Again I am positively captivated by a music video:
These things just happen. I’m not sure exactly how.
Also, theme of the song kind of fits teaching in the quarter system. You just barely get to know some student’s names, and ten short weeks later you’re On to the Next One–as in a whole new batch of students, a whole new syllabus, a new page of the gradebook. It’s hard, especially because I like people, and I get attached. Also I see learning as something that happens in the context of relationships. So they all just learn each other’s names, and then it’s On to the Next One.
However, right now I’m in the really fun part of the process. One has ended and the Next One is yet to come. I’m headlong into planning what is a new-t0-me (but not to my department) course on contemporary dance and theatre history. Now, as I’m working out the syllabus, before the reality of the twice-weekly lecturing schedule and the grading and the absences all set in, is the time to dream about what is possible. And it is wonderful!
I’m trying to think about what story about contemporary theatre, dance, and ideas is really important to me. I want the students to engage with the work and make their own stories, but I don’t think I can pretend I don’t have some large narrative of my own. But I want to have some idea of what it is. I think this is the start of giving the students some room to make their own stories.
One idea I heard of was of a teacher of a contemporary music class who started the class with a pairing of classic rock and some pop dance music, asking the students to analyze the harmonic and formal structure of each. Turns out they were exactly the same, and not all too different from hundreds of years of classical music. So then, he began to tell his story. To him, contemporary art music could all be framed as making use of an expanded tonality and form; a move which contrasted and reacted to hundreds of years of classical music. This would have been a really interesting first class. It would lay some things out that would frame all subsequent discussions. He was clear about his bias, too, and I like that.
So I can certainly think of some things that are the opposite of what I want to talk about. Not necessarily that Jay-Z video because I love it right now too much to pick it apart. But maybe something else, something from music video, classical ballet, or musical theatre. I like that this might make it possible for me to reference some of the early ballet that was much more a precursor to postmodernism in dance than some modern dance. Think Nijinksy’s Rite of Spring vs. Doris Humphrey’s Day on Earth. I connect Rite of Spring to the postmodern movement way more readily. Having had an initial conversation about whatever it is my story it is, I could point out what’s “in” for me about Nijinsky and “out” for me about Day on Earth without leading the students to draw distinctions between modern dance and ballet. What I mean by “in” and “out” I’m not sure – but when I get more clear about what my story is, then I’ll be able to say.
Oh, precursors. How do you give people some background, some reasons a certain work might be the way it is, without making up false geneologies and giving them an evolution-story? (“Everything back then was inferior, and now we’re here where everything is great!”). But art work does function in dialogue with other art work along with lots of other things.
I am in some ways so uncomfortable standing up in front telling people things. I want them to make their own connections. Surely this is a problem for all teachers. I’m looking to grow.
I wrote the statement below for myself in Meghan Durham’s modern dance technique class. I am hoping to also use it as a reference for myself as a technique teacher.
My physical practice is a daily commitment to myself as a dance artist and a fundamental expression of my will to live.In studying ballet and modern dance technique over a twenty-two year period I have gained a rich body of information about those styles, and their contexts, my soma, time, and space; through dance technique I ground myself in my culture and engage in a praxis-oriented reification of that body of knowledge.I also study ballet and modern dance to become more articulate in my other practices within the art form—teaching, choreography, performance, reconstruction and direction, and Labananalysis.
This practice usually consists of ballet and modern classes augmented by yoga, ball rolling, constructive rest, imagery exercises, tap dance, African dance, improvisation, and resistance exercises for dance conditioning (as designed by Erik Franklin).My technique values include:
·Maximum mobility in the limbs with a lively but stable body core
·Sustainable use of the body through efficient fundamentals
·The ability to create balletic lines and use maximum outward rotation in the legs.
·Articulate use of weight including rooting to the center of the earth
·The ability to wander away from balletic line and style to embody other styles and articulations – to practice being a beginner again, to be vulnerable
·Acknowledging my mind and spirit and gratitude for the offerings of the others in the studio
·Improvisation as a way of finding lost-ness in dancing
·Rest, imagery and ball rolling when dancing just won’t “work” that day
I reiterate these concepts in daily classes.The outward rotation and line of ballet is somewhat unnatural to me; in my youth I forced my turnout and developed injuries like tendonitis and torn cartilage.Because of this I practice ballet daily through a barre or full class in order to maintain a facile and consistent connection with its artificiality.I regularly take postmodern dance classes in which I get to move my torso, be off-balance, improvise and release more of my weight into the floor.I value a body that dances in the tension between qualities, e.g., on- and off-balance, bound and free flow, stability and mobility, asymmetry and symmetry.
A question I currently have about technique is with whom to study, and when, for how long.I would like to have as many teachers as possible; this gives me opportunity to develop as a teacher and to access the place of vulnerability that I find so interesting.However I also want to develop relationships with teachers who can become familiar with my body and technical progression in order to receive the mentorship that many teachers have to offer.
I have been frustrated in the past with the arc of my dancing over the course of a few months.I almost always become tight after six weeks of dancing and injured after two to three months.I would like to explore ways of dancing more sustainably, so that I can go longer times without needing to miss a day due to injury.
Kinesphere is a record of creative research in dance authored by Mara Penrose, MFA, Dance '11, The Ohio State University.
