NDEO conference

I recently returned from the NDEO (National Dance Education Organization) annual conference – the first I have attended in three years, since I will not fly (if you’re curious, here is why), and so I only get to it when it rotates to the west coast, in train or bus range. As usual, it was completely rejuvenating and inspiring (although the travel to and from Phoenix was a bit tiring), and I came back with so many ideas to try out on my classes!

There were many wonderful sessions, most incredibly useful for my teaching practice, some simply restorative and interesting to me as a dancer and dance scholar. I was thrilled to be able to take a modern dance class (“for the maturing dancer”) from Anne Green Gilbert, one of the mothers of creative dance education – it was lovely to warm up with the Brain Dance, right from the source, and to see how she combined work on energy qualities with Bartenieff floor work and technique combinations.

One highlight of the conference for me was a presentation by Ann Hutchinson Guest, a preeminent dance historian and authority on notation and a true grande dame of the dance education community, on reviving a ballet choreographed in 1844 by Arthur Saint-Léon from his own notation. Contrary to how we often think of 19th century Romantic ballet – ethereal ladies in white dresses floating effortlessly and fluidly across the stage – this dance turned out to be extremely vigorous and virtuosic, full of sissones, entrechat-six, and straight-leg pas de chats. As part of the session we were taught a few phrases from the dance — simpler phrases for the corps dancers, not the virtuosic solo variations — and their difficulty (even for the youngsters among us) was an eye-opener. Another surprise was a variation in which the lead ballerina (Fanny Cerrito in the original) stayed on pointe for the entire length of her solo. I have always heard that in the early days of pointe work, ballerinas would only rise to the tips of their toes for brief moments, since they were dancing in nothing more than soft ballet slippers with a little extra darning around the toes, not the hard boxes of fabric and glue we are familiar with today... yet this variation (recreated faithfully from the original notation) kept the ballerina on her pointes, performing posé arabesques, chainé turns and the like, for at least a minute. Ms Cerrito must have had incredibly strong toes!

Another highlight was a session I attended on my first day, called "POP! From Literal to Abstract." We were taken through a project (designed for undergrads, but just as applicable to high school dancers) that ingeniously combatted the tendency of young choreographers to depend on following pop song lyrics for generating movement ideas. We were broken into small groups, and each group was given a printout of lyrics to a popular song. We were then tasked with interpreting those lyrics as literally as possible. The results were often hilarious... Our group drew the song "Toxic" by Britney Spears, and creating movement from the lyrics felt almost like playing charades — miming shooting up drugs for "I'm addicted to you" and throwing a pair of dice for "paradise"; and of course miming rocking a baby showed up in multiple groups ("baby. baby" is pretty ubiquitous in pop songs). The humor, of course, is the point — though students often use rote, clichéd gestures as a jumping-off point, when forced to go so far overboard with the idea they often begin to see the stale and vapid choreography that emerges for what it is.

Phase two of the project is to leave aside the lyrics completely, to take the gesture dance created in phase 1 and to abstract all of those gestures (using the usual devices — size/range, tempo, level, body parts / instrumentation, etc.) — working without music, of course. The results of this part of the project were equally enlightening, as the abstracted dances turned into some lovely and original compositions. If we had had more time, it would have been interesting to see them again, set to the original songs, to see how the juxtapositions might have turned out.... but what we did (in only an hour!) was plenty. I left the session knowing that this is a project I must give to my Dance 2 and Dance Production classes this year — preferably before they start composing dances for the final concert!

Motif and development

Although none of my students have fully experienced all the elements of dance yet — last year we primarily focused on Space, with one Time unit (tempos) — I still wanted to jump my Dance Production class ahead into some work with forming before they take on creating full dance for the fall showcase. So for their first composition project, I tried them on motif and development. I had thought of giving them a strict theme-and-variations form, but decided against it because this is a pretty creative group and I wanted to give them the freedom to mix up their movements a bit (I do plan to give the Dance 2 class the strict theme-and-variations project later in the year, to set them up for further work if they continue on to Dance Production next year). They completed their projects with somewhat mixed results, but for the most part at least successfully enough to know that they did grasp the concept.

For lead up lessons, we began with each dancer creating a personal phrase using an accumulation process of seven elements, then editing them down to five (the seven elements were: 1. make a fabulous twisted shape; 2. look somewhere in the room and travel to it; 3. reach out, fold in; 4. your "signature movement"; 5. a turn; 6. a jump or spring; and 7. a variation on your fabulous twisted shape). The next day in the week was a short day, so we used it to play the Adverb game with an already-learned phrase from their lyrical dance. The next day we reviewed the personal phrases created the first day, then manipulated them with various choreographic devices (tempo, size, level, repetition, range, embellishments, retrograde...).

