NDEO conference… and EOSA dancers

I'll be leaving for the NDEO (National Dance Education Organization) conference in Los Angeles next week, and it has put me in mind of the last couple conferences I attended… It's been a few years since I made it (I won't fly anymore because of the environmental destructiveness of air travel); and it's been even longer since I went on my own — my last two conferences I was able to bring students along, which was quite an experience (for me, and I hope for them as well!)

Four years ago (that same year that I wrote about back in August, in All Arms Open…) I was to present a workshop at the conference on my Dance Production class' choreography projects. By happy circumstance, that was the the year that schools in California received a pretty substantial block grant for arts and PE, so I ended up with a windfall of funds for equipment or professional development… After the work that class had done, creating art out of the most difficult circumstances of their lives, I jumped at the chance to take a few students along to help with my workshop and to experience the conference. I asked three students, true class leaders, to make the trip to Maryland. One was disallowed by the district at the last minute (a long story), so two made it — one junior and one senior.

We spent most of the conference taking workshops and technique classes. The first day, both kids were kind of shy and kept fading to the back in the technique classes, worried about missing steps — I had to keep reminding them that they were taking class next to a bunch of dance teachers and they were definitely the youngest folks there! But confidence came a long way in three days — by the last day, A_____ jumped right out into the front line in the West African class.

The last day, the kids helped with my presentation, and made a huge hit with the teachers who came to our session. We told some stories about life in East Oakland, the choreography finals on history, and the Dance IS piece on youth killings in Oakland.  T_____ taught a little of her own choreography final (on prisoners), they both taught some of the movement from the Dance IS piece, and we showed video clips of both dances. We left time for a Q&A, and all of the questions were for the students.  The best part of the conference for me was the validation the kids received, especially T_____ — I had asked her to teach a part of her own choreography final for our workshop, and she worried to me that "I don't know how to teach"… then she got to see all the teachers learning her movement from her and loving it (some of them were pulling out some of her "moves" at the post-banquet dance party!)

The next year, A_____ had applied for NDEO's national student award (the Artistic Merit, Leadership, and Academic Achievement Award), and been awarded an honorable mention; so we fundraised for her to be able to attend the conference again. I think it was more difficult for her this time, as she was the only teenager there among so many adults — less camaraderie, more weird grown-up food… But she was able to experience New York, the dance capital of the US; and she was able to participate in Bill Evans' "Passing on the Legacy" site-specific choreography for high school and college students (or, herself and about twenty college students), performed beautifully in the lobby of  LaGuardia Arts High School on the last day of the conference.

So, this week I will be at the conference on my own for the first time in years… I guess I will have a little more freedom to run around to all of the workshops without the responsibility of looking after a teenager or two — but also without the richness of being able to share the experience with budding young dance artists. Attending a dance teachers' conference has always been a rejuvenating experience... but sharing it with students was truly unforgettable.

the importance and scarcity of dance education (revisited)

a few quotes:

“[Students] should be able to communicate at a basic level in the four arts disciplines-- dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts. This includes knowledge and skills in the use of the basic vocabularies, materials, tools, techniques, and intellectual methods of each arts discipline. They should be able to communicate proficiently in at least one art form, including the ability to define and solve artistic problems with insight, reason, and technical proficiency. ”
-- National Standards for Arts Education: What every young American should know and be able to do in the arts

“The direct physical experience of dancing transforms the dancer into a powerful and expressive being... Choreographing and performing his or her dance requires the student dancer to go beyond known experience to create new forms...”
— California Visual and Performing Arts Framework, p.32

"This study [of English learners in California] confirmed previous research findings... that students generally preferred to learn through a kinesthetic mode."
- Clara C. Park, Crosscultural Differences in Learning Styles of Secondary English Learners

"The evidence shows that… the prime processing mode for Black [students] is kinesthetic."
- Stephen Earl White, Factors That Contribute to Learning Difference among African American and Caucasian Students

 a few statistics:
• 89% of California K-12 schools fail to offer a standards-based course of study in all four [arts]
disciplines—music, visual arts, theatre, and dance—and thus fall short of state goals for arts education.
• More than four in five [of California’s elementary students] are not receiving any standards-aligned instruction in theatre and dance.
• Only 9% of middle school students and only 4% of high school students in California participate in standards-based dance programs in any given year.
• Only 13% of San Francisco Bay Area schools offered a standards-based course of study in dance.
- all statistics from An unfinished canvas. Arts education in California: Taking stock of policies and practices — Summary Report and Bay Area Report

teaching "cultural" dance forms (part 2)

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

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

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

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

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

teaching cultural dance forms (part 1)

