the Ancestors project

One of the pretty successful projects that I set for my Dance Production classes at EOSA was the year-long dance history project, or the Dance Ancestors project as we called it later. The first time I tried this was in 2006-07, in EOSA's third year. The assignment was to choose a contributor to dance history and research their lives, how they contributed to the history of the form, and their actual dance styles; and the end product of the research would be a research paper (of course), and a final choreography in that choreographer's style. I had to define “contributor to dance history” as someone who had at least been around long enough to have influenced later dancers and choreographers in some way — knocking out a lot of favorite video artists (“Can I do Chris Brown?” “No — he’s not even old enough!”).  Along the way, I also added a preliminary paper on the specific points of the research subject’s style, just to be sure the kids were making informed choreographic choices and not just copying steps off a video. I supported the project with a small in-class dance history library (I had spent the summer browsing the used bookstores), my slightly more extensive home dance video library... and lots of individual consultation.

This first year, it had all started as a suggestion from Patricia from Luna to focus the whole school year — the theory was that students would pick their research subjects in the first six weeks, and I could spend the whole Fall semester teaching technique classes in all those different dance styles... Of course, it didn’t quite work out that way — with a few exceptions, getting the kids to settle on a research subject was like pulling teeth, until they absolutely had to because the Spring concert was getting way too close. So the whole focusing-the-year thing didn’t really work out the way I thought…

What did happen, though, was that the project completely jolted the kids out of their ordinary hip hop or Cumbia comfort zones. Suddenly, I was seeing kids who, just the year before, had been doing the old fitting-favorite-steps-to-mixes-of-favorite-songs thing — now really researching new dance styles and coming up with movements I had never seen from them before… In the spring concert, we had dances in the styles of Alvin Ailey, Garth Fagan, Katherine Dunham, Bob Fosse, Josephine Baker, Amalia Hernandez, Jamila Salimpour, Michael Jackson, and Mr. Wiggles (my personal favorite was Josephine Baker) — with differing levels of success, of course, but almost everyone tried something they had never done before.

Three years later (after devoting the intervening years to dance as a response to history and social issues, then dance as a response to words or text) I decided to try it again. This time, I did learn from the first time — instead of waiting for them to choose research subjects, I jump-started the year by teaching them some snippets of classic dance works in the fall semester, when the class usually focused on technique. With each snippet we learned, of course we also learned about the choreographer, their contribution to dance history, and their technical style, through readings as well as video observations.

We focused on modern, but I wanted to start with ballet, so that they could feel in their bodies what modern rebelled against. So we began by learning a tiny bit of Balanchine's Serenade… that fall was also when we did a lot of lecture-dems for 8th-graders at all our feeder middle schools, and we showed what they had learned of Serenade at the first few — seeing my EOSA dancers moving in unison, with that lovely slow beginning, was a moving experience for me!

I felt we needed to start our modern dance history work at the beginning, with Isadora, even though that is one technique I was relatively unfamiliar with. Fortunately, over the summer I had been able to take a workshop on Duncan technique at the NDEO conference, so I was able to share what I learned… Next we moved into Weidman and then Hawkins, both techniques where I felt on very solid ground (Humphrey-Weidman was the technique I first studied in college — had I known how hard it was to come by in the greater dance world, I would have taken more careful notes!— and Hawkins is the technique I have studied for decades with Ruth Botchan). We began by learning both sections of Dramatic Falls from Charles Weidman's Brahms Waltzes. This is a piece I had learned in college, from a teacher who had been a dancer in Weidman's company, so it was truly a thrill to be able to share a couple of sections with my students and see them perform it. We then reconstructed a little bit of Erick Hawkins' Classic Kite Tails, and then finished the fall semester with Alvin Ailey's I Been 'Buked, the opening section of Revelations.

When it came time for the class to begin their own choreography finals, this time the students were a little more prepared to pick a choreographer to study and get started. Again we had a wide range of styles — from classic modern dance (Graham, Hawkins, Weidman) to traditional and classic jazz (Josephine Baker, Frankie Manning, Bob Fosse), to choreographers of traditional cultural forms (Katherine Dunham, Madeline Mou'a), to seminal street-dance forms (Tommy the Clown).The two students who chose Hawkins and Weidman began with tiny snippets of the movement we had learned and created their own variations on them, then worried about their dances being "too much copying" — I had to remind them that "Variations on a Theme by…" is a venerable dance and music form! My favorite statement of the project was from I____, one of the two boys in the class — he chose Martha Graham as his subject; and when I asked him why he chose her in particular (since her style was extremely different from his own accustomed style), he said "I researched a lot of choreographers and she seemed to be really important, so I wanted to learn about her." His choreography turned out to be one of the highlights of the final concert.

