Nothing as Dear as Life

 Distance learning or no distance learning, I was determined my Dance Production class would create a dance together this fall, as they did last year…

When we came back to school, I first told them their semester would have two main focal points: the first was “screendance,” or dance-for-video (for obvious reasons – there was not a chance that we would be able to perform in person this semester) – I mentioned that dance-for-screen is truly how our art form is evolving these days, all over the world, and our task is to show that we can still do meaningful work even if we can’t get on a stage…

… And the second, of course, was dance responding to meaningful issues – I quoted Nina Simone that “an artist’s duty is to reflect the times” and said that dance can be a part of changing the world, whether we dance for resistance or uplift. I told them that we usually create a dance together on some issue, and that last year we went through a long process of consensus-building to get to an issue everyone agreed on – but that this year, it seemed imperative that we needed to respond to the #BLM movement.... and they all were completely on board with that (not a surprise, actually, knowing these students and how focused they can be on social justice issues).

So from there, my role was mainly to help them organize their ideas – I got them into breakout rooms to talk about ideas for the general shape of the dance, out of which came the general consensus that it should start with solos (some said “like our chain dance from last year) then grow through small groups to end with the whole class dancing together in unity, as well as the idea of using quotes by civil rights activists to lead off each section.

I then took lots of suggestions for music and title ideas, and narrowed them down through multiple polls. We narrowed down the music choices for solos (or duets, for those who wanted to work in a pair) to three, and each dancer or pair of dancers chose their music and which name they would honor. I asked who was up for choreographing the small-group sections, and six dancers stepped up, serendipitously all seniors.

For the ending section with everyone, I asked the four seniors who were veterans of last year's class to choreograph (that was one of my only real inputs in the process). My role from there was setting the small groups (three of them, two choreographers each) and facilitating the rehearsals. The small groups naturally happened in breakout rooms, with many of the choreographers sending their dancers videos to practice with outside of class; for the full-class rehearsals,  facilitating on Zoom meant a lot of watching everyone and checking to see if they all understood which foot and hand the choreographer was using, since some screens come out reversed and things can be really confusing! And of course, once rehearsals were done, I spent a lot of time nagging kids to get their videos to me for editing (they all had three to turn in: one solo or duet, one small-group section, and one for the final, full-class coda), and editing them all together (this was by far the most complex video-editing project I had ever done!).

The piece came out to over ten minutes long, and was beautiful in the variety and passion of their dancing… My one and only choreographic input was the very end – after the choreographer of the very last section ended the whole dance with a long slow movement, reaching toward the camera, I thought it would be nice to bring in the photos of those they honored, one by one… I proposed that to the class, they liked the idea so we went with it – otherwise, as usual, the dance was entirely theirs, I functioned only as facilitator and video editor.

I was incredibly proud of what they did – the dance was powerful, and reminded me more of my class at EOSA, who created their dance on youth killings in Oakland all those years ago, than any other class I have taught since…  and I hope that this experience creating such a serious and socially relevant dance (even virtually) may stand us in good stead for next year’s class and beyond. 

more choreography projects on Zoom

 We only had time for four choreography projects for the Jazz 1 (Beginning dance) class, owing to the 4x3 schedule and having to condense the entire year’s curriculum into one semester. For the third project I wanted to give them a version of the project that is usually our fall semester final – contrasts in tempo, level, and size/range. I usually introduce this one with a quote from Doris Humphrey about staying away from “the deadly middle.” In this situation, I figured that three elements in one project was really too much for Zoom, so I concentrated on the two that we hadn’t already covered (tempo and size/range). Unfortunately, even the two different elements made life too complicated for our distance learning world, as this was our least successful project – only a few groups truly showed what I would consider real contrasts or opposites in both tempo and  size… perhaps showing real size contrasts is just too much for small spaces! So this is the only project I plan to change for my 4th-period Jazz 1 class, which meets during the spring semester – I think I will revert to the simple tempo variations project which is usually the lead-up to the contrasts final when we are in person.

Difficult third project notwithstanding, I was not about to let go of our usual year-end final: narrative form. This one is important to me, as it really helps set the students up for the idea that creating dances is not just about creating interesting steps, but is also a form of communication… I set this one up the usual way, with a video observation of a few short narrative dances or excerpts: a large chunk of Paul Taylor’s Snow White, the final crypt scene from Romeo and Juliet (I have the ABT version, with Natalia Makarova), and the “Rosa Parks” section of Gordon Parks’ Martin. Then I just set them in groups (in this case, in breakout rooms) with the instructions that they are to use movement only to tell a story – whether a famous story that we all know (like Snow White or Romeo and Juliet), something from history (like Rosa Parks), something from their own lives, or something they make up. I remind them that a real story has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and something has to actually happen – but beyond that they are free to create whatever story they would like.

