more world dance units...

The past few weeks have been a whirl – preparing for a major field trip and a dance festival as well as choreographing for the school musical (more about all of those later) – which is why I have not had a lot of time to write lately… so I will have to catch up and write in retrospect!

So, over the last few weeks…
We first did a short unit on Baile Folklórico, specifically the dance La Botella from Michoacán. I learned this one at EOSA (my previous dance program) when we had a guest specialist in Folklórico. It’s a good dance for a barefoot dance floor, since the dances from Michoacán are done in bare feet, and it is fun to learn – students generally get a kick out of the “borracho” step, since the Spanish-speakers (many, in my classes) get to explain to everyone else that it means “drunk.” Of course then I have to explain to everyone that it is called that because it tilts from side to side, not because of anything else that might happen in the course of the dance!

Next we worked on Central African / Congolese – another dance form I had learned from an expert from Dimensions Dance Theater who guest-taught my classes at EOSA for a number of years. The rhythm I usually start the beginners on is called Zebola, which is a healing dance and involves a call-and-response chant at the beginning – always a good way to introduce call-and-response form.

Both of these dances I introduce with the standard disclaimer – “I am not truly an expert in this form, but I have learned this dance from someone who is, and I would like to share it with you" — in the spirit of that perennial question of how expert does one really need to be to authoritatively teach a dance form... My default position is that I don't feel truly comfortable as an authority unless and until I have studied and performed a form for years if not decades — so the disclaimer is helpful for me, to be able to share forms that I think my students would enjoy at least a taste of.

multicultural rally

We had our second in-front-of-the-whole-school performance last Friday at the multicultural rally. This seems to be a tradition at a few of the high schools in the district, where once a year the school gets together to celebrate the multitude of different cultures on campus — at least as much as possible in a one-hour assembly. this one featured a multicultural fashion show, organized by the French Club: girls (yes, they were all girls) in traditional dress of their own or their parents' homelands (we do have a lot of 1st- and 2nd-generation immigrants) — from Persia, Punjab, Pakistan, Liberia, Laos, and the Philippines to Guatemala, El Salvador, Jamaica and Brazil... It also featured dances from the Polynesian Club as well as the dance classes.

Since I knew the Polynesian Club would be performing, I had hoped that my students might choose to perform Samba for some variety and wider cultural representation (and we do have a relatively large pocket of Brazilian-Americans on campus, who might have been pleased to see their national dance represented). But the overwhelming consensus among the student performers was for kahiko (ancient) hula — Kilauea — and the Tahitian dance Papio; and since those were the two dances that were relatively simple and the students were already confident with, it did make sense. We had 39 dancers opt to perform (our biggest group yet), most in both dances. We rehearsed exclusively during class time, within each class, but managed to pull all performers together just once, the day before the rally (this will all be easier next year when we have one specific performing class working together every day). They all remembered their places and danced very well — these students were again a pleasure to work with!

hula responses

Yesterday we watched a video selection on the culture and history of kahiko hula (a short segment from the immensely useful PBS series "Dancing"). Afterwards I asked students to write in their journals some observations, and to think especially about how what they have seen, heard, and learned over the past week and a half might change how they think about Hawai’ian dance. Here are a few things they said:

“I always thought Hawai’ian dance was just for fun but it’s so much more than that. It tells a story about Hawai’I and their culture.”

“I always thought hula was just dancing with your hips to beats. I never knew it told a story.”

“Before, I had thought that hula was a new, modern dance – I didn’t know it had been a dance form for years.”

“While they’re dancing, they sing the song, they do it powerfully and they sing very loud. I had thought hula was silent and graceful. Now I know it is a part of their life and very important to them.”

“I understand more about why these dances are so sacred to their culture, and why the land is so precious to them.”

“It does surprise me how most of the dances are dedicated to nature. Maybe that is why Hawai’I is so clean and beautiful.”

“I saw the dancers dancing for the volcano, I heard that when the lava dries up it creates new land. I learned that kahiko hula has valuable meaning behind the dance steps, describing nature.”

“It was sad to hear that when the missionaries came, they forced the Hawai’ian culture out and made it seem like what they knew and what their ancestors knew and believed were all bad.”

“The speaker mentioned that foreigners would come to the island and try to change the culture – they were disrespecting the ancestors by doing that because it was saying they could go to hell with their culture. Cultural oppression.”

I feel fortunate to have so many students who are so engaged with our material...

