I’m sitting in a dance studio in the Chelsea section of Manhattan watching choreographer and teacher Beth Bogush work. She is referencing 42nd Street, Bernstein, Gershwin and Jimmy Durante as she takes her dancers through a number.

“We need it very Fosse there,” she says to one dancer as she takes her through a kick. And then, later, “Keep in mind, you’ll be on top of a cake coming down, like An American in Paris.” For another song, something hip-hop, she makes a reference to a Will Smith video to illustrate her point.

Even a life coach who has worked with people in all sorts of careers is ultra fascinated by this one. Bogush is choreographing numbers for a new animated Nick Jr. show called Bubble Guppies. She is already well established as the choreographer for the network’s animated hit, Backyardigans, which features five dance numbers each episode, ranging from jazz to salsa to big band. Bogush creates the moves, takes the dancers through them and then they are filmed so the animators can take over and magically weave them into what children see on television.

As I watched Bogush work with dancers Sarah Case and Greg Sinacori, a question I get asked so much popped into my mind: What can I do with my gifts?

This is a woman who has answered that question for herself time and again. A former director of the First Steps Program at the Alvin Ailey School in New York, Bogush has most recently applied her gifts to staging what she calls “mini USO” productions through a non-profit, charitable organization she formed with her husband John last year called Let’s Have a Dance Party USA. The organization serves the families of deployed military service men and women.

The first show was April 28, 2007, at McGuire Air Force Base in N.J. and the second was April 26, 2008, in Fort Campbell, Ky. Both were a smashing success by all accounts.

“We had 2,000 people in Fort Campbell,” Bogush said. “I never expected 2,000. We ended up doing two shows. It was a little bit more difficult [than McGuire] because there are 50,000 people deployed there. It’s not a happy-go-lucky place.”

Bogush and her team of volunteers did their best to change that, at least for a day.

“My team was in such high spirits,” she said. “Afterwards, they said, ‘This is the most amazing thing I’ve done in my life. Count me in next time.’”

This is music to Bogush’s ears, especially considering the whole extravaganza went from a germ of an idea to a full-blown event in a span of about eight weeks.

Back in February 2007, Bogush and her husband were having dinner with their good friend, Bob Dees (also known as Major General Robert F. Dees, executive director of Military Ministry), whose work focuses on soldiers coming home from the war with post-traumatic stress. They were joined by a young couple; the man had returned from the war with post-traumatic stress and was doing speaking engagements with Dees. Bogush was having trouble getting a conversation started with the couple until she asked if they had children and mentioned that she worked on Backyardigans.

“It was like the two of them came to life,” Bogush said. “They had three children under six. We spent the next hour and a half talking about the Backyardigans and every episode that they loved. It opened my eyes that we had something to communicate with them.”

A week later, Bogush and her husband were watching journalist Bob Woodruff’s documentary about coming home from the war injured.

“He was interviewing other people and I happened to see all the little kids ages two, three, four and five off to the side,” Bogush said. “And that’s the age I taught for 25 years, so I was saying to my husband, we forget that’s who suffers here, the little ones, because mommy’s busy taking care of daddy or daddy’s busy taking care of mommy."

“They’re dragged from their home to Walter Reed Hospital and rehabilitation centers. Their whole life is disrupted. And they had a very sad look in their eyes. So I said to my husband, I feel like I have to do something. The only thing I know how to do is entertain kids. I thought, you know, we need to put a show on for these kids because the USO takes care of the adults, but no one takes care of the little, little ones.”

That’s when Bogush went into action. She became a woman on a mission. She called Janice Burgess, creator of Backyardigans, and got rights to the Nick Jr. content such as costumed characters and dancers. And then John Bogush used his former work with the Department of Defense to reconnect with Major General Charles Wax. Before she knew it, Beth Bogush had a liaison at the Pentagon.

“They hooked us up with McGuire [Air Force Base] because, well, first of all the proximity to us,” Bogush said. “But number two was they had the best team to set the template for this. They have a very good on-ground team and they were spectacular.”

Bogush tapped her former dance students who were now working on Nick Jr. shows with her to perform on the military bases. She had a friend write a song to open the show. She talked a contact at a recording studio into free services. She secured kids from a performing arts school to sing. This was a whole other kind of dance Beth Bogush was doing.

“There were so many people waiting for us to come and they treated us like rock stars when we got out of the car,” Bogush recalled from the first show at McGuire. She loved seeing the kids’ reactions to the costumed characters and witnessing the parents’ reaction to the kids dancing with them.

One of the moments that made it particularly special was a pre-planned one. The theme was Monster Dance Party and they had sent a video of it to the soldiers in Iraq, who learned the moves and sent the footage back.

“We showed that at the event and the kids had no idea they were going to see their moms and dads,” Bogush said. “There wasn’t a dry eye in the place.”

Is it any wonder, then, that Bogush says if money were no object she would stage four of these a year? The first two shows cost almost $30,000 and almost $50,000, respectively, the latter (Kentucky) being more because air travel was involved. She has her sights set on a base in Germany, has tagged a joint Navy/Marine command in Virginia as a possibility in the fall, and is currently seeking corporate sponsorship (She can be contacted through: http://letshaveadancepartyusa.com).

As I watched her take her dancers through rehearsal, it was clear from the way she just jumped right in there that that’s what she does best.

“I was at Alvin Ailey for six years working with scholarship kids,” Bogush said. “When I got to Nick Jr., I missed the opportunity to give back.”

For this choreographer and teacher, that is not a problem any more.

Nancy Colasurdo is a practicing life coach and freelance writer. Her Web site is www.nancola.com. Please direct all questions/comments to FOXGamePlan@gmail.com.