Of course, the added difficulty this year is that it is so much harder to tell a story when none of the dancers are in the same place… But some of the groups came up with very creative solutions to the problem of narrative on Zoom! One duet used a bear costume
and multiple virtual screens to dance Goldilocks and the three bears. Another pair created a story about a girl drowning in the ocean and getting saved, and managed to throw the life-preserver (actually a big round pillow that they both had in their houses) from one screen to the next. And a quartet used extensive (and well-planned) video editing to tell the story of Cinderella – my favorite part was how they took advantage of two of the dancers having similar staircases in their houses, so that Cinderella could lose her shoe in one scene and the prince could find a shoe on (what appeared to be) the same staircase in the next scene! There was much creativity all around, and I was so happy that they finished the semester this way!

distance learning choreography projects (1)

 Okay, about those choreography projects… Last spring, in emergency distance learning mode, I gave in and figured out assignments that each student could create and post individually – for the Jazz 1 students, I reverted to the Cinquain project (which I had originally planned to be the 4th-quarter lead-up project before the narrative final), in which they create their own simple poem in cinquain form, then create a dance to it; for Jazz 2, I made up a dancing with objects assignment, for students to find one thing in their houses to create a dance around (I have Wendy Jones from Lowell High School in SF to thank for the idea for that one).

But when this year started, with no prospects of going back to in-person in the dance room anytime soon, I was determined that this year’s students would not miss out on the concepts and curriculum I have refined over all of these years! So, somehow, we needed to be able to complete our choreography projects remotely. Due to breakout rooms, it mostly worked – the trick was finding the projects that were at least not too confusing to do over Zoom!

Jazz 1 began with our usual axial and locomotor movement / directions and facings project. I explained to the class, as I always do, that beginning choreographers tend to do a lot of movement in one place, facing the audience, so this project is designed to break them of that habit right away. The three main elements of the assignment were: 1. have a good beginning and ending; 2. do at least as much traveling movement as movement in one place; and 3. do at least as much movement facing sideways or backwards as facing your audience/camera. (I usually also require traveling movement in multiple directions, but this time I figured that getting any amount of real locomotor movement would be as much as I could hope for in their small spaces.) I made the assignment sheet that I usually hand out physically to each group into a PDF file, posted on their Google Classroom page so that they could keep referring to it, and I also reminded them of those three main points every time I saw them! They worked on their projects in groups in breakout rooms, and I recorded them in their breakout rooms as well. Instead of watching each others’ projects performed in real time in the dance room, students were asked to choose four of their classmates’ recordings to watch and respond to. All things considered, it worked out as well as I could have hoped for.

The second choreography project was a challenge – again, I did not want to completely give up on my usual Shapes and Levels project! I think it is the one project I have carried through all of my years of teaching, having gotten it from my master teachers during my student teaching year… I love it for the second project because after letting them use whatever music and steps they like for the first project (to get them hooked on the idea of creating together), I then hit them with a project that does not depend on “steps” and uses only amorphous background music – and it often seems to turn their thinking in a new direction and jolt them into new ideas of what choreography can be. The usual form is to create a dance of at least six group still shapes, three symmetrical and three asymmetrical, incorporating low and high levels, and using movements only for transitions.

Of course, the immediate problem here is that we can’t create anything like the group still shapes we would have in the dance room – I had to think differently about shapes myself! So I looked up some dance performances created through Zoom, and took some screen shots of interesting shapes to share with the students. I did still require symmetry and asymmetry for the assignment (I found plenty of examples in the screenshots), and asked for at least some changes in level; but I also asked them to think about using things we couldn’t ordinarily do in person – such as proximity to the camera, or reaching body parts across screens – to make their shapes interesting.  Some of the groups did some excellent work for their second-ever choreography project!

More catching up – a whole semester (plus) of distance learning

 So, as we came back to school for a semester of distance learning (now into the second semester, but that’s another story), our leadership team decided to switch to a 4x3 schedule: instead of having seven classes at once, students would take four classes (whichever were the odd-numbered classes in their schedules) in the fall, and then three (the even-numbered ones) in the spring. The reasoning behind this was that last spring, in our emergency-distance-learning mode, many students (including the multiple-AP class, straight-A students) felt completely overwhelmed dealing with seven classes at once online; and with students completing their classes in one semester, them moving on to another set of classes, it made it more like a college schedule where classes always finish in one semester.

So the 4x3 schedule made perfect sense… The only problem was that under our daily class schedule we saw each class for 55 minutes four times a week (every day but Friday, which was set aside for catching up on homework) – so the total hours we were with each class was about equal to the hours we would ordinarily be with them in a regular semester, while we were expected to cover the curriculum for a whole year.

So that meant narrowing down my curriculum to the absolute essentials… which actually became an interesting exercise in refining my usual plans to make them as meaningful as possible – always a good practice! I think the process helped me think a bit more clearly and make changes that I will want to keep when we are able to return in person.