Hawai'ian hula

My classes are back from a week off for Presidents' Week (that's the official title — it's commonly known in wealthier districts as "ski week," but my students call it "sleep week"), and are continuing our spring semester trip around the world. This week we took up Hawai'ian hula — specifically 'auana (modern) hula, but we will be doing a kahiko (ancient, pre-European contact) dance next week as well.

Many of the world dance forms I teach — including Samba, Baile Folklorico, African-Haitian, and Congolese — are in the "I'm not an expert at this, but I have learned it and would like to share it with you" category... But hula is a little different: although I am still nothing like a true expert, I did perform with a halau for enough years to feel quite comfortable with the vocabulary (both physical and terminology) and to have a relatively large repertoire of dances to share.

I have a few students who have already studied various forms of Polynesian dance, at least one very seriously... When she walked into the studio Monday morning and saw the Hawai'ian vocabulary (kaholo, hela, ami, ka'o) on the board, her entire face lit up as she said "are we starting hula today?" It has been a pleasure all week to see how seriously most of my students take the form — in the first couple of days, many were already asking me if I would have vocabulary sheets to study! We did finish (though not perfect) one 'auana hula this week, Ka Uluwehi o ke kai ("the plants of the sea"); next week we will do a very short kahiko hula, Kilauea, before moving on to Tahitian.

On Thursday, we did a short reading on the history and culture of hula — just some bare-bones ideas about the pre- and post-contact eras, all that I can fit on one page — and I asked them to write in their journals something from the reading that surprised them, something they felt was significant, and something they were curious about. Again, I was gratified to see how many picked up on the concepts of hula being a form of communication and a way to hand down stories without written language, and how important hula is and has been to the indigenous culture of the islands (and how it was nearly destroyed when banned by the Europeans). I was also pleased to see the range of things students were curious about — why the songs talk about nature so much; whether the people still secretly danced while hula was banned; and "why did the queen get overthrown?" We already had some good discussions, I anticipate more when we see some video clips next week.

Spring semester and world dance

After introducing dance technique with jazz and historical social dances in the fall, my spring semester in Beginning Dance usually focuses on various world dance forms (along with creative work and choreography, of course). This progression has worked well for me for years, as teens are hungry to learn new dance forms, and it is important to me to validate non-Western dance forms.  I have usually taught some African-Haitian or Congolese, Baile Folklórico, Brazilian Samba, Polynesian (Hawai'ian hula and Tahitian 'ori), and ballet, which I do present as a world dance form (European classical dance). Of course, I am not an expert in all of these forms, but I introduce them as dance forms I have learned and would like to share.

This year, I polled the students on which forms they are most interested in, to prioritize in case we don't have time for everything, and three styles overwhelmingly stood out: Brazilian Samba, Hawai'ian hula, and ballet (that last one actually surprised me a bit... but ballet is still ubiquitous in popular culture as the epitome of concert dance, so perhaps it is natural that students would be curious to learn it). We began with Samba — since Brazilian Carnaval happens mid-February, the beginning of the month is the perfect time to learn it. I explain to my students that there are many styles of Samba, but the style I learned is the traditional folkloric style, with a flat-footed basic step (I learned from Conceição Damasceno of the World Dance Center in Berkeley); I add steps I have learned from colleagues who dance with various Samba companies in the bay area as well.

Naturally we also learn some of the history and culture of Samba, and the responses to the reading handout have been interesting — many students hadn't realized that Samba was an African-diaspora dance form. Our time working on Samba has been joyful, as students have responded to this energetic and exuberant dance (not to mention the intense music)!

learning about cultural appropriation

We're currently in our historical social dances unit, and today I showed the segment from the old (and ever-useful) PBS series "Dancing" on the Lindy hop and the Savoy Ballroom. I love this one — it was made at a time when they could still get two of Lindy hop's real pioneers, Frankie Manning and Norma Miller, to talk onscreen about the dance and their own experiences (and then I get to tell my students that, while I never got to study with Frankie Manning myself, I did learn from one of his students... Always nice when you can pull out that dance family tree!).

There's a section in which the narrator speaks of how the dance changed once it was taken up and taught in (white) dance studios — with accompanying archival footage making it obvious how this wild, grounded, lightning-fast African-derived dance was tamed into something bouncy, upright, rigid, and contained. At the end, when I asked students to share what they had noticed or felt was significant, T____ spoke up (I'm paraphrasing here, of course): "I thought it was interesting how when the white people took the dance, they made it all stiff and completely different from what it was... It was as if they liked the style but they didn't like the way the people who made it were, so they took parts and changed it into their own thing..." Good observation, of course — and all I could think of when she was saying this was wow, what a great introduction to the whole concept of cultural appropriation! I hope this will be the first of many more interesting discussions...