NDEO 2012

Well, now that I've been back for a couple of weeks it is high time to write about the NDEO conference, my first in three years. I was especially excited to attend this conference because the theme this year was "Collaborations: Many Cultures — Strength Through Diversity," so it promised many sessions on the intersection of traditional cultural dance forms, creative work, and dance education.

I spent most of a day in transit, since I took the train down to LA — I never fly at all unless it's a true emergency (something that hasn't happened yet, and I don't anticipate), since it's one of the most environmentally destructive things an individual can do… and the bonus is that the train is sooo nice and relaxing! No hassles with security, just hop on at the station and then sit down and read a book for the next 8 hours or so… a lovely way to prepare for a full weekend.

The first full day, I started out taking a workshop on "Jean Erdman and Hula". After a lifetime of modern dance, I knew very little about Jean Erdman -- I learned that she was born in Honolulu and grew up dancing traditional hula, but then took up modern dance and became a principal dancer for Martha Graham before breaking away to form her own company. She was also married to Joseph Campbell and had an intense interest in mythology, which infused her choreography. The workshop was given by a longtime member of Erdman's dance company, and it was fascinating to me as someone who has also tried to successfully fuse traditional forms with modern dance technique. We learned one traditional hula, then she talked about layering — traditional hula uses three layers of movement: the lele or weight-shifting pattern; the core isolations (mostly hips, in hula); and the hand and arm gestures. She then asked us to create our own short dance phrase, using those layers — beginning with the weight-shifting / stepping pattern, adding hip, shoulder, and torso articulations, and then adding arms and hand gestures. When we were finished, our phrases were based in modern technique, but had a little of the spirit of hula within them… This one was a very good start to the weekend!

My next session was with Mme. Wakana Hamayagi, a master of Japanese classical dance, or nihon buyo — a priceless presentation from a true master artist. Later that afternoon, I attended a workshop on "Exploring the Arab World through Dance and Music." This was an excellent historical presentation, with lots of information on the real history of Middle Eastern dance… how raqs sharki, the traditional women's dance form, was brought to the west, fed through circus and stage elements, and turned into what is now thought of as "belly dance"… fascinating and very complete for one hour!

I also attended a session on "Why Are There So Many White Women Here? Addressing Whiteness in Dance Education," which as you might imagine led to some rich conversations among the participants. The "aha" for me in this one had to do with that question I wrote about not long ago, on how much of an expert do you need to be to teach any particular form… One of the the teachers in my discussion group  said that with each new dance form she teaches, she tells her students that "I am not an expert in this, I did not grow up with this dance form, but I learned some of it and would like to share it with you." That seemed like a good message, and I hope I remember it next time I teach a form that I am not as confident with as I would like to be.

The second day, I started with a session called "Ordinary Objects" taught by Maya and Ruth, a couple of participants from Luna's Summer Institute. What a great lesson! It was all about recycling — we used recycled objects (mostly colorful butcher paper left over from an elementary classroom) to create imaginative duets. This one included a big "aha!" moment — the workshop began with a discussion of recycling, how we take one object and turn it into something else useful… then as we explored movements, we were reminded to "feel free to be inspired by any movement you see around you, recycle it into your own…" and I realized that recycling is a wonderful way to approach the perennial complaint of "she's copying me!" I have always tried to stress that no movement is truly unique, we all take movement we learn or see and create our own movement from it… but the idea of taking movement and "recycling" it into your own, new movement seems like a great angle into that conversation.

Next I took a workshop on Balkan folk dance rhythms from Elissaveta Iordanova, a folk and modern dancer originally from Bulgaria. We learned (or re-learned, for an old folk dancer like me) some traditional dances in meters ranging from 2/4 to 7/8 and 11/16, then improvised on those rhythms… For me, it was a rare treat just to be able to do a Paidushko, Rachenitsa, and Kopanitsa at an NDEO conference! I then got to another great workshop on traditional jazz dance from Karen Hubbard, a mentee of one of the original Savoy Ballroom dancers — this one was so timely for me, as I was in the middle of the Big Apple historical dance unit with my Aspire class…

On Saturday I got to take a workshop from Anne Green Gilbert. She is one of the founding mothers of creative dance education, and an endless source of ideas for explorations — her books are among those I most depend on when planning my creative-work classes. This one was on "Folk Dancing in Brain-Based Dance Classes," and used some simple folk dance structures as frames for elements in a creative dance class. It was a thrill to finally take a workshop from Anne — and folk-dance oriented, to boot!

In general, the conference was wonderful for me because I had the chance to work on adding to my dance teaching skills and curriculum, while thoroughly indulging my love for folk and traditional dance forms… My one regret was that I brought along my camera, but never actually found the time to get it out and take pictures! I highly recommend Jakey Toor's blog, as she took lots of pictures as well as lots of notes, and also wrote about many of the workshops I didn't get a chance to attend.