Betsy Daily School of Performing Arts Steel Pier Memories
Whoopsie Daisy!" That's what we used to call out joyfully long ago when picking up and frolicking with a small child. And it is the expression that comes to mind, both poetically and rhythmically, when in the company of dance teacher and mime artist, Betsy Daily. They go together. Whoopsie Daisy! Betsy Daily! No wonder that when the petite artist was chosen to perform pantomime on Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour (yesterday's American Idol with a similar voting format) she was known as Kid Daily. Childlike in physiognomy still today, she nevertheless exudes formidable energy and vibrancy. However, unlike the mime she portrays, Daily is not wordless.
Her dance school in Berwyn, PA - just west of Philadelphia - is called Betsy Daily School of Performing Arts. It features ballet, tap, hip-hop, jazz, flamenco, lyrical, modern. The multi-category accolades received by the school's students in competition, especially in DANCEAMERICA National Finals in Orlando, FL, are virtually numberless. Walls lined and boxes filled with trophies attest to their successes.
Tributes to Daily's own accomplishments are evident in the numerous, framed diplomas and performance certificates arrayed in her small, square, compact office in which Class Schedules for 300 students fill an entire wall, as well.
Guiding me through her four studios, Daily explains the specificities of the different floors. "This is a Time Step floor [it looks like a kind of black acrylic] for heavy duty tap. It has a sub-floor underneath. It costs a couple of thousand [dollars]." Proudly, she points out a 15-thousand-dollar floor in another studio. "It's a Swedish floor built on planks and foam so it gives. I love wood floors."
And music? "What I use now is an Ipod," she declares enthusiastically. "It's phenomenal. All my music is downloaded to an Ipod. All my teachers use it." She names Yuliya Rakova and Ivan Kashin from Russia; Rebecca Millard; Rochelle Gardner and Karen Neff.
Daily's mother enrolled her in dance classes in a studio close to the Atlantic City area where they lived. "I was about four years old. After about six months, the teacher, Mildred Arden, sent me around the corner to another studio headed by Tony Grant. I stayed with Tony for the rest of my dance education through high school and college.
"Tony had the original children's' 'Stars of Tomorrow' on the Steel Pier in Atlantic City. I was part of that doing mostly solo work. Primarily, the kids were six years old and up. They would come from all over the country to audition on a Sunday and I would go in a lot of times just to watch the talent. I loved the Steel Pier. I was there for a good eight years. My summer life was my favorite life."
Atlantic City was originally created in 1850 as a genteel retreat for Philadelphia's 'upper crust.' The Steel Pier, a family-oriented amusement area was added in 1898. Atlantic City itself later developed a kind of daredevil personality of its own becoming one of America's most fabled cities. Think Miss America Pageant. Think the Rat Pack. And perhaps Donald Trump.
"At the Steel Pier, audiences paid one admission," establishes Daily. "Then you got to go anywhere you wanted including the 'Stars of Tomorrow' shows. Or you could go to a movie. Then the next theater was a musical theater. They brought in....everybody. Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Durante, Totie Fields, teen idols like Paul Anka, Little Stevie Wonder...he was fourteen then....the Jackson and the Partridge Families and the Cowsills." The latter band was made up of four brothers who specialized in what would later become "Pop" or "Bubblegum" Rock.
Continues Daily: "Frank Sinatra Jr. and I would talk a lot. He was really nice. It was tough to live up to his dad. We had a lot of major acts come into our theater. Tony would have agents in the audience watching a lot of the times. Frankie Avalon started in our theater, Connie Francis, too. Choreographer Ron Fields who did 'Applause' on Broadway performed in our theater.
"Tony Sr. [Betsy's teacher] did our two morning shows. His son, Jr., did two evening shows. Tony Sr. was the one who developed the whole concept. He announced every show, every performer, every dance studio. He felt we should also learn to introduce and talk on stage. He was very straight-laced."
However, recalling incidents when Tony Jr., was in charge provokes an outburst of charming laughter from Daily. "When he trusted you with the music and so on, you could work backstage. We could get away with a lot of stuff. We would play tricks on performers while they were out on stage. The microphone was on a pulley. There was a hole [for it] in the floor so it could come up or disappear [into the floor].
"If I was working the microphone and we'd have a singer out on stage, and if we knew the singer, we'd start pulling the microphone down lower and lower." With a peel of merriment, Daily demonstrates: "The singer would go down like this, all the way down to the floor. The next morning Tony Sr. came in, he would somehow find out what we did and if an agent happened to have been in the audience, we would be in such trouble!"
At times, hurricanes lashed the area. Remembers Daily: "Steel Pier went through a lot of changes [including a fire]. We were basically on an island between the ocean and the bay. The two would meet in a hurricane so the island kids were in boats in the middle of this big stream. I think we got taken out once to offshore in trash trucks which were the only thing that could get through."
Daily's parents wanted her to get a college education besides her commitment to dance and mime. Thus, she received a Bachelor of Science Degree from the Moore College of Art in Philadelphia. She also took ballet classes taught by Bob Wilson. He permitted her to use his studio to practice her night club routines. "Eventually," she relates, "I was booked into night clubs as a dancer who could sing. With an eight-minute routine, I opened for different stars."
Tall and handsome with fashion model looks and a body builder's physique, Betsy's husband, Wyatt Higginbotham, is originally from Bucks County. She calls him "Buzz." He is a professional photographer who also teaches Karate. They met during the '70s Disco era. We search for the right description for those particular dance palaces with the throbbing music and the lights in the floors. Were they called Halls? Clubs? "No! Discotheque!" Daily chimes in. To the point of the couple's meeting, however, two dance companies, one in Bucks County, the other in Berwyn, both under the same ownership were combined for dance and Disco sessions. Buzz the Strong and Powerful was needed primarily for lifts. He laughs. "We'd all go out clubbing and use our dancing. We would go out and it was me and five girls!"
Cruise ships still have small discotheques on the upper decks which bring to mind the fact that 22 members of Betsy Daily's Dance Company have entertained on various vessels including those of the Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Lines. When not actually performing, no doubt the Daily Dancers make good use of the tiny shipboard discotheques. They also do shows at Disney in Orlando, FL. Buzz accompanies them when he can. "He helps me with everything," Daily says eagerly.
The dance teacher's first studio in Berwyn was in the home in which she still lives today. Reminiscing, she says, "Double car garage. That's when I actually had Jennie and Melanie Eisenhower, granddaughters of Richard Nixon....great granddaughters of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. I had Chubby Checkers, too. His real name was Ernest Evans. When I outgrew that studio, I moved into one about two blocks from here. Then we moved here [800 Lancaster] and stayed the rest of the time."
The Betsy Daily School of Performing Arts celebrates 30 years of "....having a studio on the 'Main Line'" with a gala on May 12, 2007. Explains Daily, "Part of the proceeds from our silent auction at the gala and our ticket sales go to Shaw Middle School in West Philadelphia to help with their arts and their dance programs. They need floors, mirrors, barres, equipment....so we are donating as much as we can to keep their Art Department open. We also donate costumes and lots of shoes. We have a beautiful show lined up for the gala. Rhonda Miller [whose work has been featured in commercials, industrials, videos, movies and on stage] is choreographing our final number."
So if you attend the gala and see a petite, sprightly, blonde lady who is busily involved in the proceedings, you may be tempted to pick her up and warble "Whoopsie Daisy!" But remember, she's Betsy Daily, the Chief Honcho. Loving every moment.
For info about the Betsy Daily School of Performing Arts in Berwyn, PA, check the Internet or call 610.295.0474.