On Finding My Voice

On Sunday we had a lovely class discussion at our Middlesex University London evening class.  It was on the topic of finding one’s voice of communication.  The discussion was slow and thoughtful, a metaphor to us finding our voices within the group...

I have found that to find my voice, I must first find my silence...

In my silence, I must start writing...

When writing I must find calmness and allow myself the time to write more...

Some ideas would begin to bloom... but I needed to be calm enough and quiet enough to hear these ideas in my head...

Giving myself time to write and allowing myself to write for exploration without judging the quality...

In my journal my entire inquiry and answers to my research where already written, it just took time and silence to let myself hear them...

My voice has always been here, but muted by excessive activities and meaningless distractions.  Finding my voice is about giving myself my time and my space in the world.  It is about the unimportant moments, the resting time in between structured activities, thinking and sipping coffee...

It is about patience, calmness, discipline, art, creativity, humility and the most powerful silence.

Our Afro-Caribbean Dance and Soul

Claudio Taylor and Costa Rican Children's Folklore Ballet 

(Ballet Folklórico Infantil de Costa Rica) 

This is the story of how one single dancer can assume leadership and motivate an entire community with pride and dance.  Through dance an embodied tribute to all that is good of the cultural inheritance is manifested and through which  the roots and richness of Afro-Caribbean Costa Rican dance come back to life.  The heart of Africa pounds through the drums and evolve into a unique Costa Rican choreography and dance capturing the universality of our world voice and humanity, and interpreted through the uniqueness of our national experience and life.  The heart of Africa pounds through the drums and evolve into a unique Costa Rican choreography and dance capturing the universality of our world voice and humanity, and interpreted through the uniqueness of our national experience and life.  In our participation in African dance through our Costa Rican interpretation, we become part of our longest dance started years ago in the first and forgotten original human tribe.  

By inviting us to dance in a class of Afro-Caribbean dance at Taller Nacional de Danza in Costa Rica, Claudio Taylor is inviting us to a life celebration and a process of self-discovery and national healing.  His dance is collective, powerful pounding rhythm and dance into the floor...and yet, with a softness to the hips and a flow of the arms invoking the beauty, peace and fluidity of our Caribbean Sea. 

I first met Claudio in a classical ballet classroom in the Danza Libre studio, in the capital province of Costa Rica.  We were both to dance in the Nutcracker, and he would shortly interpret one of my favourite interpretations of the iconic Rat King.  Claudio is an accomplished dancer with extraordinary refined, long lines and strongest centre.  He is a mature and yet ageless dancer with great many years of dance training and dance exploration.

Afro-Caribbean Costa Rican dance was born in Limon, a seaside province.  During the construction of the railroad Jamaican, Antillian, Chinese and European immigrants arrived to Costa Rica to work.  Although these immigrants were not slaves, bad work conditions, poor wages and deplorable treatment a slave-like life of poverty and discrimination for many years.  Racial discrimination, poverty and geographical distance from the capital city and the Greater Metropolitan Area, led to a cultural divide and insolation that still echos today.

Far from the capital, the strong Afro-Caribbean roots and culture of Limon’s mixed heritage permeated their lifestyle, culinary arts, dress, music and ofcourse, dance.

In an earlier interview Claudio spoke of dance and of his vision and the perception of Afro-Caribbean dance in Costa Rica:

“I would like that Afro-Caribbean dance reach the entire country, that people would realise that Afro-Caribbean culture is not something remote from the rest of Costa Rica, it is something that belongs to us, because we have Limón and the Caribbean Sea, we have the Afro-Costa Rican Caribbean, and by saying this we make an affirmation of belonging to all our people because it is Costa Rican heritage that has nothing to do with skin colour, it is part of our national culture.  Through the processes of globalisation we have to realise that it is a culture that belongs to us and belongs to us all; black, white and indigenous, because we carry it within ourselves.” (2008)

Observing Afro-Caribbean dance class imparted by Claudio himself, the importance of a stable, strong centre, the use of breath, the grounding of hips in a natural sway responding to the bending of the knees.  The arms are strong and fluid.  At times, arm movements used to represent historical narrative such as the symbolic representation of picking bananas from the old plantations.  The rhythmic intensity is hard on the body, with little rest as one sequence feeds into another with greater speed and intricacy...all lead to a stable and strengthening dance technique.