The project was: create a dance motif of eight distinct movements, then expand it into a dance three times as long using any of the devices we worked on — and you must show your motif in its original form, in unison, somewhere in the dance. I also required instrumental music, so as not to distract them from the movement variations and development. As mentioned, the projects were somewhat mixed, but overall pretty well – some came out beautifully, while even those that were a bit less successful in the extent of their motif development at least showed enough movement variation that I believe they did at least understand the concept well enough to use it in the future.

One trio began with quick, intricate arm gestures on a standing level, then ended on a seated level with their arm gestures huge and in super slow-motion. They chose to perform in silence rather than spend time choosing music (I loved that, it is so rare!) – if that happens again, I hope to have time in the showings to try the dance with a selection of different musical choices. Another trio essentially performed a strict theme and variations: they began with their motif phrase in unison, then each dancer performed it in turn with each solo growing progressively slower and bringing in each dancer’s personal movement style. One duet used repetition and canon form to develop their motif; a quartet began with their motif in call-and-response form, then ended the dance by repeating it in unison; and another quartet began with a walking pattern moving from a line into a diagonal, then ended by retrograding the walking pattern from the diagonal back to the line.

In general, I might have liked to see a bit more development of each motif, but for the first project of the year they did fairly well. I will be interested to see how this class progresses!

new school year

Well, the new school year is well under way already (school starts so much earlier than it did in my day!). My dance program is growing — I now have two beginning dance classes (Dance 1), one intermediate (Dance 2), and one Dance Production class.

A big difference this year, besides the newly differentiated courses, is that I started my classes on the first day (last year there was a substitute for the first two weeks while the district decided on whether to actually hire a dance specialist). Whether because of that, or because we have now established a bit of a culture of dance in the school and students have a better idea what to expect, my new beginning students seem to be, as a whole, more focused and serious about the class than even last year’s group… Pretty much every day , everyone or nearly everyone in class is dressed and participating, following directions, and taking technique corrections and choreography advice in stride (which in theory is supposed to be routine, but doesn’t always happen in real life). I am already thinking about how to further differentiate my daily dance practice grades, since full credit for being on time, dressed, and participating to personal best has mostly everyone earning an A+ every day. Of course things aren’t perfect – it’s always hard getting beginning students not to think of creative explorations as social occasions – but for the most part, the beginners are doing quite well, three weeks into our dancing year.

The intermediate / Jazz 2 class is small (17) – unfortunately a natural consequence when the bulk of beginning students take the class to fulfill their second of two years of required PE credit, and then move on (this because the 9th graders are not allowed to take Dance for their first year of PE credit)… But those 17 seem to be quite serious about what we are doing. We have begun their first creative work unit, focusing on energy qualities (last year in Beginning was mostly about the element of Space), and it has been a pleasure to watch them tackling the subtleties around sustained, percussive, swinging, suspended, and collapsing movement and how to show them clearly in their bodies.

And Dance Production – I can only say at this point that it is going to be a lot of fun teaching this class. These are the students who earned their spots in the class by doing excellent work in their semester performance finals and by being extremely enthusiastic choreographers and performers all year long – and their enthusiasm shows every day in class. After a couple of weeks of lyrical jazz / ballet technique, I started this class’ creative work on forming with motif development. Last week they created individual phrases which they then developed with various choreographic devices, and it was wonderful to watch the wide range of movement that poured out of them – not to mention their delight at playing the “adverb game” with one of their technique combinations!

About that adverb game – it involves one group picking an adverb from my stack, doing a unison phrase in the style of that adverb (crazily, loudly, obnoxiously, whatever), and having the rest of the class try to guess the adverb. We used the first unison phrase from their class lyrical jazz / ballet dance. Since it’s a small class we just broke the class in half for groups. The first group picked “sexily” (they’re teenagers, so of course), and it took a few tries for the watching half of the class to guess the right adverb (even though a couple of students turned our lyrical phrase into something rather more Bob Fosse-ish). But the second group picked “dramatically,” and it took exactly one movement – as they all turned from facing upstage into effacé with great dramatic flair, chins raised and heads tossed – for one of the watchers to yell “dramatic!” It was a priceless moment, and it made my week!

the end of the year — Dance showcase

Since this was the first year for the dance program, we weren't quite ready for what I would call a formal dance concert; so instead, we had a "Dance Showcase — a celebration of dance learning," with the various dance forms we studied throughout the year mostly taking the place of student choreography. I do want to cultivate a focus on creative work and choreography as the program grows; but this year, when performing was optional (many students were taking Dance simply as a PE alternative with no thought to performing), the focus had to be on learned dance forms for purely logistical reasons.