For the Jazz 1 and Jazz 2 classes, I was able to cover two or three major dance forms each quarter, and two creative work units / choreography projects each quarter. I had always been somewhat dissatisfied with our district’s designation of our main college-prep dance classes as “Jazz Dance 1” and “Jazz Dance 2” – I always had to assure potential students that “we do so much more than just jazz dance”… But after reading many articles on anti-racist dance teaching in the wake of the summer of Black Lives Matter protests, I embraced our jazz dance focus in a whole new way. I was inspired by Amy Compton’s work on introducing her class to jazz dance during shelter-in-place (with lots of really excellent links!), and also a number of articles from the Journal of Dance Education on anti-racist dance teaching… I had already taught jazz as an African-derived dance form, going back to learn traditional jazz dances of the Harlem Renaissance after starting with really basic steps in the beginning of the year; so this year, I just tweaked the curriculum a bit to make the message clearer. I started with showing a couple of videos on the history of jazz and the history of African-American social dances (that one is from a TED-ed presentation by Camille Brown, and is dynamite!) to visually show the connections, then proceeded from there, always continuing the message that jazz came from the Black community.

So for the fall semester, both Jazz 1 and Jazz 2 began with jazz as their first technical unit, then Jazz 1 took on traditional jazz in the form of Big Apple and a bit of Charleston, while Jazz 2 moved on to complete a lyrical jazz combination. In the second quarter (this year’s equivalent of spring semester), Jazz 1 was able to experience Congolese/Central African dance, Baile Folklórico, and Hawai’ian hula; will Jazz 2 studied African-Haitian dance, Brazilian Samba, and Hawai’ian hula. Of course, there was only so much we could all do, through the computer screen and in smallish spaces, but I was actually amazed at how well many of the students were able to absorb such distinct and varied styles! We also managed creative work and choreography projects, but I think perhaps that is a subject for another post… as is what the Dance Production class did this year.

Catching up on a year of distance learning…

 Well, it has been over a year since I last posted here again – life got too hectic once we got into performance season… then shortly after, all you-know-what broke loose as we were sent home to shelter-in-place from the COVID pandemic in March. Now that it’s been nearly a year of distance learning, I am starting to dig out from under a couple of hectic and stressful semesters, and would like to catch up – so here goes…

When I left off, my wonderful Dance Production class was working on their dance about “othering.” Suffice it to say that we had a lot of zig-zags on the road to finishing that one (many of them around finding just the right music for each section that we could all get along with), but it did get finished beautifully. The class ended up performing it for the CDEA dance festival in February, and was two days away from performing it again for our district dance festival in March when the district cancelled all performances due to the pandemic… and so it started.

The rest of spring semester was definitely a scramble. I still managed to teach dance forms for my Dance 1 and Dance 2 classes – the saving grace being that what we had yet to work on was mostly Hawai’ian hula and Tahitian ‘ori, both  of which are uniquely suited to performing in small spaces (steps in Hawai’ian and Tahitian are supposed to be very small, since the whole point of taking steps is to shift weight to initiate hip movement, not to do any significant traveling). Final choreography projects were all done as solos, as we didn’t have time to figure out how to make group choreography projects work – the Dance 1 narrative final was replaced with working to poetry; and for Dance 2 we pivoted to working with objects, so that they could use something in their households as the impetus for their dances.

Dance Production had been set to perform not only their “othering” piece, but also a Hawai’ian hula we had been working on to premiere at the multicultural rally that usually happens at the end of March; then they were to have started work on their own choreography projects, already fully planned and cast. Plans went out the window as we turned to creating solo and duet projects that could be created and recorded at home – the instructions were to create a site-specific dance for recording on video, focusing on a meaningful topic. Nearly all of the dancers came through with solos (and one duet) for a virtual concert (a simple video playlist) – after all the confusion of the emergency shelter-in-place, it was lovely and moving to see their individual dances, created in their own homes and backyards...

For the full-class repertory, we continued rehearsing the hula until it was perfected enough to record with a performance on Zoom – the final performance was far from perfect, of course, since no one is ever “in sync” on Zoom due to differing wi-fi speeds, but it was still a lovely performance. We also added something that I had heard about from other dance teachers,  a class “chain dance” or “exquisite corps” by analogy with the Surrealist “exquisite corpse” parlor game in which each artist adds to a drawing or poem without seeing what came before. The way the dance version works is that we established a random order, then each dancer would create a very short (8 - 10 seconds) solo, and send the recording to the next dancer on the list; the next dancer would then start their solo from the same movement as their predecessor’s ending. It took a lot of nagging to get all of the dancers to finish their segments in time – with students used to keeping track of due dates and finishing assignments just in time, it’s hard to get across the message that if everyone took five days to finish their part and send it to the next dancer, it would take months to get the entire dance done! – but they finally did finish, and it made a beautiful opening for the virtual concert, as it briefly introduced each dancer in the class in turn by name before they showed their individual projects.