Analysing the value of Afro-Caribbean dance in the early childhood classroom, great benefit can be found for the developing child.  Afro-Caribbean dance uses a great deal of symmetrical work from left to right, and right to left.   Great benefit can be reaped by working on laterality and developing midlines.  The rhythmical patterns and sequential work of Afro-Caribbean choreography allows working in patterns and sequencing which favour logic-mathematical skill development.  The deep plié and strong centre is important for the development of proper strength for fine motor skills conducive to writing.

Beyond the physical skills that children can work on, the most important aspect of working on Afro-Caribbean dance in the classroom is of cultural enrichment.  The developing of a broader understanding of Costa Rican folklore, a folklore that goes beyond our colonial-european roots and embraces our true multicultural heritage that includes our mixed-racial story informed by immigration.  It includes smaller groups than dominant capitol city culture.  It is a true national identity that includes a voice filled of strength, rhythm and Afro-Caribbean dance and soul.

Aquí la gente cuando camina baila...

About Claudio Taylor...

Claudio Taylor began his dance and theatre life at the age of sixteen.  He initially studied in the Limonese Youth Centre for Formation and Recreation.  Claudio attributes his dance formation to Jose Masis, a former dancer of San Francisco Ballet and the Costa Rican National Dance Company.  Claudio's dance specialties are Afro-Caribbean and Contemporary Dance.  He also works in dance research, education and artistic direction of dance.  He has worked with numerous dance companies and toured nationally and internationally.  He works with a fusion of dance styles and genres producing a prolific body of work of more than sixty dance pieces.  His contributions to the Costa Rican effort for the preservation and diffusion of Afro-Caribbean dance are immesurable.

Costa Rican Folklore Dance and Early Childhood Education

Costa Rican Folklore

Folklore and Creative Movement Dance Teacher 

Valeria Chavarria during her formative years.  

As a dance and early childhood educator, the importance of Costa Rican folklore dance as a formative part of the child’s experience is undeniable from both research and field observation perspectives.

From a dance education perspective, for the Costa Rican child in the early years, folklore dance is an important part of an embodied education rendering national and cultural experience since early childhood.

Through the rite of passage of dressing in typical attire, dancing to folklore music, and following traditional choreography, the Costa Rican child steps into the dancing feet of generations of Costa Ricans who danced before . Through the dance experience, Costa Rican children capture their shared historic identity.

From a socio-affective perspective, Costa Rican dance offers a collective and enthusiastic experience through the guttural awakening of musical passion shared in a group dance.

Furthermore, in moments of national unrest, democratic questioning of identity and patriotic crisis, as will exist in contemporary and future history: folklore dance allows a common, peaceful search of this common identity found in the silence of the dancer in the rhythmic nature of collective dance. Costa Rican children that dance together will find further social interactions less challenging and more natural. Costa Rican folklore dance is danced in groups, and usually paired up with a dance partner.

From a developmental experience for preschool children, the complexity of the gross motor experience is extraordinary. The chorographic patterns of folklore dance organise its dancers in geometric patterns such as circles, diagonals and lines.  Dancers will dance side by side and at times will mirror each other. The nature of such movement leads to great challenges to children in the early years that are working on development of laterality, maturity of their vestibular system, and proprioception (Connell and McCarthy, 2014).  Folklore dance choreography through its patterns and movement, provide experiences that allow the brain to explore such challenges through the body.  Through the physical challenges of Costa Rican folklore dance, early years students will explore body and spatial awareness, developing a sense of body subconscious.

Costa Rican Preschool Amazonas Typical Dance.  

Jethro Desanti in his early childhood.  Dancing in pairs.

From a historic perspective, Costa Rican folklore dance reunites national mixed cultural heritage.  Appreciating folklore dance at national patriotic celebrations, the audience will see a variety of female dancers with a variety of colourful dresses with flower and lace depending on the province represented, and gentlemen with hats or countrymen attire for the male dancers.