All dance students had two options for their performance final: perform at least one dance on stage at the showcase, or perform in class during the final exam period. I put out sign-up sheets for all ten of the dances we had learned: basic jazz, Thriller, Lindy hop / Big Apple, Brazilian Samba, kahiko hula, 'auana hula, Tahitian, Central African / Congolese, Baile Folklórico, and ballet. As I expected, a large number signed up for the Polynesian dances, especially kahiko (ancient) hula; and another large group wanted to perform ballet (it is gratifying to know that so many students are still interested in these forms with strict, codified technique). What surprised me was how few originally signed up for Samba, with such enthusiasm while we were studying the form — my guess is that it was so fast and aerobic that many felt it was too difficult to attempt on stage, in front of a crowd (this is not to say, of course, that ballet and hula are not technically challenging! — only that the dances I chose to teach for those forms were relatively short and simple, with fewer steps and patterns to remember, and students probably felt they were less likely to "mess up"). With encouragement, we ended up with enough dancers to perform each dance, with the most dependably enthusiastic performers holding down the more challenging dances.

The difficulty this year was getting the dances rehearsed (while also spending most class time creating final choreography projects), and getting students from the three classes together for each dance. Because these were nominally beginning dance classes, an after-school rehearsal schedule had not been set out in the syllabus at the beginning of the year, so all I could do was set a schedule and remind students they needed to be at rehearsals in order to have the privilege of performing on stage. We had exactly two weeks of rehearsals, once the musical was over — unfortunately, the two weeks right before finals, when dancers were often making up work in other classes, so even the most dedicated dancers missed a time or two... The process was nerve-wracking for me, but comes with the territory of a first-year, all-Beginning Dance program. We never had a real tech rehearsal, since that late in the year the theater was constantly in use for awards and the like — our semblance of a tech was our one and only run-through on stage, two weeks ahead of the show. Our tech director sat and took notes on all the pieces, I emailed him the show order once I set it — and the performance was beautifully lit, as if by magic! I have now discovered what a godsend a good tech theater director can be.

By the time the performance arrived we had had 30 in the cast — some in just one dance, some in three, four, five, or six, and a couple in nearly every piece. I picked two student emcees to briefly introduce each dance (mostly so those dedicated dancers cold catch their breaths between pieces). We did also have one piece of student-choreography — I had invited any groups who wished to show their narrative choreography finals on stage, although I had not expected many among my beginning dancers to take me up on it... but one group was brave enough and showed their (quite dramatic) narrative.

The performance went smoothly — all the dancers kept track of the show order and backstage monitors, and appeared in the wings exactly when they needed to. So if the rehearsals were nerve-wracking, the actual performance was probably the least-stressful show I have ever conducted. Such a pleasure, and I am so looking forward to next year!

choreography final — narrative form

For many years I have used narrative form as the choreography final for my beginning students. I have found that this works well as a culminating project for the beginners — they have gotten some dance elements under their belts, and it's a simple and accessible way to start them down the road to thinking of dance as a way to communicate something (besides "these are my favorite moves to my favorite music").

I start by showing a few short examples of narrative dance from my library: usually one humorous (Paul Taylor's Snow White), one dramatic (the final scene of Romeo and Juliet); and one created by a pair of former students in turf dance/ hip hop style. Then the assignment is to create a dance that tells a story using only movement (no narration!) — whether an already-known story (like Snow White or Romeo and Juliet), a story from real life, or a story made up for the project. Since it is the final, I also require a few simple elements we have worked on: both locomotor and axial movement, movements and shapes on various levels, and movements in contrasting tempos. The only requirement for music is that it be instrumental, to avoid the temptation to mimic the words of a song.