Teenagers…

(sigh) Here it is almost the end of January, and this is my first post of the new year —I'm afraid I have radically slowed down since I began last summer (perhaps I should have paced myself a bit). My excuse this time is that we have been dealing with medical issues in the household: our older little dog (our dogs and cats are my babies) has been diagnosed with diabetes, so we've had a lot to learn about glucose monitoring and insulin injections and such… And, after pondering and agonizing over it for many months, I have finally finished up a long missive on global warming (soon to go up on another blog) — the one thing that occupies my mind almost as much as dance teaching — which has used up a large chunk of my writing brain lately… I guess the upshot is that I do have a life outside of dance and teaching, and life intervenes. So it goes (to quote Vonnegut).

So anyway — I hate to start the year on a negative note, but I feel the need to vent a little about teenagers… Not all teenagers, of course — I have worked with so many responsible and dynamically creative teen students — just the ones who don't care to know anything about the world around them, that they will soon inherit...

I usually teach world / cultural dance forms in the spring semester, and this spring we began with Congolese (I got to practice that sentence I learned in a workshop at NDEO, "I am not an expert in this form, but I have learned ti from an expert and I would like to share some of what I learned with you"). We practiced the Congolese rhythm Zebola, then in our weekly "classroom day" (minimum days too short to get dressed and dance, so we go to a classroom for reading or video observations), I gave the class a one-page reading on the history of Congo and Central Africa — from the ancient Kingdom of Kongo through King Leopold's brutalities and the US-backed execution of Patrice Lumumba. Of course I always expect some pushback to reading about history — "this is boring," "this is a dance class, why should I care about this"… So I brought up the current situation, how resource wars over the coltan needed to power our electronic devices like cell phones are fueling violence in the Congo, hoping to bring some kind of relevance in how what happens across the world is connected to our own lives. The reaction was, unfortunately, along the same lines — "so what are we supposed to do, stop buying cell phones?" I tried to explain about our duty as world citizens to at least know what goes into the things we buy and what our governments do to control resources… but to no avail.

Maybe I'm asking too much, but I know that while I was teaching at EOSA there would always be a critical mass of students who were interested in the social issues inherent in what we were studying — perhaps that was because of the truly exceptional social studies teachers on staff there… I do also remember that when I was in high school, there was definitely some social awareness of what was going on in the world. For goodness' sakes, we listened to protest songs on the radio! (that pretty well dates me, I guess). Maybe it has a little bit to do with what gets onto the radio these days — with the corporate-dominated radio stations playing commercial pablum, teens just don't get as much exposure to the issues… Who knows?

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.

teaching "cultural" dance forms (part 2)

Another BIG question in this for me, of course, is that label itself: "cultural dance," "ethnic dance," "world dance," "folk dance"… If hula, Haitian, Kathak, and kolos are defined as "cultural" dance, then does that leave ballet and modern dance, the western "concert dance" forms, as the norm? Do we look upon ballet and modern as "high art" and relegate "ethnic dance" to lesser performance status because of the label? What criteria do we use to define ethnic or cultural dance?

I might start with one distinction within what we usually think of as ethnic dance — folk versus classical. On the one hand are the true folk dances: dances that do not demand a lifetime of study, but were traditionally performed by anyone in the community, or the community as a whole — like those Bulgarian dances I am so fond of, and including social dances from many cultures.

On the other hand, among the forms commonly labeled and presented as world or ethnic dance are classical, studied traditions such as the classical dance forms of India (among them Kathak, Bharata Natyam, and Odissi) and the court dances of Java and Cambodia — all of which demand many years of rigorous training to learn and perfect. Likewise, though not often spoken of as a "classical" form, Hawai'ian hula is a dance tradition handed down over the centuries from kumu to haumana, with a gestural language recognizable to all students of the form — much as any ballet dancer would recognize a frappé or grand battement. Many of these forms developed in royal courts, just as ballet originated in the royal courts of France… so why is ballet not usually considered to be a "cultural" dance form? (In my own teaching, I do treat it that way — I first introduce ballet to my beginning dance classes in the Spring semester, when we explore forms from various cultures). It is not presented in "world dance" venues like San Francisco's Ethnic Dance Festival or Cal Performances' "world stage' series — is that simply because ballet companies already have copious opportunities for performance, or does it have to do with its culture being European and not "other"?