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

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

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

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

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

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

new class — Aspire Golden State Prep

Oh, dear — here it is more than two weeks into September, and I haven't posted yet this month! I hope I won't fall too far behind one this now that the school year is under way — back to prepping elementary visual art lessons (unfamiliar enough for me that I spend a lot of time at it). I've been meaning for weeks to write about another issue we had discussed at Luna's ASI — teaching "cultural" dance forms and authenticity — but that will have to wait until next time…

… because... I've got a new dance class this semester! It's at Aspire Golden State College Prep High School (or GSP for short), a charter middle- and high school in East Oakland (yay, back teaching in East Oakland, if only for one hour a day!). I'm teaching one beginning dance class, open only to juniors and seniors. So far I have nine students, some of whom are wonderfully enthusiastic and focused, and some of whom are more your typical teen beginning dance students, tending to waste a fair amount of time talking and giggling with each other... but I think a lot of that is self-consciousness and discomfort with something new, so will probably (I hope) diminish as we go along.

They have this feature in their system — a pretty excellent opportunity for the kids — where the juniors and seniors can take college classes in the afternoons (and be officially excused from their their afternoon classes on campus). So three of my students are only in my class three days a week (and in their college class on Tuesdays and Thursdays). It makes for interesting differentiated instruction, dealing with kids who are regularly gone — fortunately the ones who are gone twice a week are all in the really focused group, so they should be okay.

The main difficulty so far is… you guessed it, space! The space we are using is the lunchroom (well, actually about a third of the lunchroom), which needs to be cleared for my class every day. It's taken a few weeks to get through the channels and on the custodians' radar, so for these first few weeks I cleared as many tables and chairs as I could myself, leaving just enough space for my small class to do some (mostly axial) movement without seriously injuring each other. As I mentioned a few posts back, dance does not have anything like the ongoing need for supplies (books, art materials, whatever) of most other classes — but it is probably that big up-front investment in a dedicated space that prevents so many schools from even trying to start a program. I appreciate GSP for the desire and the will to start a dance class, even if there are some kinks in the support structure so far…

Meanwhile, we've done one week of introductory explorations and then a couple of weeks of jazz technique; in a day or two we'll move back into explorations (variations on a known phrase, now that we've got one they all know) and then on to their first choreography assignment. I can't wait to see how they do with their group work — it's kind of exciting going back to the beginning and starting a program from scratch!

WCCHS, Dance-a-Rama, and collaboration

So, meanwhile (*if you're jumping into this post without reading the one immediately before, you should know that it's really a continuation of what would have been too long a post — you might want to go back one)... I had decided back in the fall that while I was teaching part time and (theoretically anyhow) not as prohibitively busy, I should get back into doing some choreography. So I had talked to the folks in the Terrain performance collective about presenting a piece in Dance-a-Rama, their annual celebration for Bay Area Dance Week. At that time, I thought it would probably end up being just a short solo, given my current resources for available dancers — but I did know exactly what I wanted to create a piece about:

… Way back in the mid-'80s, while researching a piece using whale songs, I read a poem called "For A Coming Extinction" by W. S. Merwin, and it has haunted me ever since… (here's just a taste, the last stanza: "When you will not see again / The whale calves trying the light / Consider what you will find in the black garden / And its courts / The sea cows the Great Auks the gorillas / The irreplaceable hosts ranged countless / And foreordaining as stars / Our sacrifices / Join your word to theirs / Tell him / That it is we who are important") I felt that now, when we are facing environmental catastrophe (and while I was teaching part time), it was definitely time to finally respond to it in dance.

So — I would have been okay with just doing a little solo, but I started getting ideas that really needed a group…  and by the time I had worked with the WCCHS students for a while, I could see that they might be up for a serious choreography project. So I put it to them one day — said it was totally optional, but I would like to see if anyone might be interested in working on a (semi) professional dance piece with me — and the four seniors were completely enthusiastic! I did warn them that this would be a blend of my ideas with some of their movement, that I would mostly be asking them to collaborate with me the way a choreographer collaborates with her dancers — and since they were up for it, we agreed to get started the next week (I did ask the rest of the class to work on it with us, at least at the beginning, so that they could have the collaboration experience also).

My big structural idea was to keep the beginning a solo, danced to the poem, but to have the group enter during that last stanza — and to have the group section based on  an accumulation in reverse: the group would repeat a ground bass phrase over and over as each dancer solos; then one by one, each dancer would freeze, hold her shape, and slowly melt to the ground; and as she melts, the group would subtract her movement from the ground bass, until the last dancer would be performing just one movement over and over again… to somehow symbolize in movement the loss of diversity, the "dark and gathering sameness" (to borrow a phrase from Terry Glavin) of extinction...