Folklore Dancer and Dance Teacher Valeria Chavarria

Folklore Dancer and Dance Teacher 

Valeria Chavarria

Male campesino typical dress.
Jethro Desanti Preschool years

Folklore dance is lively and light on the dancer’s feet.  Dancing on a low demi point, on the balls of the feet or flat footed, wearing sandals or leather shoes.  Long necks and strong backs characterize a fluid and soft dance.  The music represents different cultural and historic moments, musical groups from pre-colonial, colonial and mixed-immigrant heritage.    The instruments range from the marimba to the guitar, often accompanied with singing to the folkloric dance (Molina and Palmer, 2011). 

Folklore dance teacher Valeria Chavarria is a young dancer and dance teacher of folklore and creative movement dance for preschool and elementary school children in both public and private schools in Costa Rica.  With eleven years’ experience in folklore dance, she was a great participant for this research study and was generous to lend her time for an interview.  Valeria was a folklore dancer for the troupe Batsú Folkloric Projection.  She represented Costa Rican folklore dance both nationally and internationally.  

Folklore Dancer and Dance Teacher 

Valeria Chavarria and Dancer Dylan Alvarado Fernandez

From her international dance experience, she analyses that contemplating the work of international dance troupes, some countries held their folklore dance to extraordinary high esteem.  She further questioned, “why not us?”

Valeria further explained, “the richness of folklore dance escapes most Costa Ricans, the details of dance style, clothing garments and musical interpretation vary greatly from one province to another.  There is so much to learn still.”

Demonstrating such diverse complexity:

Costa Rican Folklore

Folklore and Creative Movement Dance Teacher 

Valeria Chavarria during her formative years.  

Costa Rican Folklore

Folklore and Creative Movement Dance Teacher 

Valeria Chavarria during her formative years.  

 Costa Rican Folklore

Folklore and Creative Movement Dance Teacher 

Valeria Chavarria during her formative years.

  

 Costa Rican Indigineous Folklore

Folklore and Creative Movement Dance Teacher 

Valeria Chavarria during her formative years

Regarding cultural identity and national pride, she insisted once again, “Why is it that in Costa Rica we are not proud as dancers are in other countries of their folklore?”  Her pedagogical vision is of extending and democratising the dance experience for all students.  Thus, allowing the student to gain further cultural appreciation and hands on learning into their own dance traditions and complex national identity.

Valeria suspects that our identity as a developing nation and former Spanish colony weakens our self-image as a nation as we yearn for the commodities and stability of modern, globalised society.  Perhaps she is right, in our quest to seek to progress and become citizens of the world we may forget to look back and understand our roots and cultural grounding.  

Yet perhaps, as Valeria believes, greater exposure and experience of Costa Rican dance in all its richness and complexity could lead to prouder Costa Ricans.  Costa Ricans with greater sensitivity of the cultural complexity that informs our history and shapes our modernity.  

Rethinking Valeria’s words and appreciating the great pride of the international community for folklore, and of the need for cultural awareness and uniqueness in an increasingly homogeneous international community as nations struggle to conform but at the same time seek nationalism, one wonders indeed: Why not us?  Why not greater folklore dance education in our Costa Rican preschools and schools?  Why not, indeed?

             About Valeria Chavarria

                                                                Folklore Dancer and Dance Teacher 

 During my school years, I was part of a group of typical Costa Rican Folklore called Batsù Folkloric Projection. Over the years I also trained in Ballet, Jazz, Hip Hop, Latin Rhythms and Ballroom.

I have attended several national and international art festivals such as the “Festicers Les Enfants du Monde” in France and the FEA in Costa Rica, also dance competitions, congresses and presentations in various theatres in our country.

My goal is to bring art to as many children and young people as possible, teach them that through music and dance people can acquire discipline and motivation; they can express different feelings and above all, show them that they can, in a physical and mental way, develop many skills. It would be a tool from which they can balance their lives and find a way to cope with difficult situations.

-Valeria 

Alicia Alonso

Alicia Alonso

Prima Ballerina Assoluta Alicia Alonso and founder of the National Ballet of Cuba and the Cuban School of Ballet died on October 17, 2019 at the age of 98. Virtuoso female dancer like no one before her. In an art dominated by the delicate and ethereal woman, she challenged the image of the female gender in classical ballet presenting a strong, athletic, passionate woman with great stage presence. 