“Othering” — beginning to form the dance

For our collaborative dance, we had managed to come to a consensus on a theme — “othering.” So, now to begin the dance! Again, I started by having the dancers write: since art is most powerful when it has an element of the personal, write about how othering affects your life or those around you, or what aspect holds the most meaning for you… (Of course, with the caveat to share only as much as they felt absolutely comfortable sharing.) I am always astounded at how my students can open up their hearts on the page — and this group showed me again how thoughtful they can be.  I read stories of racism and stereotyping of Blacks, Asians, Latinos, and Muslims, of sexism and homophobia… But beyond the personal stories, students grew analytical:some mused on othering as the root of all bullying, or on how oppressed peoples internalize their oppression; one wrote that othering connects all violence, and about how it “has become normalized; it’s become natural to see the white man degrading the black man… to hear about the raping of women… to push around the kid who doesn’t have enough money… then say ‘it’s human nature.’”

I also asked for ideas of how they would portray this issue in dance, and for their opinion of my role as teacher (i.e., should I choreograph a section, or just help to organize their ideas?). There emerged a general consensus on the basic shape of the dance — nearly everyone mentioned beginning in small  “us vs. them” groups, then ending hopefully, in unity and empowerment. One dancer proposed that to show empowerment, all would freeze and “one person could be dancing to show how a movement only needs one person to start,” then the others join — a powerful image!

As to my role as their teacher, it seemed at first that these budding choreographers didn’t fully trust their own skills, as nearly everyone said they would like me to choreograph at least part of the dance, and they could “add our own touches.” But then…

I came to them with a general shape of the dance, based on all they had written and discussed: beginning with one group representing he “majority” culture, then various smaller groups entering and being somehow dominated or swallowed up by the majority, and finally the lone dancer stepping forward to rebel and start the unity phrase for others to join… And that is when these lovely students took the dance and ran with it, as one dancer spoke up: “I think we should start with the smaller “othered” groups before the dominant group comes in to take them all over…” There was general consensus on that being the better idea, and just like that the class took ownership of their dance!

Next we got into small groups for the first section. I divided them mostly by movement style, making sure that the “dominant” group (I resisted the term “majority,” since straight white males are in no way an actual majority) was made up of dancers who had said they would be okay with that. Their first prompt for group work was simply to come up with some distinctive movement for their own small group phrase — and this is where the dancers began to truly make it their own. Although I hadn’t specified any focus for the various small groups, each group came up with its own population to focus on, and with it an idea for their group’s denouement… One group focused on homophobia and gay rights, and decided that they would fight back when the dominant group tried to swallow them up. Another group chose racism, specifically directed at Blacks and Asians, and determined to create their movement with ribbons which the dominant group would snatch away as if to erase their cultures. And the last group chose to portray immigrants, and imagined that the dominant group would scatter them to the corners of the stage, symbolizing family separation — and that separation would be the “last straw” which would inspire one dancer to step forward in solidarity. They got to work in their groups, and fairly quickly created some movement for the first section — the collaboration was on its way!

Full-class collaboration – finding a theme and a consensus

Now that I have a real Dance Production class again, I decided that instead of teaching them a dance for their one full-class performance piece, I would set them on a collaborative project…  and one connected to something meaningful. The last time I tried something like this was with my last few DP classes at EOSA (including the class who created a powerful piece about youth killings in Oakland). After taking a workshop on theme-based projects at last year’s NDEO conference, and reading a couple of new articles about social justice projects, I was anxious to revive the idea – and I knew that this group of dancers, who are relatively inexperienced in dance but amazingly focused and serious about their choreography, would be ready to take it on.

So, as I have done in the past, I started with student writing. This time, we began very simply, with the dancers just listing some social justice issues they might be interested in creating dances about (some chose to write in more depth about actual choreography ideas, but most did just list some issues, as that was all I had asked). The issues they raised ran the gamut, from environmental destruction to domestic violence to racism and police brutality to xenophobia… So then came the hard job of deciding what issue we could all focus on. I told them I wasn’t going to just have them vote, that I didn’t want to go with majority rule because majority rule often leaves a minority unsatisfied (and after all, majority rule was just fine with chattel slavery in this country for two-and-a-half centuries) – instead, we needed to somehow come to consensus.

I started by having them get into small groups to talk about what commonalities they could find among all those social issues. The small groups then shared out to the whole class — some of what they talked about included “nearly everything connects with violence”… “many of these issues involve a hierarchy”… “absolute power connects a lot”… I posted their thoughts that I had written down onto Google Classroom (I hate how Google is taking over the world, but I have to admit GC has become a convenient tool), and asked them to think overnight about how we might tie all their issues together. The next day, after another brief discussion of what I had heard them say the day before, I mentioned the concept of “othering” — “us vs. them” — and asked if they thought it might actually be the common denominator to all their issues (I didn’t want to impose any ideas on them too quickly, but on the other hand we did have to find consensus at some point!). All agreed… We had found our idea!

new dilemma - student choreography and inappropriate movement

I guess this has turned into an occasional blog — since I'm not exactly a prolific writer, I'll most likely continue writing whenever issues raise their heads (instead of daily/weekly/monthly...). So — I came upon a situation this past semester that was a new dilemma for me, after all these years, and I am still wondering how I could have handled it better, and how I can tweak my class projects in order to head off anything similar in the future...