I'm always interested to see what kinds of stories students choose for their projects. I usually see quite a few dances depicting well-known stories — often stories from movies, and especially Disney movies (these sophisticated adolescents can be charmingly eager to look back to their childhoods). I don't know whether this is because of the examples I show, or because known stories are easier for groups to agree on... but at any rate, this year was no exception: we saw dances portraying Pocahontas, Alice in Wonderland, the Titanic, the Little Mermaid, and three versions of Cinderella (one in each class). It was fascinating to see the diverse ways all these stories were treated: while one Cinderella group used mostly pedestrian movement and mime, another set the story into a more formal dance structure, with an opening unison section and characters freezing into still shapes while inactive (in lieu of going offstage). The Pocahontas group opened with a tableau of three dancers on their knees using a canoe-paddling gesture while the other three circled them with stylized wave gestures; the Titanic group used partner dancing as if showing a ballroom, before two connected dancers depicted the prow of the ship and then all dancers sank to the floor. I was especially taken with the Alice in Wonderland group, which used simple, stylized movement and symmetrical patterns to turn the story into a nearly-abstract (though still narrative) dance — opening with four dancers in a square, gesturing to the center with straight arms while the center dancer spiraled down to the floor ("down the rabbit hole").

Of course, not all narratives were from known stories — many groups or soloists made up stories, often using real-life issues such as bullying, cliques, and even human trafficking; and some performed stories from their own lives and experiences. Of these, some were quite dramatic and emotional: one story depicted how the choreographer's friends helped pull her out of depression in a difficult time; another depicted a family member returning after a long absence then committing suicide. I was impressed and encouraged by the seriousness with which all the dancers treated this project.

... and one more — ballet!

Wow — it's been more than a month! I always say the school year is like a marathon, and the last month is the sprint at the end of the marathon… what with performance season and all, I just plain ran out of time for writing. So I'll use some of the summer to recap what I would have written over the last month or so, in the best chronological order I can…

Our last dance form of the year was ballet, which I usually introduce to my beginners with the world dance forms in spring semester, as classical dance of Europe. This is the one that surprised me, when I polled students in the fall about which forms they most wanted to learn – so many students are interested in ballet! I always think of teens as more focused on hip hop and more flamboyant forms (like Samba); but they seem to be almost universally fascinated with Polynesian dances, and also ballet – I have to keep reminding myself that teenage girls (the vast majority of my students, of course) really want to look pretty, and they do think of ballet that way…

We of course finally got the chance to use the ballet barres for barre work every day — really just pliés, relevés, tendus and rondes de jambes, since classes are so short — and it was a delight to see how diligently they concentrated on their work at the barre! Then I set a dance to an instrumental piece by Ludovico Einaudi. I was surprised that many students seemed to recognize it — some asked me "was that song in a movie?" (of course, since I am entirely not attuned to pop culture, I had absolutely no idea).

Since we were only studying ballet for two-three weeks, I made the dance a fairly simple waltz, with one section of passés, pas de bourées, and port de bras; one of chainé turns and pas de chats; and some chassé-arabesque sautés. Since we had run out of time for a choreography project on choreographic forms, I also set the first section in canon form and the second section in antiphonal / call-and-response form, to at least begin to get across those concepts.

The students were for the most part completely enchanted with learning classical ballet — when it came time to sign up for dances to perform at the dance showcase (more about that later), more students wanted to perform ballet than almost any other dances (except for the Polynesian forms). Of course their technique was not perfect yet (lots still had to think hard about pointing their feet), but they worked very hard on the form. I think I will start the second-level classes with ballet next year!

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.

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)!

fall semester wrap-up... and on to the next

Finals are over, and the fall semester is done. We finished two full creative-work units, with lessons on the elements and group choreography projects — working mostly on the element of Space, with locomotor and axial movement, directions and facings, levels, and symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes. Two choreography projects is considerably less than I would like to have done in one semester... but that was at least partly due to letting students have the time they felt they needed to perfect their first projects to their satisfaction, so perhaps that fits in with the ethic of "less is more"; and I was able to fit in some other creative-work lessons between projects, which I hope to build on further.

As for the technical side, we completed three different short dances, learning some basic jazz technique and a bit about Katherine Dunham as well as some traditional / historical jazz in the form of Lindy hop and Big Apple. A large contingent of dancers (nearly 40) got daring enough to perform in front of most of the school in the Hallowe'en Thriller flashmob, and a couple dozen of them are preparing to perform the Lindy hop piece for the whole school at the next assembly — not bad for beginners!

Along the way, I think we've managed to establish a classroom community where students feel safe to dance, create, and take risks in front of each other — definitely a good start, and something to build on as I work on moving them into making meaning with dance...

