Dancers from the world famous Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which often performs in Berkeley, spent all of last week at the school, teaching various dance moves and allowing students to come up with their own.

For instance, sixth-grade students Aaron Stewart and Ryan Smith-Murphy showed off their performance of "mirrors" -- a dance with basketball motifs -- on Thursday. The students slowly laced an invisible ball through their legs, as they danced closer to each other. Then, they shot an invisible ball and danced away again, turning a perfunctory sports maneuver into a graceful dance display.

Teacher Rock Warner said the week-long dance lessons opened up new ways of expression and worlds of dance for the students. They learned, in other words, that ballet is not just about tutus and classical music.

Warner said he found out the dance troupe, started by renowned choreographer Alvin Ailey in the late 1950s, was searching for a local school to host dance class lessons as part of the troupe's arts-in-education program. He applied immediately, he said.

"Somebody on high picked us, and I jumped all over it," Warner said.

Nasha Thomas-Schmitt, a principal dancer with the theater for more than 10 years, was on hand with several assistants to work with the students.

She taught them Ailey's "Revelations" dance, but also had the students create their own moves based on their cultural heritage.

"When the work is their own, they tend to embrace it and retain it more -- and they take a different sense of ownership," Thomas-Schmitt said.

But the lessons go well beyond the field of dance.

The group share a full curriculum with students and teachers that aims to integrate the arts into the classroom. Students learn new words related to dance and self expression -- and they read about Ailey and the history of dance.

"We want them to walk away with knowing a lot more about Alvin Ailey, and dance and arts as a whole," Thomas-Schmitt said. "We are exposing them to music and arts and some theater -- as well as a new knowledge of their own creative possibilities not only through movement but thinking as well."

The lessons also mark the annual return of the dance troupe to Berkeley, where the company will perform for Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall from March 9 thru March 14, 2004.

Reach Mike Adamick at (510) 339-4061 or at## madamick@cctimes.com.