Introducing Lida DavesSchneider, April’s Tapper in the Spotlight
Lida has been a part of the Young @ Heart Tappers for about 10 years. She, with husband Karl, is also an active member of the exercise class. Due to her willingness to work hard and endless energy, she moved quickly into the advanced class. Always eager to perform and willing to do whatever is asked of her makes her a very valuable asset to our performing group. I am very happy to name Lida as this month’s tapper in the spotlight. Learn more about Lida below:
My introduction to dance? The jitterbug. My mother loved to spin around our house in Kannapolis, NC. Unfortunately for her, my father had two left feet. Bless his heart. And I, her only daughter, was a dyed-in-the-wool tomboy. No dance class for me.
When I was in the 6th grade, it was decided that the class should take ballroom dancing. My fondest memories of that experience were a boy named Joe Williams and a beautiful pink sweater, a gift from my mother for the dance at the end of the session.
I’m not sure why, but when I got to high school, I desperately wanted to be a majorette. Lacking the dance experience that many of the other girls had, lots of hard work was in order, which, seems to be a major theme running through my life. But hard work pays off, and I became chief majorette my senior year. The summer before my senior year I went to Germany as an exchange student, an adventure that truly changed my life.
My mother’s dance genes had finally surfaced, and Peace College in Raleigh, NC, offered Modern Dance, so I immediately signed up and became a member of the Dance Club. One memorable performance was at May Day, 1971, which included a piece called “Hoedown.” That’s when I learned to do the bells.
Off again to Germany (Heidelberg), for my junior year. I was utterly immersed in the language, history, culture, people, and travelling. Dancing, alas, was relegated to the back burner.
Queen’s College in Charlotte, NC allowed me to finish my BA in German close to home, and introduced to me that paragon of dance forms, ballet. I was smitten and have been ever since!! I was able to continue ballet lessons the next year while attending the University of Georgia for a master’s degree in German. Go Dawgs!
In 1976 I returned to Raleigh, NC, where I began my teaching career (German, English and French) at a small private school, and my first son, Nikolaus, was born. A male colleague needed help with the girls’ soccer and basketball teams, so I learned the game of soccer. I had played basketball in high school. I could only dream of the dance studio, until . . .
. . . I moved to North Little Rock, Arkansas. Arkansas was for me was the “middle-of-nowhere.” However, I discovered a precious gem in Lorene Lloyd MacAfee School of Dance in Little Rock. I signed up for lessons, and spent countless hours in my kitchen practicing plies and releves, while Nick played with pots and pans on the floor. I was working hard to achieve that holy grail of the ballet dancer—point shoes!! I stayed in North Little Rock long enough for my second child, Andrew, to be born, and perform in one recital before moving to . . .
. . .East Brunswick, NJ, right next door to New Brunswick, home of Rutgers University and a studio of the Princeton Ballet. I was accepted into the PhD program in German and took ballet lessons, and when my boys were old enough, they danced, as well. I volunteered as a fund raiser for the company, and was asked to perform in the first act of the Nutcracker as the “elegant mother,” along with sons Nick, a boy child, and Andrew, the daddy mouse. I was also able to reactivate my soccer knowledge to become Soccer Mom. I was truly blessed with many sparkling memories of those years in New Jersey.
The only constant is change, and I seemed fated to become a German Professor at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. The bad news was, I would be commuting on the weekends to New Jersey. The good news, Professor Smith had developed a robust dance program with, classes in ballet, jazz and modern dance, and guest instructors in Chinese Ballet and Flamenco. A special highlight of college life was the yearly Renaissance Feast in December, at which the Dance Club performed authentic Renaissance dances. I spent 1994-1995 in Berlin, Germany with my two boys on a Fulbright Teaching Exchange. While skiing in the alps, I tore my right ACL, which meant I had to hang up my point shoes. Professor Smith told me I was too old for them, anyway.
Are we there yet? Well, not quite. As Maria said in the “Sound of Music,” “somewhere in my wicked, miserable past, there must have been a moment of truth.” A kind spirit or my guardian angel introduced me to my darling Karl. We travelled in a U-Haul truck with my son Andrew, from Maryland to the land where the lemon trees bloom and the humming birds zoom. In 1996 we married, and I traded my professor’s mortarboard for a wizard’s hat, or any other costume or prop to capture my high school students’ attention. I took some ballet classes with the Inland Pacific Ballet, but had to quit due to joint pain. After a few years at Ayala High School, I found enough students to establish the German Club Dancers. We learned German folk dances, including the Schuhplattler (imagine slapping feet and thighs), and the Renaissance dances from Washington College. We performed at the Oktoberfest at the Phoenix Club in Anaheim, and at the Madrigal Feast put on by the Ayala chorus. Karl encouraged me to revive “Parent’s Night,” an evening of German food and culture that he had once organized. We started on a small scale with dinner, folk dances, skits and a few songs. This morphed into full length productions, all in German, with singing, dancing, a lot of camp, and at least one character cross-dressing. Our swan song was “Sleeping Beauty,” with 90 participants in the production and 15 students assisting Karl in the kitchen. We served Bratwurst and Kartoffelsalat (potato salad) to 200 parents, teachers and friends.
We retired from Ayala High School in 2010. I continued to teach part time at Citrus College, but we had plenty of time for hiking, biking, reading, travelling and becoming grandparents. In 2012 I flipped through the Upland magazine, and what to my wondering eyes did appear? Ballet for Seniors at the Gibson Center!! I wasted no time signing up, and was most impressed with the instructor—Carolina Goss!!! She encouraged me to take tap classes, also at the Gibson Center. Tap had been on my bucket list for a long time. I signed up a few months later, and was most impressed with the instructor—Suellen Lassiter!!! I really had to work hard at tap, and practiced with Rodney Howell on YouTube every Sunday afternoon in our garage. I also discovered art for seniors, and that has changed my life, even at this late date.
My father and I were always close, but after my mother died, we became even closer. He confided in me that my mother had always dreamed of being on the stage. Although I have been blessed to be able to perform in my “past life,” I am so grateful to Suellen and the Young at Heart Tappers for the opportunity to continue. I have a strong sense that I’m fulfilling my mother’s dream. I imagine that with his angel wings, my father received dancing feet, as well, and he is looking down as he and his childhood sweetheart for life jitterbug across the heavens.
Young At Heart Tappers 