One happy problem I had this first semester was around how to tweak my daily participation rubric to differentiate among my (huge majority of) students who fully participate to their best ability every day. While I was at EOSA, my classes were small — never more than 25, and mostly between twelve and twenty — so it was relatively simple to evaluate each student on fulfilling the learning targets at the end of each class. Then last year, in a school where most students expected any class within the PE program meant free play, so few made the effort to participate in the lessons that differentiation was easy — my problem was just getting enough students to participate enough to pass my class. Now that I am in a school where students have the expectation of coming prepared and staying focused on class, I started to wonder if too many of my students were earning A's (if that is a problem, it is certainly a more pleasant problem to have!). After checking with some dance teacher colleagues and finding that my very simple rubric does accord with theirs, I solved the dilemma by deciding not to worry about it too much... At least not this year, as we're getting the program off the ground and all the classes are Beginning Dance, it's really okay for the majority of students to be able to succeed just by doing what they're supposed to do, to the best of their abilities, every day (and there are always written work and choreography projects to help differentiate). I can always tweak the rubric to make it harder for more advanced levels...next year!

So now we are on to spring semester... Since we ended the fall semester doing technique for performance finals, we are starting this one with creative work — moving on to the element of Time with tempo variations. As usual in the spring, I have plans to teach a lot of world / multicultural dance forms — I always include a little Baile Folklórico and a little African-Haitian or Congolese, along with some Polynesian; it appears the three forms the students are most interested in are Brazilian Samba, Hawai'ian hula, and (this one surprised me) classical ballet, so we will most certainly cover those. I would like to get in a lot more creative work — contrasts, some work on choreographic forms, something that will lead to a collaborative dance for each class that they can perform at our informal concert at the end of the year, as well as the choreography final (I usually give them a narrative form project for that one)... so much to cover in so little time! Well, we'll see how it goes — I have to keep reminding myself that my curriculum at EOSA didn't really get settled for a few years, so whatever happens here, it is a good start.

End-of-semester dilemma

Planning the end of this semester turned out to be a bit of a dilemma for me. Coming from Oakland, I was used to having two weeks after winter break before finals — ample time for a few improv lessons and a final choreography project. Most of my years at EOSA, my fall semester final was a dance mapping and notation project: after leading in with the map activity then practice describing steps and movements, groups would notate their own choreography using dance vocabulary, musical beats, and pattern maps.

After attending a wonderful workshop on the Language of Dance (LOD) this fall, I got excited about trying the project in a whole new way. In the workshop, we learned a few basic LOD symbols (shape, travel, turn, spring, flexion, extension, stillness) and how to use them in a timeline; we then created solos by arranging the symbols as a starting point. It was an engaging new way of working for me, so I planned to try turning that notation part of my usual assignment upside-down — instead of first choreographing steps and then notating them with descriptions, my students would arrange the LOD symbols to build their dances, and only then fill out the movement physically. I was anxious to try out the project in a whole new way...

Unfortunately, my new district starts and finishes the school year (and fall semester) one week earlier, leaving only one week after winter break to prepare for finals. It just felt too weird to me to have a two-week vacation in the middle of a creative work / choreography project; to top it off, I would also be missing all of my sophomores (about half the students in all my dance classes) for testing during two days of this week, making it even harder to feel that we had time to do a notation and mapping project justice. So I somewhat reluctantly decided to switch gears entirely and have a performance final instead, letting students choose one or two of the dance styles we have studied this semester (basic jazz, the Thriller jazz dance, and Lindy hop / Big Apple) to perform in class — which they could easily review in the one week after break. In the meantime, we could still work on some of the mapping and LOD concepts this week.

What feels uncomfortable for me in this is that I’ve only gotten my classes through two choreography projects this semester. There are a number of reasons for that — for one, we started the school year two weeks late, then took an extra two weeks out of the curriculum to work on the Thriller dance (which was entirely worth it, both for making the program visible and for student buy-in); we also took longer on both creative work units than I have in the past, for the sake of allowing enough time to not rush the choreography — but in that “technique vs. creative work” dichotomy, the creative work seemed to be falling behind.

On the other hand, what came out of the dilemma was perhaps a new way of thinking about teaching creative dance and improvisation for me. In the past, the bulk of my creative dance lessons have been connected to a few elements, as lead-ins to group choreography projects; but this week, we were able to do four days of creative work for its own sake, not tied to a project, and that actually felt very freeing. We did dance mapping and a brief introduction to the LOD symbols and timeline (which I hope to return to in small ways throughout the year), as well as a two-day duets project for the small classes while the sophomores were out testing (more about all those lessons in the next post). I now think that this is a direction that I can and should explore further — while I surely will continue to  teach creative work units, with specific lessons leading into choreography projects, I am intrigued by the possibility of introducing more elements and more creative dance work into the “in-between” times. Perhaps this will turn out to be a new way of finding opportunities to infuse creative work into the curriculum!