles, waiting for their cue. Finally, London delivered: “five, six, seven, eight.” They sprang to action and performed a series of Martha Graham floor exercises, complicated and subtle movements isolating obscure muscles in mysterious ways. They knew the drills by heart, on command, contracting, releasing, kicking their legs in wide Vs, then holding that position, rotating on their spines, spiraling, pulling, reaching and sweeping the floor with their arms.

For the next drill, and London merely said “and … and … and … and,” and the dancers switch to an entirely different combination of movements. “You don’t know what a pleasure it is to be able to say ‘and,’ and they know what to do, exactly — what a pleasure,” London said, chuckling. Later, he whispered, “This is advanced material and they are eating it up like butter.”

That particular class wasn’t even London’s advanced class. Most of the students were novices of the conservatory, 14- and 15-year-old freshmen and sophomores with the technique of professional dancers.

“These are the stars of tomorrow,” he said, pointing to the students in the front row.

He then corrected a dancer with golden Botticelli ringlets held back in a bun, and asked her to repeat the combination with a slightly varied emphasis.

She arched her back in a subtly different way, surpassing his expectations. “That is advanced Martha Graham technique done to perfection,” he said. London knows how to spot star potential. He does it all the time at New World and in summer dance programs for the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, both in New York City, where he trains teenage dancers from all over the world.

London believes this year’s two NFAA dance finalists, George and Fernandez, have what it takes to be professional. He choreographed both of their audition pieces and helped them rehearse for the audition videos that won them the top awards.

Like Wyroba in the visual arts division, London seems to inspire more than his share of students to become NFAA finalists. He has choreographed so many winning performances that he has lost count.

“His classes are so rigorous, said Fernandez. “You have to be so disciplined; it was a bit of a shock. I was astounded by his professionalism. He knows your potential and he has so much wisdom.” London taught Fernandez the title role of the original ballet he choreographed, Vespers for Frida Kahlo.

London said Fernandez, with her gorgeous leg extensions, has a bright future in dance if. However, she has not yet decided whether she wants to dance with a professional company in New York or become a doctor.

“I couldn’t imagine myself doing something other than dance,” said George, who studied with London at Alvin Ailey during the summer. “I felt at home in the whole atmosphere and environment. The people are so inviting.”

Downstairs in the art department, Wyroba cheered New World’s three art finalists. “Any one of them could be presidential scholars,” he said, ratcheting up the showdown with his wife’s top students at DASH, who are also strong academically, a requirement to reach the pinnacle. But Wyroba insisted, eyes twinkling, that there is no rivalry between New World and DASH in visual arts. “There’s no argument. New World is the better school. We take the best 35 kids, and the rest go to DASH.”

‘What it takes to make it’

Students at DASH say otherwise. One of the two finalists, Alex Grignon, a fashion designer and painter, said the teachers and the program are top-notch. “They saw that I had a lot of passion,” she said. So they took her from untrained artist to NFAA finalist.

“DASH is wonderful,” Sprang added. “They allow you to be you.”

Coincidentally, one of the teachers who most influenced him happens to be Mancuso, who is the principal, a sculpture teacher and Wyroba’s wife.

She said she recognized Sprang’s unusual talent as soon as he walked through the doors.

“When I was only a sophomore, Dr. Mancuso helped me get into the AP class [Advanced Placement sculpture class for upperclassmen]. She broke the rules for me,” Sprang said. “She’s a really good sculpture teacher. When I first came to her class I was really intimidated. I didn’t know what I was doing. She made me feel comfortable and helped me be more confident, speak freely, express my ideas.”

Mancuso is known as someone who breaks the mold as both a principal and a teacher. “Very few principals are artists,” noted Ellen Abramson, who teaches AP art portfolio to DASH juniors and seniors. “She goes all out for her students and knows what it takes to make it. She gives us the resources we need to help them succeed.”

DASH’s classrooms are hives of creativity, where students are friendly, open and focused on designing and making art. There are posters of DASH graduates’ designs hanging everywhere. Many of those grads design the latest cars, electronics, sneakers and fashion.

One of the most famous DASH graduates is Duane Lawrence, who was hired by Converse to design a signature shoe for Dwyane Wade. The industrial design classroom is a shrine to former students’ real-world achievements; walls are decorated with posters of alumni designs from Honda, Volvo, Toyota, Panasonic, Adidas, Nike, Converse and Fossil. “We have four [DASH graduates] at BMW in Pasadena, California,” said industrial design teacher Kelly Kwiatkowsi, adding that “two working in Toyota are making big bucks with signing bonuses.”

‘A new level’

In a tit for tat, New World’s London and other teachers proudly point to the mob of their graduates who are now professional artists succeeding all over the world, onstage and in galleries. For example, four New World graduates are currently principal dancers at Martha Graham and three are stars of Alvin Ailey. Katy Finneran is starring in the Broadway hit Mauritius. Red-hot artists Hernan Bas and Naomi Fisher are exhibiting internationally, their art selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars through the Fred Snitzer Gallery in Miami.

“We are at a new level” in terms of the talent pool, London said, in part because of superior arts training in the middle school magnet programs.

Daniel Lewis, the dean and founder of New World’s dance program, offered his own theories about why Miami has become a breeding ground for artistic talent. “In 20 years, we’ve had an effect,” he said. “We’ve created a new generation of artistically trained teachers.”

— Cynthia Archbold was the director of development and public affairs at New World School of the Arts from 2001 to 2005.

Comments? E-mail letters@miamisunpost.com.

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