In the past, at EOSA, I had given my Dance Production students very specific assignments for their final choreography projects for the spring concert (one year it was dance in the style of a dance ancestor, another was dance as a response to history or social issues, another was dance responding to words or text, etc.). This year, for my first Dance Production class at my new school, I reverted to the more open-ended system of my student-teaching mentor — each semester we had an "idea day" in which students presented their dance ideas to the class; then dancers signed up for dances they most wanted to perform, choreographers gave me lists of their needs for dancers, and I set casting accordingly.

This worked beautifully in the fall concert, with 11 choreographers presenting interesting pieces in widely varied styles. In the spring, we again had some intriguing ideas presented; but I also noticed a lot of choreographers talking more about the popular music they wanted to dance to than the dance itself. Of more concern were various references to "hardcore popping" or "burlesque-style" dance, as well as some of songs that were fairly offensive (in which bouncing, jiggling, and showing off your booty is the entire point) — the tone of the day felt to me as if some choreographers were competing for dancers by using popular and sexualized songs and movement. So I reconnoitered, told the choreographers to come back in a week with a written proposal including what they intended to communicate to the audience, and tried it again. The second idea day went better — most choreographers came back with complete proposals, with more well-thought-out movement ideas and nothing overtly unacceptable at least.

As we moved into rehearsals and in-progress showings, I could see there were still a couple of dances (or parts of dances) that made me uncomfortable as a director. The first was pretty simple: in a group dance about love, the very first movement looked to me like stereotypical "stripper dance" — dancers squatting on their heels opened their knees sharply in unison before slithering to standing level (a movement which undoubtedly appears in countless music videos, but in context seemed very suggestive). I talked to the choreographer about what she intended to convey to her audience, how the opening movement sets the tone for the whole dance, and that at least parts of her audience were likely to see her beginning as an allusion to striptease. She agreed that it might not be the most appropriate opening, and changed it so that each dancer (still in unison) sharply made his or her own dramatic, low-level shape — which turned out to be a much more interesting opening in any case.

The second instance was more difficult. This choreographer had originally proposed one of those "shake your body" songs; for her second proposal she changed to "Flawless" by Beyoncé. Ironically — given that the song includes a talk by the writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on the importance of feminism, specifically deploring girls in our culture competing for the attention of men — her dance seemed to be permeated with subtly (or sometimes overtly) sexualized movement. After the first showings I asked her to tone down some parts of the dance, which she did (though reluctantly); but it remained problematic for me —not blatantly inappropriate enough to take it out of the concert, but still not what I wanted to showcase in my dance program.

The heart of my dilemma is that this choreographer's intention was to create a dance about "empowering women to love their own bodies" (as her dancers agreed). I think these young women genuinely believe they are conveying women's empowerment by performing movement that looks to me very reminiscent of striptease. I know this style of movement is very much a part of pop culture through music videos, and that burlesque and even pole-dancing are now popular recreational dance classes; yet I also know, in a historical context, how much this is still a product of a male-dominated culture in which women are objectified as sex objects. What I have been asking myself is: how do I expand my students' focus (or raise their consciousness, as we used to say) to understand how these movements they are drawn to are objectifying, decidedly un-empowering, and borderline offensive for some of us, without coming off sounding like an anti-sex prude? I worry that I am simply being too sensitive — but I do not want my (nearly all female) students learning to demean and objectify women, however inadvertently.

This, again, is a new problem for me — at my previous school, every student in my (small) Dance Production classes presented their choreography finals on stage, and somehow I never had to deal with movement I considered inappropriate.... So I wonder — has the culture changed that much? Is it something in the culture of this particular school? And how do I adjust my class to prevent the problem in the future — going back to specific assignments? Requiring instrumental music only? (both of which I am definitely toying with.) Or perhaps some readings in classic feminist literature...? Or do I just frankly talk to the new class about how sexualized movement objectifies women? I hope that these are just growing pains of a new program and that we will get over it as our culture of dance develops, but I do feel a need to address it proactively as the new school year starts.

new rubrics (part 2)

The second new rubric I needed to create last fall was for the Dance Production class: since we were working with a new (for me) class structure, I needed a new rubric to assess the final choreography projects. In my previous DP classes at EOSA, there had always been a final choreography assignment with specific guidelines; but this year's open-ended structure, with choreographers signing up to create whatever they envisioned, demanded a new assessment structure as well.