Back in her prime, she awakened great admiration from the audiences of the Metropolitan Theatre in New York as few dancers did, and never had a Latina before her, a Cuban.

She could have stayed abroad in New York, in the glory of a dancer with such recognition ... but she decided to return to Cuba.

In a world where women are silent muses and men are the directors, choreographers and absolute leaders Alicia Alonso challenged the classical world again: she became the founder, director, choreographer and teacher of her school and company: The School of Cuban Ballet and the National Ballet of Cuba.

My ballet teacher during my years of study in Mexico, one the company's first-generation soloists and Cuban ballet teacher, Raúl Bustamante, told me that Alicia found her first dancers wherever she found talent regardless of their situation or social status.

She took young men out of the reformatory and told them to use that their energy for good. She was hard on them, demanding unwavering discipline. She helped them find themselves, to become fighters, adult men, dancers.  The Cuban School of Ballet has given the world a spectacular collection of first-class technical and artistic ballet dancers.  In Cuba she challenged machismo and aroused the artistic sensibility of an entire people: the male dancer in Cuba is admired as a national emblem.

Carlos Acosta from the Cuban Ballet Legacy

The scope of The Cuban School of Ballet, the legacy of Alicia Alonso has already become immeasurable. Their male dancers, ballerinas and teachers have sown so many seeds worldwide that the world of dance simply recognizes them and claims them as their own.

All ballet dancers of the world owe part of our artistry to the Great Cuban heritage. Especially in Latin American countries, as in Costa Rica.

I met Alicia Alonso in 1992, I was a very young ballet student. I was impressed to see an elderly adult dancing like her. Her visual disability was significant, she was greatly assisted so as to get her bearings. At that time in the nineties there was no talk of physical disabilities openly, especially in the dance world.  Also the stereotype was that elderly adults were considered people who had to retire and rest, age perceived as a disability as well.

In a rehearsal I observed, her daughter Laura Alonso was directing the rehearsal and coaching her. Laura was very hard on her mother during the rehearsal, she scolded her harshly, as she did not scold anyone. I understood then that professional ballet, like life, was hard and challenges of all types including disabilities, age, gender among others could present great obstacles, even for Alicia Alonso.  Dancing for her, as for all dancers, was challenging too.  Yet she danced.  The humanity and vulnerability of Alicia Alonso was what impressed me the most in my youth.

I want to remember her great like that, as an example of a well lived life, of being a dancer, of being a teacher, but above all as great example of being a wonderful, beautiful, strong and vulnerable, human being.

Thank you, Alicia, may you rest in peace.

Homage to Alicia

The Cuban School of Ballet

On the Transformative Process of Becoming a Ballerina

Costa Rican Ballerina, Valeria Arias in our first 

Choreographic and Artistic Collaboration together, 

Teatro de La Danza, War Survivors. Body Motion.

Oftentimes as a dancer teacher I have felt that my students come to dance class seeking a profound transformation to become ballerinas.  The students seek the proverbial transformation from ugly duckling into the dancing swan. The artistic metamorphosis to become the butterfly.  They want to become the dancer.

Yet however this approach to dance training and education is conceptually and philosophically flawed: 

The student dancer does not dance to become a ballerina.

Rather, the student dancer dances to discover 

the Ballerina that she is.

We do not dance to become dancers.

We dance because we are dancers.

Moreover, we do not dance to become beautiful,

we dance because we are beautiful.

We dance as an expression of our unique beauty. 

Dance by imitation is not true art. It is in transformative dance that we find our unique voice and pure aesthetics.  We find our voice.  The becoming of the dancer is through self-discovery, through a raw struggle of the self - of honesty and the persistent refinement of physical movement through the eternal balancing of self-critique and self-acceptance and the unravelling and revealing of the vulnerable soul.

To dance is not a metamorphosis but a revelation, a transformative process to become oneself.  In the grandeur, imperfections and vulnerability of the unique dancer: in the discovery of personal and unrepeatable beauty and the manifestation of art in movement.

Reach: A Pedagogy for Transformative Dance -Dr. Gaynell Sherrod

On The Road to Travel Upon

Researching is not an easy task.  Especially when it is a topic that one becomes truly invested in and excited about.  The idea of not developing the research as well as the topic deserves is a bit overwhelming.  Also, as one begins to read and find an echo in the voice of other academics it is easy to become mute and nervous about one’s own voice.  

