Annette John-Hall: At 90, dance master still en pointe

Sydney King, still swan-elegant at 90, sits in her dimly lit studio at the Sydney King School of Dance in West Philly and skims through one of her many yellowed scrapbooks.

Each page is a testament to a long life spent as an arbiter of dance.

Photographs of a much younger King - once described as more beautiful than Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge - pop off the pages. She's a youngster in toe shoes, learning under her own teacher, Essie Marie Dorsey. She's the sultry chanteuse, outstretched in postmodern repose in a smoky studio shot. And she's the teacher, surrounded by a bevy of young "colored" girls who wanted to be just like her.

"I was the only one in West Philly teaching colored girls how to dance on their toes," King says with pride.

Not only teaching them plies and arabesques, but a self-assured comportment that they carried for the rest of their lives.

Karen Warrington, a former King student who went on to dance with the Arthur Hall Afro-American Dance Ensemble, even called on Miss Sydney's lessons when, as press secretary for Mayor W. Wilson Goode, she had to face hostile media during a news conference following the MOVE crisis in 1985.

"I remember walking out there thinking, 'Five, six, seven, eight. . . . Suck up the stomach,' " she said.

Learning under King "taught you how to respect your body," Warrington said, "but it had more to do with self-esteem."

Contemporaries such as the late Marion Cuyjet - King's onetime business partner, who helped hone the talents of Judith Jamison of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater fame - had more name recognition, but King shunned the spotlight. All she wanted to do was teach.

Which is what she's done for the last 63 years, first at 711 S. Broad St. and now at 6174 Market St., in the building she's owned since 1964.

Long before arts programs enjoyed nonprofit status and integration ushered in more choices for African Americans, all-black dance schools like King's flourished.

Throughout the '40s, '50s, and '60s, King's students performed in year-round recitals and lavish performances at the Philadelphia Cotillion, where black teens were introduced to society.

She did so much, yet she was invisible, ignored by mainstream media even though Broadway choreographer Billy Wilson, Philadanco's Joan Myers Brown, and entertainer Lola Falana, among others, flourished under her tutelage.

Thankfully, Scribe Video Center, whose filmmakers chronicle neighborhood gems and local history, is featuring her as part of its next Precious Places Community History Project, now in production.

King has never been driven by public recognition, but frankly, in these struggling financial times, she could use some.

A decade of El reconstruction - which for years shut off direct access to the once-vibrant commercial corridor on Market Street - has slowed her business. Her studio is a shell of what it once was and is in need of a face-lift. And she still hasn't received the $5,000 restitution promised to merchants by the Philadelphia Commercial Development Corp.

Yet the Sydney King School of Dance, along with its founder, rolls on. Despite the difficulties, her door is still open to everyone, and she finds a way to make lessons possible for anyone who wants them. It's a mostly family-run business now, with former students - many of them grandmothers themselves - donating their time.

King herself has retired from teaching, but remains a constant presence in the studio. "I don't miss any class," she says. "And I do butt in from time to time."

Her mission stays the same. She keeps boxes of extra pointe and tap shoes under her desk for those who need them, and offers two classes for the price of one - only if one of the classes is ballet.

"When a 3-year-old tells me what first position is, it makes me feel so good," she says. "It just makes me feel good to know they're doing something with their time and not wasting it."