Where I Fell in Love

This weekend I have enjoyed the honor of returning to my alma mater to create a dance for first year college students. The students are lovely. We are enjoying an opportunity to get to know each other as movers and as people and the dancers are enjoying a new (to them) process for creating dance and creating a culture.

The honor, though, is the luxury of time in the space I poured myself into many years ago. To return to the environment that opened my eyes to the artistry of dance, strength of character, and gave me opportunities to take risks and truly be seen. I hear the echoes of wisdom doled by sage mentors and I am flooded with fondness for friends and memories made there.

My lens is not totally rose-tinted. I equally recall the struggles and challenges, the drama and the sacrifices yet I acknowledge the resulting sense of group and the profound sense of belonging I felt there.

It hits me now that it is precisely that feeling I have been searching for, professionally, ever since.

WMU was where I found my “flow” as theorized by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi- where interest, rigor, and appropriate challenge result in joy, the kind of joy when time is lost and sense of self is found. An optimal experience.

This piece explores the notion of seeing and being seen. We are sifting through the landscape of being a “first year”- eager to demonstrate and impress, bridled with the change of status from leader to low man, feeling invisible and being hungry for acknowledgement.

We have talked about being “under construction” in technique class, as technical skills are built or rebuilt, and the longing to “just dance” which really means reconnecting with the dancer- selves we knew and understood. There is no going back, though. That is the sneaky thing about growth.

Being in a new teaching position, in spite of my substantial experience, I can relate to the “first year” experience. I am living it. Being new is exhausting, even in the best of environments. Reputation means little after the initial invitation to do whatever it is you want to do, until you can establish your reputation all over again in a new place, with new circumstances, new people. Character. I think it takes character to build character. I think it takes character to help others build character. This will be a big topic in my classes at the high school this week.

Yesterday we ended rehearsal with four questions,
What have you seen today?
What have you allowed to be seen today?
What are you reluctant to share?
When do you feel seen (acknowledged, valued, appreciated)?

Some of these are as tricky for me to answer, I think, as they are for the students and equally as important.

We decided yesterday, we are searching for fulfillment. That is defined differently for each of us, but one commonality kept coming through- we want to change people’s perspectives. We want to move people.

We’ll be back at it at 1pm.

Beyond the Body

Recently, I wrote about the struggle of explaining to new people what it is I do in a way that speaks the breadth and depth of my experiences and the field of dance. This morning via Facebook, this article by Shawn Lent came across my phone and my wheels have been turning ever since.

I have before written about the “Underdogs”- those that find the unconventional paths in dance and how we can rally and support each other. Now, though, my mind further turns to education- the environments that teach about dance but often short change the potential for dance in terms broader than stage and studio.

I realize much of one’s purpose in life isn’t taught or directed in a classroom. In theory, it is the content, the experiences, and the interactions that lead to what my grandmother would call, “all part of life’s rich pattern”. But there are threads and stitches that can be at the very least, made visible for those ready to admire or those not ready to at least know they exist.

Choreographers in college programs are often encouraged to work in liberation of how dance has been made in the past but this usually deals with form and structure, maybe content, not usually function, purpose, and social potential.  We are always asking for innovation in choreographic terms, but what about in dance theory courses. And does it really make for these experiences to be taught in isolation of each other anyway?

When do we put the “how” down for a while and get back to the “why” of art-making?

A few years ago, while directing the dance minor program at a liberal arts college, I taught at a festival for high school students. An MFA candidate from my alma mater was also there and asked if I wished I was teaching dance majors. My response was easy- no. I explained my philosophy of dance and how I feel compelled to educate everyone on how dance serves their lives, their studies, and their relationships. I liked that dance minors weren’t all “dancers” but committed to applying dance to their other areas of studies and were taking risks in the studio and in the community through dance. The MFA candidate’s response was that he thought that was very “responsible” of me.

Maybe.

But where should the responsibility be placed to bring new pathways to dance students?

And what is the responsibility of art in the first place?

Maybe it is because of the guest teaching I have been doing this summer and the fact I have been blurring lines between coaching performance, teaching technique, and introducing composition to teen dancers. We are working in sophisticated ways out of the typical teen-dance norm. And they have been brilliant.

But it leads me to think…..

• Why are most guest artists technicians or choreographers….why not include more dance theorists, experts in pedagogy, community engagement (for real), thinkers, do-ers, writers,…..practitioners.
• Or, instead of having these people come in and talk or lecture, put them into practice. Give practical examples of what their work is like.
• Why not partner with other departments? Treat arts departments like humanities and explore communication and human experience through artistic disciplines. Collaborate with non-arts departments to examine how the same problem could be solved or examined through two or more lenses. Compare and contrast the outcomes.

There are so many possibilities beyond and including the stage and studio. I am bored with the labels, the singular visions, the bottom line to determining value being how to neatly describe something in a couple words, so that the funding will come and the product can be showcased.

I don’t know….

Let’s just go blur some more lines.

Changing the Variables

Something powerful happens when we take dance out of the studio. Or out of a theatre. Or out of dance clothes. Or out of trained dancer bodies.

I experienced this as a student but more so when I was living in NYC and other cities- seeing movement of all kinds in Central Park, in installations around the city, site specific works in L.A., and rubbing elbows with elite ballet dancers at a church on the Upper West Side.

Dance took on a whole new meaning. And the means for these experiences depended on changing the expectations of dance- where, when, how, and dressed in what. I felt the freedom of the experience yet it didn’t really start to impact my own work or teaching until I was directing the dance program at a liberal arts college and teaching a dance history/appreciation course that contained dance minors and general education students.