Today I had a wonderful experience, we met with Helen Kindred our professor and leader for the third term of the master’s in dance Middlesex University London programme. As often happens in these meetings, we spoke about many details.  From this meeting I walk away knowing that I must read more about research and about methodologies in the inquiry process in general as well.  I know I still have many hours to spend mulling over my research.  

Furthermore, something very significant came up during the class conversation.  Many of us were very nervous and we were hoping to be able to outline, plan, and get our work ready for presentation.  Hoping to organise our writing and our artefact, to develop our work clearly and delimit our pathway.  However, it has been explained to us repeatedly that our supervisors cannot help us do such a thing.  It is impossible to delimit outcomes or map research still in development.  We ignore that which we do not know, and we are not sure whether what we suspect we will find is truly there.

My classmate Agatha asked today if any of us had found that our research has gone a completely different direction from our original research questions.  In my case it has. That which I deemed important is not so much so and the underlying reason and justification for all this hard research work has shifted momentously before my eyes.  My research has taken a new urgency after reviewing all this literature, field research and researching my dance community... I am now ever so convinced of the imperativeness to further develop my inquiry.  However, with this enthusiasm comes great pressure, both academic and emotional, to excel and do justice to such important work in my field and in my community.  However, I cannot jump ahead, and this was made evident today by Helen.  I am undergoing an extraordinary process now in which I am reaching out to my community at large and my dance community specifically has so much to teach me.  There is so much to understand and analyse, if I obsess with where my research should end, I might lose sight of where the research itself is heading.  I will not enjoy this unique moment of working the field if I do not focus on the research as it is happening and developing before me. 

I hope someday to remember this moment of my life with fondness.  This moment is special in that I have had the privilege of learning openly, with time and dedication and humbleness from others.  This moment is one in that I can and must slowly analyse and understand.  When I was younger, my bachelor studies depended a great deal on my organisation and mapping of activities I had to accomplish, exams I had to take, and even books I had to devour. Today in this dance programme research I am embarking upon, there is no such map... no simple activities to follow nor a right or wrong way of doing things.  I have had to learn to work with diligence and to listen with patience. There is no stairway to climb, but rather the success of this project depends on my humility, discipline, and diligent analysis.  This is about listening to my own experiential learning and to give value to the understanding and knowledge of others.  I must also deepen my philosophical grasp and understanding as I envision and others envision our dance community as it grows and extends, from the tiny classroom, to my city, to my province, and to the larger and beautiful country of Costa Rica. 

As I further understand the importance, the influence and the pathway of dance in Costa Rican early childhood education... I first must stop and patiently read the books, have the conversations, and then unwind and work through the different, difficult questions.  I truly do not know how this research will be shaped by the end of the year nor what answers I will find.  However, I will listen, and I will enjoy this beautifully and ironically, complex, delicate and inspiring moment of my academic life.  I cannot help but close these thoughts with a feeling of gratitude and a tiny little bit more clarity.

Costa Rican Ballet Dancers, Teatro de la Danza.
My student ballerinas from our Chroreographic Workshop class
 from Body Motion Dance Studio

On Knowing and Learning: On my learning about early childhood education and dance

Today I participated in a class discussion with my professors and fellow classmates of the Middlesex University master’s in dance programme.  The topic we talked about is a familiar one: on knowledge and learning.  One would think that after the time I have been studying this topic as part of my master’s programme, it would be an old topic by now.  However, the understanding of knowing and learning is an unfinished discussion in constant refinement.  Perhaps because learning is a process, an evolution of continual learning, a constant restructuring of existing frameworks and re-understanding of previous experiential learning and new learning one may have as an artist and as a teacher.  

My topic of inquiry is dancing in early childhood education in Costa Rica.  I am an educator and a dancer with many years in this field, yet however I am still analysing, refining and learning about this topic. I stand today in deep study and evolving my knowledge about dance education of early childhood re-reading and re-learning theory from a dance and educational perspective seeking best practices and a sound philosophical grounding.