So I asked each dancer to create a solo symbolizing in movement any animal she chose, and to pick one movement from it for the ground bass. We did a lesson on abstracting animal movements, taking off from a lesson in Mary Joyce's book (I had done a very simple version with kindergartners earlier in the year, so it was really interesting to expand the lesson and see what accomplished high school students could do with it). They chose a good range of different animals: crab, flamingo, lion, and bear. The movements they abstracted came out beautifully, as all were so different from each other — tiny, quick hand gestures for the crab; large, flowing movements for the flamingo; strong low-level movement for the lion... The hard part was setting the de-accumulation — we found it was really hard to remember to do each shorter version of the phrase (even though we could see each dancer melting away!)... We did need a few rehearsals outside of class time, but not too many.

Performance time was at the end of April. It was lovely for me, as Dance-a-Rama takes place at the Eighth Street studio complex, where I have studied Hawkins technique for years (no, decades) with Ruth Botchan — so it was quite wonderful to be able to bring students to perform in that setting, with various dance friends watching. We started out at 10:00 to be there in time for the morning run through; then we went for lunch, so we were able to sit down and just talk about stuff other than dance — their college plans for this year, favorite food, whatever… Our performance was at 2:00 (second out of four shows) — they performed beautifully, and since we were the first piece, they got to come out to the audience and watch the rest (and when I went back to the dressing room afterward to pick up their costumes, I found they were all folded — I have never known teenagers to fold their costumes without being nagged!)

The dancers weren't able to stay for the audience reception at the end of festivities, hours later (finals coming up soon, and all those conscientious seniors had plenty of schoolwork after a full day of dancing), so I was the one to hear all the excellent feedback. When we got to our next class, we were moving right along into work with the rest of the class — so my only regret on this one is that we didn't really have a time to debrief and talk about how it felt for them, to dance for the community… But it was certainly a memorable experience for me — having students mature enough and open enough to collaborate with on a piece so close to my heart is an amazing gift; and, much like the group who created "All Arms Open…" four years before, this is one group of students I am not likely to ever forget.

West County Community High School

Well, now that it's over it's (past) time to write about my experience at WCCHS. This was a little tiny (just over 100 students) charter high school in Richmond, serving a low-income community as well as a lot of kids who had trouble making it in big comprehensive high schools. I was only there for one semester — just long enough to meet some remarkable students who were able to do some beautiful work.

I got the position there — just one dance class, three afternoons a week, with nine lovely students (most first-year but I believe some of the seniors had taken the class in a previous year) — through my colleague Jochelle, who recommended me to the administration when she moved on to a full time job. At the time (last January), I was feeling so overwhelmed with learning to teach visual art (even half-time) that I was almost reluctant to take on anything new, limited though it might be — but my husband convinced me that I should, and I am now very grateful that I did.

Since Jochelle had been doing a lot of creative movement with them through the fall semester, they were already well warmed up for me when I came in the spring. I knew this class would be different the very first day, when I tried a short exploration — in my experience, typical teenage first-year students would stare at me as if I was crazy if I asked them to do anything improvisational ("I can't dance, you haven't taught me any steps yet!"). So as I often do, I started with an exploration based on concrete images (move or dance as if you've just found a $100 bill… as if you've just broken up with your boyfriend/girlfriend… moving against a strong wind… through sticky mud… across a high narrow bridge with no handrail…), then moved into a basic freeze dance focused on all the elements, just to see where they were — and they all dove in with the teen-dancer equivalent of wild abandon! … some varying degrees of engagement, of course, but all nine were dancing (no big attempts at strolling and chatting), and some were discovering a remarkable range of movement.

As we went along through the weeks, the class as a whole was wide open to whatever I wanted to try with them. Usually teens are so self-conscious ("ohmigod, I might do something dumb and someone might be looking at me!"), but many of these students (especially those seniors) kept on experimenting with their movement and further expanding their range… I could only guess that the support they received from the small school environment enabled them to feel comfortable working around each other. Some of these kids were so mature and open that I was able to collaborate with them as I rarely had with any students… but that's a pretty long story, so it will be in the next post (soon!).

So now, WCCHS is no more — the charter was up for renewal in June and the district denied it (because of low test scores would be a good guess). After being up in the air all summer as the school appealed to the county school board, the decision came down just a couple of weeks ago — no charter renewal, school closing down… I have so often heard of for-profit charters picking and choosing their students, or kicking out the ones who have trouble because they don't "fit with the program." This one little nonprofit actively pulled in students who were having trouble elsewhere (and probably tested badly because of it), nurtured them and helped them to find their way... and then got shut down. (sigh)… I suppose that's life in education in this day and age...