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Doing double duty: Stephen Koplowitz, teacher/choreographer.

Article Excerpt
FOR HIS 1985 DEBUT AT NEW YORK'S DANCE THEATER WORKSHOP, CHOREOGRAPHER STEPHAN KOPLOWITZ OFFERED A WRY MEDITATION ON THE ANXIETIES OF ADOLESCENCE. CALLED I'M GROWING, it showed six young guys darling around in gym clothes while a voice-over recounted the emotional toll of homework and registering for the draft.

Nearly two decades later, Koplowitz is still grappling with pubescent angst. As director of the dance program at Packer Collegiate Institute, an elite private school in Brooklyn, he spends his days teaching hormonally charged teens to make dances on their own bodies. Somehow, he finds time to follow his own muse, too.

During the nineteen years he has taught at Packer, Koplowitz has created forty-six professional works, ranging from intimate pieces for the stage to sprawling, site-specific shows in the United States and abroad. He won a New York Dance and Performance Award, or Bessie, for sustained achievement in choreography in 20013. In April 2003, he snagged a coveted Guggenheim Fellowship.

"Some artists are: shocked when they find out that I teach full-time," he says. "And some teachers and students are surprised to see that I'm able to create so much work. But that's who I am; I lead two very full lives."

As a teacher, Koplowitz has found a novel way to engage his students--and quell the apprehensions that preoccupy many teenagers. He gives each of his ninth-graders a copy of Improvisation Technologies, a...

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