As we talked about this, I realized that there may be another distinction I had not thought of: between dance forms that originated from certain cultures (whether classical forms such as Kathak, ballet, or hula, or folk dances such as Balkan kolos or Appalachian clogging), and dance techniques that were developed by one person, often as a means of personal expression. This may be the distinction between what we call cultural forms and modern dance techniques, as most (all?) of those were the vision of one person — often as a reaction against previous dance forms, or at least breaking away from a mentor to begin a new style. What we call cultural forms are generally a result of years or decades of tradition — whether formally taught (as in classical forms) or passed along informally (as in folk dances). There are social dances — such as Charleston or Lindy hop — that seem to be a radical departure from what came before… but even those, if viewed in the context of dances of the African diaspora rather than American social dance, fit into a tradition.

There are so many issues tangled up in this — I pull one strand, and so many more questions come tumbling out! I will have to stop, but I would love to know what any of you out there think...

teaching cultural dance forms (part 1)

Another subject we explored in some depth during Luna's Advanced Summer Institute was teaching cultural dance forms in schools. This is a topic which poses a lot of dilemmas for me... but also about which I am fairly passionate, since much of my performance experience has been in forms that tend to be labeled "cultural" or "world" or "ethnic" dance. My longest-running performing experience was 20 years with Westwind International Folk Ensemble, which focused on Eastern European, Central Asian, and historical American dance forms; I also had the chance to dance with a local Polynesian halau for a couple of years, before my teaching schedule got too hectic.

One of the big issues for me is teaching with authenticity. Perhaps this comes from my performance background — Westwind's focus was always on the "preservation of folk traditions" — presenting dances as they would have been done in real life (as much as possible, when adapted for stage) rather than in flashy theatrical presentations. And the kumu of the hula halau I studied in just happened to be a cultural anthropologist, very concerned with the true origins of the dances in that ancient form. So…

The California state content standards, within the "historical and cultural content" strand, strongly suggest learning "folk/traditional" and social dances from the US and other countries (starting right from kindergarten). And, at least in my work with teens, I have found students to be very interested in learning various cultural forms — whenever beginning a new class, I always get the questions: Can we learn belly dance? Can we learn salsa? Bollywood? Merengue? Charleston…? This goes right along with teens' predilection for learning steps and styles, of course (although beginners can tend to get pretty impatient with learning about the cultural backgrounds in depth).

At the same time, it is important to teach what you are expert in — so the question is, how much of an expert do you need to be? For example, I personally would feel very comfortable teaching various Bulgarian dances, or a Charleston, or certain kahiko or 'auana hulas, as they are among dances that I performed for years, and the preparation for performing included becoming well-steeped in their backgrounds and histories… However, although I have studied forms such as Dunahm African-Haitian technique or Middle Eastern beledi, I don't feel I know nearly enough about those forms and their backgrounds to do justice to the cultures behind them. At EOSA, we were fortunate to have had a free residency from a local company specializing in African and African-diaspora dance forms for a few years, so my students were able to learn Congolese and African-Haitian from true experts; but that is (obviously) not always possible… so what to do???

In my own teaching, I compromise, of course… I would love to be able to teach only those forms that I am most expert at — but I'm afraid most teenagers don't exactly share my passion for Bulgarian or Croatian dance (what a surprise!), and to some extent I feel I need to at least give them some exposure to the forms of their own cultural backgrounds. So over the years I have revisited (with my beginning classes only) a few of the Congolese dances that were brought to EOSA by our Congolese expert in the years we had her residency, as well as a couple of dances from Michoacan that were taught in EOSA's first year, when we also had a residency in Baile Folklorico. I always try to focus on the cultural backgrounds that I absorbed from the experts; and I also stress to my students that I am not an expert in these forms, that this is just a tiny taste of the breadth and depth of these dance traditions, and that they should seek out further training from real experts. Even at that, I still feel a little out of my depth when teaching those dances… fortunately, my students have usually been pretty receptive to some of the forms that I do feel pretty confident in, such as Hawai'ian or Charleston — although I haven't tried teaching much in the way of Bulgarian to teens yet!

Well, there's a lot more to this — but this is getting kind of long already, so I think I'll leave the rest for another post soon.