So I went back to the beginning — I started by looking at the peer critique form from my student teaching mentor (Marcia Singman at Berkeley High), which asked students to look for variety in dance elements, use of stage space, entrances and exits, and the like. Choreography feedback guidelines from Mills College were also helpful, stressing dance elements as well, but also originality, willingness to take risks, clarity of ideas, and attention to detail — all things which I value and want to see in my students' choreography. I looked a little farther afield and found a a few choreography rubrics online, which gave me ideas for some specific things to include in various categories... then to put it together!

I began with a couple of categories that are standard in my rubrics for group choreography projects in class: "Dance structure" and "Creativity and Variety." In ordinary choreography projects, I use "Dance structure" to stress the point that all dances have a beginning, middle, and end (as well as well-planned sequences and transitions), and that the beginning and end are vitally important as the first and last thing the audience sees — so students know they lose points for just standing in neutral waiting for the beat, or dropping the last movement or shape and walking away. For the Dance Production projects, it was a given that no choreographer was going to put a piece on stage without some kind of beginning and ending, so I added language to indicate whether the beginning and ending were clear but uninspiring, strong, or dynamic; and that the dance has a clear flow and sense of purpose. Then since "creativity" could fit into this rubric in may forms, I converted the general "Creativity and variety" category into the more specific "Variety and contrast" — use of variety in the dance elements of space, time, energy, and relationships. Harking back to Ms. Singman's work, I also inserted a category for "Use of stage space" (including entrances and exits). Those three categories took care of the purely "craft of choreography" aspects of the rubric.

Of course, creating a rubric is still an exercise in setting — or simply recognizing — priorities and values. My goal for years has been to move students beyond setting their favorite steps to their favorite songs, and toward expressing and communicating meaning, so much of the remainder of the rubric is concerned with how student choreographers are (or are not) finding original ideas and bringing meaning to their works. For this I turned back to the Mills College guidelines. I made one category focusing on originality — this is where I brought in movement invention versus movement clichés as well as willingness to take risks. For the category most specifically focused on communicating meaning I chose the title "Artistic intention," which allowed me to bring in not only what the dance is intended to communicate (whether ideas, emotions, a narrative, or simply a mood), but also whether the dance demonstrates the choreographer's artistic growth — which I realized, as I worked on this, is also one of my high priorities.

Those categories added up to 90 points, so I completed the rubric with a 10-point category for "Attention to details." This gave me the chance to bring in the dancers' performance of the piece in a relatively small way. In our ordinary in-class group choreography projects, preparation and performance quality are graded as a part of the project — since the group works together as a whole, the dancers' preparation, confidence, and attention to details of technique do generally reflect how hard the group worked on the assignment. In this case, I was focused on assessing the choreography itself, not the dancers' performances; but I did feel that attention to detail among the dancers (precision of movements and shapes, floor patterns, and relati onships) shows something about how the choreographer worked with the group, so I found that it was appropriate to include.

That rounded out my rubric — here it is, I would welcome any feedback!

new rubrics (part 1)

In the course of the fall semester I developed a couple of new rubrics and put them to use. A good rubric can be invaluable in organizing your thinking to make the process of grading a physical art form as objective as possible. Over the years, I've come to realize that creating a rubric is an exercise in deciding what is important, what you truly care about seeing and consider excellent; and this process was certainly no exception.

The first new rubric was for performance tests. The rubric I had used and revised over many years had up to five categories (three or four for minor tests): Preparation/sequence, Energy, Technique, Musical timing, and Focus/stage presence. Here is that one:

As I was grading my spring performance finals, I grew more and more dissatisfied with the categories. "Preparation / sequence" was pretty straightforward (ranging from "solid enough to lead the rest of the dancers" to "lots of mistakes or completely dependent on other dancers"), as was "Focus" (taking into account things such as engaging with the audience, covering mistakes, and staying in character). But "Energy" felt a bit problematic, as "advanced" in that category — "full-out performance with excellent energy" — often seemed to be not quite what I was looking for in many dance styles. "High energy" would not come close to describing the subtle energy dynamics of 'auana hula, for just one example. So I started to think in terms of the dance element Energy and all it entails — smooth vs. sharp, weight, tension, flow, movement qualities — and moved that category more in the direction of using force and energy appropriate to the dance form.

I had also had trouble with the "Technique" category for years — I had started out including things like "clean lines, precise footwork, arms and legs stretched and feet pointed" as examples of attention to technical details, but ended up again feeling that my wording did not cover what I was looking for, as stretched arms and pointed feet are not necessarily a part of good technique in all dance forms. So I remembered something my mentor Patricia had said years ago (in relation to teaching creative work versus teaching technique): "after all, what is technique if not the elements of dance, applied?" That set me thinking that what we ordinarily think of as technical skill includes the energy dynamics and musical timing that I had broken out into separate categories... And then it started to click: so what was it that I was really looking for (what was important to me) in that category I called "technique"? Of course — shape! All those years, when grading "technique," I had really been most concerned with students creating the shapes appropriate for the dance form (which may include those pointed feet... or not). And if I started to think more broadly about Space, then amplitude, facings, and so many other things I had neglected to include would be covered...

