Instructor Spotlight: Alex Frohlinger

1. How long have you been teaching at Garden Street?

Just this year.

2. What do you teach at Garden Street?

competition Lyrical

3. What is your favorite thing about Garden Street students?

Everyone is bursting with personality! It is so wonderful to work with students that so easily bring themselves to “the work” without hesitation.

4. What initially drew you to the performing arts?

The fact that there is a place for everyone.

5. Where do you draw your inspiration from when choreographing?

The story and concept behind the piece.

6. Where are you from and why did you move to the area?

I grew up in Winnipeg, Canada and moved to New York in 2010 to pursue Musical Theater (after studying theater in Boston).

7. What advice do you have for dancers?

Take as many different styles of dance as you can. The more you know, the more marketable you will be as a performer.

Also, ballet technique is really important.

8. What is your teaching philosophy?

I like to emphasize the importance of technique in class, but stress the value emotional investment in performance. The most compelling performers have a combination of both, and I believe that even in the early stages of training, dancers need to practice flexing their artistic muscles as well as their kinesiological ones.

9. What is your favorite performance memory?

Getting to sing a song accompanied by Marvin Hamlisch on a TV show in Canada.

10. What would you do if you were not a teacher?

I never really thought about what else I would do.

11. Do you have any dream roles?

I would love to originate something and put my stamp on a role.

12. What is an interesting or unexpected fact about you that most students do not know?

I was a competitive debater in high school