One of the academic exercises I am finding I must do as a student is learning to integrate knowledge and learning about general education in early childhood and knowledge and learning about dance education itself.  Although both are extraordinary professions, I find that some of the most famous pedagogy authors have specialised exclusively in academic writing of general education without extending it to dance.  This educational theory must be adapted and analysed for our field of dance education in early childhood.  However, happily, there is a huge change in perspectives and more and more academics in education are beginning to perceive the importance of dance in early childhood. In the past dance was not seen as a central taught subject in early education, as has been physical education and music.  

Presently, as a professional in this field I am very excited to find this literature about the importance of movement in early childhood development and learning, giving dance the importance and protagonism that it should have in early childhood development preschool programmes.   My knowledge and learning on this topic are evolving with my new understanding of this extraordinary literature that I was able to start reading this Summer, and I am still studying to gain a deeper understanding of this field.

It is fascinating to observe the great change that my frameworks of knowledge undergo as one is exposed to new learning.  A great example of this is how my understanding and learning has shifted upon further research in my field as I began my inquiry into early dance education in Costa Rica. My newfound knowledge and understanding of the importance of child movement and dance education has indeed shifted in my understanding of childhood development itself.  Dance is not a ludic activity, but rather locomotion is a fundamental building block in childhood learning and brain development.  

All current literature and research confirm that students learn by receiving information through their five senses. The child breaks away from babyhood and becomes explorer of the world through locomotion.  The child’s nervous system activates, and the dancing child becomes a stimulated and receptive child, cognitive development, physical development all domains of development reaching potential neuro plasticity in early childhood at its peak.  The dancing child is alive, stimulated and ready to grow, mature, develop and learn.  

Early Childhood Dance Programme end of the year presentation 

with my youngest students and oldest dance students  as assistants, 

Adriana Porras and Mariana Solano

As I learn such important knowledge of my field of inquiry, my paradigms of knowledge are enriched and as a student I continue to strengthen my frameworks of understanding.

Furthermore, as I seek to deepen my philosophical grounding of my research.  My knowledge is shaken and enriched as I explore the teachings of dance of Indigenous and Afro-Caribbean Costa Rican dance traditions.  As non-colonised dance traditions, these dance cultures are developed with a rich and original grounding of the concept of man, life and dance.  

As I open my mind to new learnings, my frameworks of knowledge are shaken to their very core.  I find myself a humbled dance student once again, inspired and enriched by new knowledge of dance in early childhood in the rich tapestry of Costa Rican dance culture and diverse traditions.  I find myself wanting to close all books, dim the lights and turn on the music.  Wishing to relearn dance through the embodied experience of dance exploration.

A little bit of Costa Rican Indigenous Dance and Culture: 

The Fiesta de los Diablitos translates as the Festival of Little Devils, but its true meaning is closer to the Festival of the Ancestral Spirits. This annual celebration takes place in Boruca and Rey Curre, two villages that are home to the Brunka indigenous tribe. The town of Boruca celebrates the three-day festival at the end of December or beginning of January, while Rey Curre holds their fiesta during the first week of February.

- Rob Traquair

A little bit of Folklore Costa Rican Dance:

Interpretation of a folk dance that originates from Costa Rica. Done by Compañía Folklórica Flor de Café, based in San Pablo de León Cortés, Zona de los Santos, Costa Rica. Recorded in Barcelinhos,
Source: YouTube Folk Dances Around the World

On Returning to my Last Term to Middlesex University

This is the beginning of the end of my studies at Middlesex University London, as a student of the master’s in Dance Technique Pedagogy.  On Friday September 13^th, led by Adesola, we had our first meeting with old and new students.  It seems as if it was yesterday that I was a first term student as well, and yet this term is my last. 

This process started out as a dream of returning to the dance classroom as a student after years of dancing and teaching.  I yearned to become a student once again, to read and learn about the latest dance education theory and of proper technique.  I sought to be humbled and inspired.  To understand the journey the dance world is on and become part of the new pathways laid by my art form.  I have envisioned myself becoming a better dance artist and educator.  Little did I understand or foresee the personal journey I was embarking upon.  Little did I know that this process would open the doors of my mind, and I would come to rediscover myself as a dancer, and as a developing and transforming human being.  Through my professional work and through the analysis of my past learning and experiential knowledge, I have found a coherent and loud voice of the artist and teacher that I am.

