Take a breath and just try to keep up with Jeaunita Olowe . . . Right now, she's rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet . . . now, she's running to straighten a line of 9-year-olds . . . now, she's in a deep squat, sliding right, left, right again . . . now, she's cranking up the boom box, sending a wave of Nigerian drums thundering through the room . . . now she's, well, you get the breathless picture.

        Jeaunita (John-eeta) Olowe is teaching Nigerian dance. At the moment, she has 11 barefoot kids, each with a lapa (a vibrant orange and blue Senegalese patterned wrap) hiding their street clothes.

        They're learning a difficult move.

        “No, bend at the waist like this. Make your back a tabletop. Good job.”

        The class is one of 12 at Uptown Arts, a new Over-the-Rhine arts education facility founded and funded by Lois and Dick Rosenthal. Open and free to children ages 5 to 10 who live within a 5-mile radius of its 123 E. Liberty St. headquarters, it offers music, theater, art and dance classes.

        Open only two weeks, it's already at capacity for winter semester: 300 children and a waiting list.

        “Pump your arms together, one-two-three, now left. No, your other left.”

        “The thing about Jeaunita, Ms. Rosenthal is saying, “is that kids really pay attention to her. Look at that. Not one of them looking out the window daydreaming. They want to be here.

        “See that little girl? She walked a couple of miles from school, took a class at 2:30, then sat in a corner doing her math homework, because she didn't want to go home and risk being late for this.”

        “Ekaabo,” the kids say, greeting her in the Nigerian Yoruba dialect.

        “This is dance class, but I'm teaching the language so they can sing songs,” Ms. Olowe says. “By the time class ends in June, they'll know a few dances, be able to sing a lot of songs and be able to converse, at least a little, in Yoruba. They're great kids and fast learners — we'll be ready to put on a show by June.”

        “Come on, you know how to walk, don't you? Add your arms, like this, one, two, three. Hey, you guys are goooooood.”

        Something besides dance is happening here. “We try to build the whole individual,” says Ms. Olowe. “Little things you learn through dance, like hold your head a little higher, your shoulders a little straighter, it all translates into life.

        “We take the kids' interest in arts and use that to develop the whole being. And if somewhere along the line you get a really good dancer, well, that's a bonus.”

        Janet Weingartner, a retired elementary school principal observing the class, calls it “the whole package. There's so much more than a skill they're learning. Maybe they're not always the best academically, but they have a talent. They develop that talent here and it builds self-esteem and self-respect. And at some point, that will be reflected in academic skills, too.”

        “Awesome jive, you guys. Awesome. Let's try it a little faster.”

        Today's dance is Sohu, a dance of spiritual cleansing that chases out bad spirits and lets in the good. “It's a dance that starts easy but gets very difficult and very fast,” explains Ms. Olowe. “At one point, they keep one beat with their hands, another with their feet and another with their hips. But I know they can learn it.

        “They're so into it. So intrigued by the drums. They make you want to bounce. It brings out your natural rhythm, which is your heartbeat.”

        That heartbeat never stops in this third-floor studio. One floor below, husband Adebola is conducting a class in African drums. The sound filters up the stairwell.

        “Bounce. Up, like this. Forward, now back. A little faster. No, the other forward, watch that pole.”

        Jeaunita and Nigerian-born Adebola, married four years with three children — “It's why I've never been to Nigeria; every time we plan a trip, I get pregnant” — live in Madisonville and also run the 10-member Bi-Okoto Drum & Dance Theatre.

        “That's how we met. I had studied West African dance at Miami University, along with ballet and modern, so I auditioned for his company. In 1989, he was on an international tour with his Nigerian group. The company got to Cincinnati and stayed. The manager left and the company fragmented.

        “I dance with Bi-Okoto, but no more modern or ballet. Not in my old age.”

        Right. She's a creaking 29. With the energy of a 10-year-old.

        “Bi-Okoto does a lot of this kind of dance, but we mix it up — Nigerian, modern, jazz, even salsa. We do mostly private gigs but some in public. We did the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, I was pregnant then, too. We did the opening of (Walt Disney World) Animal Kingdom, once a year we do a show at the Aronoff, and we have a lot of gigs on Fine Arts Sampler Weekend (Feb. 9 and 10).”

        “Coats and hats on? Don't forget your gloves — your mama won't be happy.”

        “I have them 50 minutes a week for 22 weeks, and if they can learn all this, jump into a completely new culture and learn it, they can learn anything. They can look at anything and say, "I can do that.'

        “And that would be the best thing that could come out of this class. The confidence and the self-awareness to explore and know more about yourself.”

        Eleven kids filing out now know something else. How to say goodbye in Yoruba.

        “Odabo.”

        Bi-Okoto welcomes the public every Saturday: company class, 12-2 p.m.; rehearsal, 6-8 p.m.; drum circle 9 p.m. to midnight or 1 a.m. Columbia Performance Center, 3900 Eastern Ave., Columbia Tusculum. Contact Bi-Okoto at (513) 271-2005.

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