From there, it was an easy jump to realizing that I simply needed to base my rubric on the elements of dance. It would still contain five categories, as the Preparation and Focus categories would remain; but the other three would reflect Space, Energy, and Time. Here is what I came up with:

I used the new rubric for all the fall semester performance finals, and it did work much better for me — no longer was I looking at details which seemed to fit into more than one category and having to decide where to note them. I found I could be much clearer in my thinking, now that I had acknowledged what I had really been looking at all along!

Of course, all rubrics are works in progress, so I will continue to refine this one... 

(late) fall semester wrap-up — dance showcase... and moving ahead

(sigh)... Somehow I completely fell off the map here since the NDEO conference — time for writing fell by the wayside during performance season and finals, and then inertia set in as I tried to figure out how to write a condensed version of everything that happened since the fall (impossible, I'm afraid). So, I guess I'll try to do a quick wrap-up of the end of the semester, at least, and then try to pick it up again for this one...

Of course, the main culminating event for fall semester was the new Dance Production class' dance showcase concert. This year I tried out a new (for me) system: instead of requiring a choreography final for every student, I let those who wished to create work for the concert present their proposals to the class on "Idea Day" (as Marcia Singman, my mentor teacher when I was student teaching, called it). I was pleased at the wide range of projects proposed, all with serious intent. The day after Idea Day, all students in the class signed up for which pieces they would most like to perform in — and then came the hard part, figuring out casting! Unfortunately, rehearsals started later than I had planned, because figuring out who cold dance in which pieces, and then (this was the hard part) which pieces could rehearse on the same day, turned into a three-week process. Aaarrrgh! (for this semester, I'm having choreographers sign up for rehearsal days before dancers sign up for dances to eliminate all that juggling).

Once rehearsals finally got under way, things went pretty well. Although almost all the choreographers chose to work to relatively current pop music, making for a rather more monotone concert than I might have ideally liked, they all took their work seriously — they remembered to use plenty of variety in the dance elements and structures we have studied, and all stayed away from the "front-facing unison" trap. We did end up with a fairly wide range of tones and styles, within those pop-song boundaries: while one choreographer set a love duet on two pairs, another created a group praise dance, and another arranged traditional Bhangra steps into her own dance. One of the stronger pieces had a Carnival theme and a dark tone, with dancers in pairs and one partner always controlling the other. In all, eleven choreographers showed their own work, along with a couple of class repertory pieces; the Jazz 1 and Jazz 2 classes also showed their fall semester jazz technique dances.

We had a good and enthusiastic audience, and are looking forward to expanding into a two-night concert for spring!

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!

first choreography projects — energy qualities for Dance 2

After a couple of weeks of technique (basic jazz for Dance 1, more complex jazz for Dance 2, lyrical for Dance Production), we moved into our first creative work / choreography unit. The Dance 1 classes started with Directions and Facings — simple and accessible for new dance students who have never created before, and which I wrote about at about this time last year...

While the Dance 1 classes are focusing primarily on the element of Space, I plan to emphasize the element of Force/Energy in the Dance 2 class. To that end, we began with a lesson on smooth and sharp — beginning with concrete images ( float down a smooth-flowing river, slash through a jungle, hiccups...), then using action words to find movements that can be done both smoothly and sharply — then moved on to further qualities of movement. I know that (at least according to Blom and Chaplin) there are as many movement qualities as there are adjectives in the dictionary, but for the purposes of this unit I focused on six: sustained/smooth, percussive/sharp, swinging, suspended, collapsing, and vibrating (which are the same qualities I learned from my master teacher, Marcia Singman, at Berkeley High school when I was student teaching, long before I learned much about creative dance teaching). The group project was simple: create a dance showing clearly at least three of these movement qualities, but making one the most important.

The Dance 2 class is small, so they worked in groups of 2 - 4, and I was intrigued by the variety of movement choices in their projects. One quartet created a dance in the form of a traditional Tahitian ‘aparima, with mostly sustained movements punctuated with some percussive arms and vibrating hips. Another group created a narrative about one person controlling a group, using percussive movement to carry the dramatic elements.

A third group began as a trio, with a lovely abstract dance of sustained in contemporary style punctuated with collapsing and percussive accents. Partway through the creating and rehearsal process, one dancer rejoined the class and this group after being sick at home for most of the week. The original trio was about to try to teach her all their movement in one day... but I told them my story about Balanchine’s Serenade — how one dancer was late to rehearsal, ran in midway through the dance and took her place, and how Balanchine kept the dancer arriving late as a central image and perhaps the most iconic element in a very famous dance. I always appreciate an opportunity to tell this story, because it is such a perfect example of how you can turn rehearsal difficulties to your advantage to make your dance more interesting and creative. So after hearing this little pep-talk, the group created a coda to their dance in which the original trio froze while the fourth dancer entered, weaving around and through them, and releasing them to exit as she circled each one in turn; the dance ended with this last dancer sinking to the floor in a low shape. It was lovely, seeming to imply a subtly mysterious narrative — and perhaps the group learned something lasting about working with what comes...