For those who are not dancers, or even for those that do not seek the professional dance pathway, it is difficult to understand the building of a dancer’s story.  Dance life occurs way too quickly.  The dancer lives all the experiences that the non-dancer lives: growing up, surviving school and education, the constructing of relationships, the coming of adulthood, love and loss, illusion and heartbreak, success and failure, the choosing of a family- or not - the growing older. the sweetness of maturity… and all of these with a parallel and intense life within the dance studio and the stage.

When I have spoken to non-dancers, I get the impression that they think that a dance career occurs in a linear fashion that we dance somehow isolated from the challenges of a regular life.  I remember a dancer that danced by hobby telling me once that it was hard to dance when finishing high school, somehow, she believed that dancers on a professional track would be exempt from examinations or a regular academic schedule. This is incorrect perception, often young dancers can be found between rehearsals sitting in the hallways studying for exams fulfilling their school assignments and rushing their homework, often with heavy eyelids and a shaky hand.  Professional dance education occurs as life is happening.

The reality becomes more complex for dancers with long careers their dance story may feel fragmented as one switches roles between professional and personal life. Dramatic changes occur during the change from student to professional dancer, to the inclusion of dance teaching, to taking on dance leadership roles.  Dance life happens fast and agitated with the feeling that opportunity must be seized before it disappears.

Through the work structure of this master’s degree I have had the opportunity to sit down and reflect about my dance journey, tracing the paths and curves I have travelled upon.  The narrative becomes clearer, the fragments become a story with a thread that links between events weaving themselves through.

From my reflexive work for this master’s I have better understood my philosophical stance and found an echo of my voice through the extraordinary writing of other dance academics.  I have discovered that intellectually in the dance community we share more common concerns now through connectivism and a common desire to improve dance practices.  As a dance community we have become more professional an interdisciplinary in our work.

I started this master’s program hoping to be humbled by all the new pedagogical dance theories to learn, but what I have received from this process has been much greater than that.  This master’s programme has led me to deeply analyse my dance roots and my learning through the rigorous revisiting of my dance history.  I have had an extraordinary relearning of what I know and how I learnt.

I have had the experience of celebrating and relearning the teachings of my dance teachers.  I have been able to analyse the teachings of different dance mentors in my life.  I was able to rethink about my apprentice relationship with Miss Day, founder and director of the Washington Ballet and School, as she trained and led me towards dance education and leadership.  I have appropriately mourned her death, as I had not had the peace of mind to do when I was younger. 

In this process of reviewing my experiential learning I was able to better understand my experience and relearn in a deeper way and in a more conscious manner.  I have also been able to feel profoundly grateful for the teachings of my teachers.  As I close this phase of my master’s, I have emerged more confident of my grounding and now forever aware of the extraordinary cultural tradition from which I have emerged, and I must honour.

The impact on my dance community is immeasurable.  The teachings reaching students in their formative years is evidenced as children student dancers become adults and become professionals in their respective fields.  The understanding of the far-reaching knowledge, discipline and self-awareness acquired through dancing is reflected in my students personal development as the teaching and learning relationship extends from my teachers to my very own students. 

My beautiful ballet student Jimena, 

months shy of graduating high school

I am humbled by the interconnections of the dance world.  I understand today that in my hands I hold a tiny piece of dance history and knowledge.  It is a tiny piece of this greatness that I hold, and I too have the responsibility of sharing, teaching and honouring this tradition.  All of this with an acute understanding of the shortness of my very own life.

In the second phase of this master’s I have truly learned to research my craft.  This has been the most important learning so far.  It has been important for me to learn about the vast amount of dance literature that exists in international libraries.  Long after I will conclude my studies, I will continue learning, I am forever aware of the existent literature and knowledge.  Also, I have discovered the great pleasure of reading and learning from the interconnected and greater dance community.

With great excitement I have entered the last stage of my studies.  I am about to start my field research and I am thinking of shaping my artefact and my writing.  I must admit I feel a twinge of sadness knowing that this will all come to an end soon.  I will miss the challenges of the studying for my master’s degree and will miss the companionship of my classmates and professor programme leaders.  However, despite my sadness of this ending, the transformative changes that I have lived through this process as a dance professional will continue with me and have already marked me profoundly.