Dance is in his genes

His mother says he started to dance while still in her womb. At 9 months, he tapped on tables. Now, at 17, William Burden is dancing his way through school: in the lunch line, at his locker, down the hall - even in English class, where he settles for "always moving my feet."

"It makes me feel free," said Burden, a student at the Philadelphia School District's High School for Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA). "I can show my emotions without actually having to talk."

He was one of more than 1,800 high school dancers participating yesterday in a biennial international dance festival held this year at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

The four-day festival increasingly is attracting young men, a trend that educators also are seeing at the university, said Susan Glazer, director of the university's school of dance. Of the university's 300 dance students, about one quarter are men, up from 18 percent a few years ago.

Glazer credits a national recruiting effort and the increased interest in hip hop. She hopes to raise the percentage to a third in the next few years.

"The advantage of our school is that we're an urban institution. Dancing, here, is a masculine thing. We also have a jazz major," Glazer said, "which is very appealing to a lot of men."

She estimated that 20 percent of the participants in the festival this year are male.

At various locations on the Avenue of the Arts, the teen participants have been taking classes and performing tap dance, modern dance, jazz, ballet and other forms as they compete for up to $1.3 million in scholarships, to be announced today.

Recruiters from 10 colleges and other institutions already have stated interest in the talented Burden, said LaDeva Davis, CAPA's dance teacher.

She said dance is in Burden's genes.

Both parents are dancers and graduates of the University of the Arts, where they met.

His father, Robert Burden, teaches dance at the university and the Leadership Preparatory Charter School. He also has a tap-dance company and performs tap professionally. He is a protegé of the late, legendary LaVaughn Robinson, who had been on the university's faculty.

Deridra Burden, his mother, is a modern dancer who once taught dance but now works for the Montgomery County Welfare Department.

"William was dancing before he even popped out," she said. "Afterward, it was dance, dance, dance."

Her son, a slender yet powerful 6 feet and 138 pounds, said his interest had grown as he traveled to performances and classes with his parents, who are divorced.

"When I was little, me and my brother were basically like luggage," he said.

Burden struggled a bit in elementary school with his high energy - "from the time he wakes up, he's moving, he's singing," said his father. But at CAPA, the teen has learned to channel energy into his studies and is on the honor roll.

"He has definitely learned to prioritize," said Davis, the dance teacher.

The Burdens said William, who also studies at the Rock School for Dance Education, and their other two sons naturally love dance and music.

The middle son, Myles Davis Burden, 15, fittingly is a trumpet player. Robert Gregory Burden, 8, a budding dancer, bragged: "I can do a backflip and do it again."

Their father said he was glad that the erroneous stereotype of male dancers, especially black ones, as gay was beginning to wane.

"There is no stereotype. You bring to dance what is in you already," he said.

The United States isn't alone in seeing the trend.

Robert Solomon, a dance teacher from Germany who attended the festival, said more males were dancing there, too, with the advent of hip hop.

"In the last 10 years, there has been an incredible increase," he said.

William Burden, who said he had gotten his father's thin ankles and mother's perfectly pointed feet, likes to do all kinds of dance, including modern, jazz, ballet and hip hop.

He said he wanted to become a choreographer and teacher.

"I want to show what I learned over the years," he said, "and give it back to people through dancing."