Dance Production class — creative work and meaning...

I’m afraid I’ve fallen behind in writing again — my classes are already starting their second creative work unit, and I haven’t written about the first one yet! More on that later, but first...

This past Friday we started some explorations and improvisations. Since we never got to non-unison forms with last year’s classes (except for choreographing a bit of canon and antiphonal into their ballet performance piece, just so they’d know what they are), I planned to have both the Dance 2 and Dance Production classes take them up this year... but in slightly different ways: while I plan to give the Dance 2 classes a fairly straightforward composition project (create a short dance that includes unison, canon, and antiphonal forms), I wanted to add a bit of an element of meaning to the Dance Production project. My goal is always to move student choreographers beyond just making cute or flashy steps to their favorite songs, and into thinking about what they are expressing; so for the class that will be working intensively on their own choreography to put on stage later in the semester, I hope to at least move them somewhat in that direction in every short project — although I am still a bit unsettled as to exactly how to word it in this one (something like “find a reason for your movement to be in call-and-response form,” perhaps? or just “make your dance about something”?)

On Friday both the Dance 2 and Dance Production classes warmed up with “one moves, the other doesn’t” — improvising in pairs, with one partner moving while the other freezes, and either partner can control the action by freezing or beginning to move at any time — essentially an exercise in being sensitive to and keeping careful track of your partner. We then played a little shape tag and practiced movement conversations before composing a brief duet with only one requirement: all movement must be in antiphonal form, with only one dancer moving at a time.

The compositions were very quick — with our short classes, we ended up with only 2 - 3 minutes for actual creating time. The Dance 2 class treated it as a pure movement exercise, with an interesting variety of movement. But what fascinated me was how the Dance Production class turned their brief compositions into miniature dramatic studies: while one pair skipped, leaped and beckoned each other across the room like two children playing leapfrog, another pair alternated one partner’s harsh, angular movement with the other’s limping, melting retreats — both implying, if not a storyline, at least a definite emotional character to their dances. Even in these very short studies, perhaps this bodes well for the kind of work this group might be inclined to do later in the year!

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.

class dance project

Wow — things have gotten very busy and I haven't posted in over a month! I guess I have a bit of catching up to do...

Since completing our brief Polynesian unit with a bit of Tahitian, I gave the classes a short choreography project to create a phrase for a class dance. This is an assignment I had only given a couple of times before, and which I was a little hesitant about, as it doesn't reinforce any specific dance elements — but it does give the students a chance to create the phrases they've wanted to create since the beginning of the year (and, as I have to admit, perhaps help to get them hooked on the idea of taking Dance again next year). The idea is very simple: create a short dance phrase (24 - 32 musical beats) that you would like to teach to your classmates, which we will then combine into a class dance. The only real requirement was that the movements be the students' own creation (no direct-from-video choreography please!).

A few interesting things came up in this one for me... One was that, as I watched groups working on their steps, I noticed an awful lot of dependence on song lyrics for movement ideas — things like the ubiquitous gesture for “call me” (thumb and pinkie stretched from ear to jaw), what I think of as “Mickey Mouse-ing” the song (of course,  could have headed this off by requiring instrumental music again, but part of the impetus for this project was to let the kids work with the music and movements they’ve wanted to work on all along). One of my thoughts on this was that we had just recently learned Hawai’ian dance, in which the gestures explicitly illustrate the words of the song, and I wondered how their movements might have differed had we done this at another time; but I think in some respects this way of thinking about songs and gestures is so natural for them it may not have made a difference.

Ironically (given how hesitant I was about the assignment to begin with), this turned out to be one of our more successful choreography projects. Everyone participated, and all groups successfully taught their phrases to the class — some with their own spokesperson, some using me to transmit their steps using “loud teacher talk”... Students were eager to learn from each other, and although they did tend to be more talkative and less focused when their peers were teaching than they usually are with me, they were invariably supportive and enthusiastic about their classmates’ work — and picked it up very quickly, to boot. With a good mix of styles, tempos and energies, each class now has one more dance to add to their repertoire for the end of the year.

Before leaving for spring break, I assigned a journal reflection on the project — How did you feel about teaching your movement to the class? Did the knowledge that you would be teaching your steps change your creative process? What was hardest for you in this? How did you feel about learning movement from your classmates? Which group surprised you, and why or how? The responses were overwhelmingly positive — many students said they thought they would be too scared to teach, but they gained confidence and pride as they saw their peers learning their movement... I had originally thought of this as a project just for the first year of the program (essentially to give each class that one more repertoire piece for the end-of-the-year concert); but after seeing what  a confidence-builder it became, I think I may need to bring it back in future years — perhaps with just a few tweaks to get them over that song-lyric rut!

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.