MCB Hawaii -- She unlocks the door for another day of work, walks to the back of what used to be the old base chapel to a makeshift classroom. She sits on the floor, slips on her worn ballet shoes in preparation of just another day. If she didn’t know any better she’d think she was dreaming.
A now normal workday, teaching dance at MCB Hawaii, was once a dream for a very determined young girl. Di Rodin grew up in a small rural city, outside of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Rodin’s mother used to tell her stories about dancing angels and their beauty and grace. Those vivid stories still inspire Rodin. She has never been able to get them out of her mind.
“In her head my mom would come up with these stories and paint these colorful stories,” Rodin said. “I could just picture exactly how they would be moving so gracefully.”
As Rodin speaks of how her thoughts, dreams and ambitions of one day performing on a large stage slowly became a reality, her voice becomes full of excitement. Her Latin accent becomes more pronounced as her passion for dance sparkles through her deep brown eyes.
“I was enrolled in classes at the age of four,” Rodin said. “My parents did all they could to get me to explore dance. I’ll never forget my first instructor, Victoria Rocha. She taught me all the fundamentals.”
Outside of the studio, dance was still always on Rodin’s mind. She said she remembers trying very hard at school, but was much better at imagining dancers and their choreography.
“I was a daydreamer,” Rodin said. “My head [was] always in the clouds. My teachers used to tell my parents how I was always off in my own world.”
Rodin’s imaginary world soon came to be her real one as the then 7-year-old, she pushed her dancing to the next level and auditioned for a spot in a prestigious performing arts school.
“I’ll never forget the Nunicipal ballet school,” she said. “Thousands and thousands auditioned, and there were 20 spots. Everything was sponsored; they had scholarships and everything. I got the spot. I was so happy.”
Following the audition, everything she hoped and dreamed of at such a young age came to a halt. Rodin became sick.
“It’s a crazy story really,” Rodin said. “Me and my mother were walking, probably two miles to get to my dance studio. It was storming a bad, bad storm. I slipped and fell into the city drain. I got what you call the hepatitis from swallowing the water. Nine months I was away from dance, sick in the hospitals.”
Fortunately Rodin was able to return to the Nunicipal School of Dance at 9-years-old. She had eight years of classical training in Russian, French and Royal Ballet styles.
“During my classical training I still danced out in town,” she said. “I wanted to know everything. I was so interested in it all, especially the acrobats. I loved to incorporate acrobats into my dances.”
While reminiscing about her early years creating choreography, another childhood story came to mind. Rodin thought back to when she would listen to her father’s records, and imagine dancers dancing. Pin-pointing their exact movements. Her father, an Italian tailor, would let her literally draw out the choreography she imagined on his worktable.
“I would hear music and dances would just go into my head,” Rodin said. “I could feel it and see their performances. I knew when they would leap and split, and when the sad parts of the music would come up, I knew exactly how to express it. My father had a large table he would work on, and he would allow me to draw out my choreography with chalk. Purple chalk. His tailor shop was my studio.”
A warm smile remains on her face as she continued to reminisce about her childhood. From a very early age she knew she was destined to be a teacher. She always enjoyed the magic of watching herself dance in the mirror, but also admired her teachers as they taught others. Teaching dance soon became another dream she was trying to fulfill.
“I would go home and set up my dolls to perform the exact curriculum I was taught that day in class,” Rodin said. “My dad would listen to me over and over, repeat and repeat my dance curriculum. He was such a good dad. He adored watching me dance.”
After she completed her classical training at 17, Rodin felt she had a lot of knowledge to pass on. Her teachers agreed and she became a dance apprentice, and within less than a year she was teaching on her own.
Rodin was on the up and coming, with nothing but her dreams taking her to the top. She quickly became an icon of dance, professionally modeling for many dancewear companies.
“I was at the top of Brazil, but wanted more,” she said. “I started to dance with Ismael Guiser and his partner Ioko Okada. They taught me the jazz, lyrical and it just inspired me, and at that point I thought, if I could do anything, ‘I want to go to New York.’”
At this point in Rodin’s career, she was offered a scholarship in London to dance with a company. Instead of going straight to Europe she made a stop in New York for three months. Her and Okada explored companies in New York, but when it was time to go Rodin wasn’t going anywhere.
“I wasn’t ready,” Rodin said. “I didn’t do enough. I needed more. I loved Martha Graham’s style, but I danced with everyone — American Ballet Theater, Joffery, David Howard, Alfreds Corvino, and then auditioned for Julliard, which is where I ended up staying.”
While she hit a major milestone in her career, dancing for The Julliard School, she also managed to take care of another dream she had as a little girl. While in New York dancing for the most prestigious performing arts schools in the world, she fell in love with the man of her dreams. He was a man with a different style of art, an architect who only loved dance because he knew how much it meant to his wife.
The couple got married in 1979. They soon had a family of their own. But architectural employment on the East Coast was not at a high, her husband was offered a job which brought the entire family to the Hawaii. Leaving Rodin wondering where she could dance.
After some intense searching, Rodin ran into an opportunity, working with the Hawaii Department of Education in a program called Artist in School, a government program which built studios for art programs across the state.
“It was crazy. All my professional training went down to helping start a beginning foundation for young dancers, but I was okay with that,” she said as she explained the benefits of working with the Artist in School program. “Some dancers throughout the area heard of me and there was an opening on the [Marine Corps Base Hawaii].”
There was a small studio located on MCB Hawaii which was about to lose its teacher. Rodin signed a contract in 1997, making her the director of the Dance Movement Academy. She had six students who shared a small classroom with a martial arts class.
It wasn’t the most glamorous dance studio. Rodin was crammed in a corner, and was moved around base multiple times, due to military construction. Although construction complicated teaching, it didn’t take away from her passion or the number of people she inspired to dance. Within one year her small class grew to 120 students, then 200 the following year and 300 the next.
“I was just happy to be teaching,” she said. “It was so great for me to be teaching so much. When you repeat, you improve. It’s important to be your own teacher and understand your instructions. You aren’t fluent until it comes automatic. And with teaching, if you’re thinking , you don’t have it.”
Rodin said even though she has a lot of professional training, her favorite students are the ones who want to learn and share the love for her same passion. She said she loves to give the student who struggles the spotlight. She wants to let them explore what they’re capable of.
Rodin is still doing what she loves. She hopes to one day open up her own “Julliard” and be able to create a strong foundation in dance to anyone who shares the passion. She said she never stops thinking of new ways to express herself as well as open up her students.
“I dropped everything I had in New York, to teach fundamentals,” Rodin said. “I wouldn’t change anything and I’ll never stop dreaming.”