While pregnancy slows some women down, it had little effect on Harker. "It was so funny! There I was dancing with the huge belly, and the students didn't say a word! They were really polite," she laughed.
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. -A somber tune fills the dimly lit theatre. The stage is bare but for a single table. No curtains, no overhead lights and no people - except for one couple tangoing across the stage, locked in each other's arms. The woman wears gray sweatpants and a lilac T-shirt with a navy vest. Her shiny black hair is pulled into a loose ponytail with a swoop of bangs over her right eye.
The couple takes care to avoid the oddly placed table in one of their turns. They do not miss a step. The music ends, and the woman nods and says "OK." She seems at home.
A dance teacher, a choreographer for "Grease" and a new mother, Cara Harker has kept busy since arriving in East Tennessee in 2006. Her first taste of theatre at East Tennessee State University came in her performance in "Three the Hard Way" that fall semester. Since then, she has become a staple to the university's theatre and dance program. "She is talented and a great teacher, and she enriches our program beyond my wildest dreams," said Patrick Cronin, theatre division head.
More recently, Harker became a faculty member teaching multiple dance classes and dance steps to ETSU students. She says she is trying to develop the dance program, which joined the Division of Theatre curriculum last year. "Not only does she jump-start our new dance minor, but she brings to our theatre majors the one missing element from their education," Cronin said. "Mainly, their ability to move with grace and style . . . essential for any theatre person in our competitive world."
Joining ETSU's staff allows her to stay on the stage that she has made her home her whole life -at least since age 3. "My mom took me to one of those little dance classes where you run around," Harker said. "I fell in love."
From there, she began a mix of training, studying jazz, tap, ballet and gymnastics, and she never slowed down. "I was always dragging my mom to practice, not the other way around."
Searching for more opportunities to dance, Harker said she found the theatre. What emerged was a parallel road of theatre and dance that sometimes came together.
Reared in Northern Kentucky, she earned her bachelor's degree in theatre performance and English from Thomas More College on the Ohio border. She then interned at a professional company in Cincinnati, where "I did everything. I even wrote and produced a play."
Her love of her chosen craft continued into the next chapter of her life, graduate school at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt College, where her emphasis was in theatre performance. "We would go from 8 a.m. to midnight acting and performing."
During her stay in Chicago, Harker also found the man who would become her husband. From a chance meeting and a coffee shop, a four-year friendship evolved into marriage.
A job opportunity for her husband brought the couple to Johnson City and ETSU -- David Harker in the philosophy department, and, as fortune had it, Cara found her place in dance. Even more exciting to the couple is the new addition to their lives, son Harrison.
While pregnancy slows some women down, it had little effect on Harker and her dedication to teaching. "I was teaching classes until my due date," she said with a laugh. "It was so funny! There I was dancing with the huge belly, and the students didn't say a word! They were really polite."
Her dedication to teaching, Harker says, comes from being a dance model for her classes. "The teacher would use me to demonstrate a move," she said. "I have loved teaching ever since."
Students enjoy her classes and teaching method. "She stays on your level," said Maury Reed, a theatre major with an interest in dance. "She explains the emotion in every step. I love it."
Reed performed in and choreographed for the dance program's recent spring concert and also choreographed the division's spring musical Grease.
A teacher during the day, a choreographer in the evenings, and a wife and mother all the time, Harker is always busy. Whiel some people would tire of dancing and performing, Harker realizes the special place dance holds in her life. "It makes me feel good," she said. "If I am stressed, I can always dance, and I feel the tension go out of my body. I feel very fortunate to be doing what I love."