As we moved through time within that course, I offered practical dance experiences to give the students a sense of feeling for what we were talking about. They had technique class samplers in ballet, modern, and jazz. We had comparison sessions of dance styles within single genres. We had a rehearsal in which I staged a musical theatre work. We did a slow walk across campus and they had site specific composition studies that offered us a tour of campus.

Their final exam included creating a dance on paper. Some chose to notate in narrative form or a symbol system, some drew, some created origami, some collaged,…..it was fascinating and some were very good and explaining their thought process and creative decisions. Those that weren’t, were often able to admit, in the heat of the moment, with complete honesty and ownership that their work wasn’t informed by a process or much thought. They were “caught” but I didn’t do the catching, they did. For many of “those” students, that moment seemed real. They realized it wasn’t a joke. I felt that was just as valuable as those that had elaborate explanations for their choices, the meaning, and the product they created.  We were able to have a constructive conversation about what they would do differently or we talked about the things that were holding them back. And yes, for some, I let it go. I could see they simply weren’t ready. (This could relate to a portion of my Dance Advantage article, “Your Words and Shaping Healthy Dancers).

While I would approach many of these experiences differently now, with sage wisdom, it was a good start. I think it made an impression. I think the students were more invested and took the work more seriously, even though many of them were having fun. This approach is harder in K-12, particularly K-8. We do this a little with the clothing for dance class, which I will be writing about in August for Dance Advantage but my thinking cap is on, ready to take me further from the norm.

In a NYTimes article about Mark Dendy’s new work Ritual Cyclical, dancer Michael Figueroa said in reference to dancing outside with Dendy in a site specific work staged several years ago, “I ended up rolling all over the cement — the most crazy experience ever,” he said. “I had no idea that dance could be anywhere and could be anything.”

Sounds like a pretty powerful revelation to me.

You Can Do Anything But Not Everything 1.0

Recently, Dance/USA produced a series of articles about professional choreographers who have turned to working in higher education as a means to keep creating choreography within concert dance and earn a living. Most of the artists interviewed are of notable stature (David Dorfman, Joe Goode,…) and discuss the balancing act required of working in two demanding aspects of the field- choreography and higher education- simultaneously.

I don’t doubt for a moment that their balancing acts are difficult.

I don’t doubt for a moment that they have valuable information and experiences to offer students.

I don’t doubt for a moment that they are qualified to teach.

But I do feel resentment rising in my chest each time I think about the articles.

As someone who has been passed over for others with “better” resumes and not necessarily “better” skills, this touches a nerve.

 Let me be clear, I don’t mean to diminish the depth of artists and the many hats that artists wear as creators, facilitators, curators, teachers, leaders, thinkers, and so on.

However, I start thinking of the underdogs.

• What about the people that want to teach in higher education because their priority is to teach? 

• What about the people that are great without having great resumes, and by that I mean as performers or choreographers? 

• What about the people dedicated to teaching but choose to balance this with having a family and not a full-blown second career?

Underdogs: The people that shape the field of dance in more ways than the stage and the studio.

• What about the people that guide the critical thought process in the act of creating art in addition to developing ideas, perspectives, and missions leading to non-performance based careers or jobs?

• What about people that develop critical writing?

• What about people that explicitly teach dance history and other frames of reference for what and how we communicate in dance and society?

• What about people that help students translate their experiences from the abstract to the practical foundations that launch them into many types of careers?

• What about the people that teach the general education classes that can directly impact the support or lack thereof for dance in the local community and into the world beyond college?

• What about the people that teach the artists to talk about what and how they are creating so they get the jobs the underdogs are seeking?

The problem I see is cyclical.

In the end, the notion of choreographers finding a way to create and earn a living in higher education is a symptom of a larger problem.

Not enough people understand and support dance.

Artists alone don’t seem to be enough to teach the masses about how and why the arts, specifically dance, are important. That is not a comment on the quality or volume of their discussion, simply that we need more people educating about dance than just the practicing artists.

We need people to be promoting the myriad of what dance has to offer in addition to technique and performance. As such, we need to be producing more specialists in more categories under the umbrella of dance- such as arts integrators, theorists, critics, writers, dance scientists, etc.

Higher education is competitive enough.

I also start wondering about the departments that employ the big names from the performance world. I understand the desire to market these people and draw potentially more students.

However, with the teaching loads described in the articles and what I understand from other sources, how often are students truly being mentored by these artists?  Is it ethical?

Other questions arise as I ponder the big name hires:

• How many programs treat choreography produced in-house as research?
• What is the culture of the department like?
• How is the faculty morale as the lesser-knowns may be picking up the less satisfying classes?

Personally, the first thing I would prefer to stop teaching would be straight technique but if a big-name choreographer were hired in my department, I bet that is exactly what I would be saddled with as they chose composition, improvisation, and perhaps theory courses.

• What does this mean for guest residencies?

Aren’t residencies a better solution in offering students insight to how various artists think and act?  Aren’t residencies more cost effective for colleges and still a means for choreographers to earn a living? Isn’t variety the spice of life?

• How are the faculty balancing a families expected to compete?

This touches on a separate but related topic of if and how having a family and surviving in academia is a real possibility. In my view, departments that allow for the “how” of that over the “if” are becoming more and more rare.

It is the number one reason that I choose to remain in K-12, where I have plenty of stimulating arts and education problems to solve but can be home at a reasonable hour, leave my work at school (for the most part), and can pace my extra-curricular activities at a digestible rate rather than always operating under the “publish or perish” time frame dictated in the university system.

And on that note, nap-time is over…..more soon.