On Dance Leadership and the Dance Community We Build

It is extraordinary how we learn.  How one idea feeds from prior knowledge and is analysed from the optics of new learning.  Perception is affected and forever changed, often times with little clarity of what was the catalyst of the new wave of thoughts.  Knowledge and learning is a curious thing, perhaps the most motivating factor is the notion that one is always learning and constructing new meaning and conferring significance. 

On November 18th we had a meeting that included Helen Kindred and the graduate students of the Masters in Dance, MAPP (my focus being Dance Pedagogy and Technique).  Our meeting was for us to discuss and share about our research, Areas of Learning, and interests.  Our agenda was filled with a few very different topics that interestingly enough became intertwined and relevant to one another as the discussion flowed.

Perhaps one of the most unique things about this meeting was being able to appreciate and share the experiences of professionals from different countries around the world.  Despite the universality of dance, different factors may limit and shape the artistic experience and reality of some.  Some of us in Latin America spoke of the socioeconomic impact that one sees in dance formation in our countries.  An overall lack of government funding has unfortunately made the studies of Classical Ballet inaccessible to many.  Transforming the genre in one dominated by middle and upper class, mostly female students.  This lack of diversity within the ranks of national classical ballet impoverishes the general cultural experience of the dance genre.  In contrast, Contemporary dance has received an important amount of funding and special support through public universities making it more accessible to the student body of young, college students.  The experiential divide of both groups is saddening with a huge barrier of incomprehension growing in between dance genres.  Dance looses its universal search for aesthetics, truth and beauty.  In sharp contrast to our experience, we sighed with the amazing possibilities lived by our European peers in which the focus is shifting to strong, multi-genre dance students.  Students that blossom into professionals with great choreographic potential and a more genuine voice with their ample dance vocabulary.  Vocabulary that allows for generous and creative improvisation when the dancer is granted the freedom to explore.  Yet , despite our differences and nuances of current realities we did find a great echo amongst each other of how rich we wish that our student training could be and hope someday will become.  

I approached the meeting wanting to request help in my analysis as I do my literary review and research on the topic of Dance Leadership.  It is one of my most challenging Areas of Learning and I wanted to discuss it with the group and ask for suggestions and recommendations.  The discussion itself was so enriching that I  have decided to write a separately only on the topic of Dance Leadership, and in such a way capture the fascinating discussion that resulted.  The interesting phenomenon was in the direction that the discussion geared to.  In the importance of research, development and growth opportunities for those in positions of dance leadership.  The possibilities of diversifying dance experience and the loyalty of staff once they receive training.  Also, about the discussion of how after a certain number of years the dancer naturally transitions into roles of dance leadership.  Finally, and even more striking is how when seeking artistic and creative freedom the dancer must seek out and possibly create dance leadership scenarios in which to evolve in as an artist.  The universality of our concerns and hopes were outstanding.

When discussing this and within the topic of creativity we arrived at the importance of the creative mind and educational system which promotes play only in early stages of development of the child.  Our discussion revolved around the importance of creativity for dancers and non-dancers alike.  We discussed about the changes we wish to make, about the changes that are occurring naturally, and the changes we should be considering in our selves, in our work and in the dance community in general.  In the end we did realise that we are all leaders and students still...and...and...Oh pity! Time was up...it was time for each of us to return to our independent writing, analysis and dance world roles.  

My beautiful dancers and greatest teachers as I struggle to learn the meaning of dance leadership, 

knowing and learning, 

and creative development in our lives.

On the Amazing Task of Ballet Parents and My Mum

I was extremely young when I manifested for the first time that I wanted to become a classical ballerina.  I would dance for hours in all open spaces and to all the classical music I could find.  I do not come from a family of dancers, rather I come from a family of academics.  Yet, my parents took my desire to heart and decided to support my quest.  From early on my mother began researching for the best dance schools and actively participating in my formative process.

By the time I was ten we were living in Mexico and my mother would take me to dance class from Monday to Friday.   I was the oldest child, my mother had to balance all her other obligations with the rest of the family and many daily activities, and she still managed to take me to and from countless hours of lessons. 

When I turned twelve Raul Bustabad and Denia Hernandez from the Cuban Ballet defected to Mexico.  They both were extremely famous professors who had personally worked with and developed numerous professional dancers contracted by companies around the world.  My mother drove me out across Mexico City all the way out to Coyoacan every day for me to enjoy a summer camp with these extraordinary professors.  At the end of the Summer programme my mother spoke to Raul and asked him if he would take me on as a full-time student.  My classmates were sixteen or older and I was only twelve.  I was not a technically strong student, but already demonstrated great artistry and stage presence.  Raul decided to take me on...what happened next was the greatest act of sacrifice and love my mum would do for me.  Despite having a good dance school close to home, I started dancing at the Cuban Ballet School.  Mum would drive me across town for an hour and a half in a car with my siblings to get to class, and the drive back was often longer due to traffic.  She would wait for a full two hours or more while I took class and went to rehearsal, and then the driving would begin.  Mexico City is a hectic city, the drive was both dangerous and exhausting.

With my Cuban professors I danced all the classical ballets, my first solos and pas de deux.  With their ensemble I toured for the first time.  I was very young and had access to the world´s finest training.  Five years after that I would be dancing onstage at the Kennedy Centre with Placido Domingo in Washington DC with a paid professional contract by the Washington Opera.  

Had I never received training with my beloved Cuban professors, I would not have developed into a ballerina on time.  The training decisions made for me of where to train, with whom and how intensively enabled my life as a ballerina.  

Reflecting upon this, it awes me.  My mother was about my age now, she loved to read, exercise like an athlete, watch classic movies...plenty of things to fill her time other than driving me all the way out to classes and back.  My siblings too, spent hours on the road finishing their homework and dinner in the car, all so I could dance.  (My siblings are all adults now, extraordinary human beings of whom I am extremely proud of with great intellectual and artistic sensibility- but that is a story for another day).  

I would not be a dancer today 

had my mother not made the correct decisions 

and the extraordinary sacrifices she made 

at the exact moment she made them.

The importance and role of parents and caretakers in the young classical ballet dancer´s life cannot be underestimated.  This is different from other dance genres in its developmental timeline: classical dancers are expected to attain a professional dance level while still in their teenage years and become a professional in their late teens or early twenties.  The technique and fluidity of the classical ballerina requires many hours of studio work when they are young and learn with ease.  Other dance genres allow that students begin as late as college and university in their early or late twenties, and still develop into magnificent dancers.  Classical ballet rarely gives such an opportunity.

Impact from caregivers on ballet education is absolute.  All decisions befall on the parent regarding finding the optimal dance school and training and subsequent decisions.  The dance student needs support from her parents to dedicate the great number of hours needed to dance.  Family and social time becomes greatly reduced in quantity, and it is up to the parents to make sure that the quality of this time remains strong.

The inclusion and education of dance parents in the dance process is extremely important.  Topics such as nutrition, injury prevention, rest, school-dance balance and social-dance balance need to be addressed.  As ballet teachers we need to learn adequate communication skills with parents.  Proper assessments from a defined philosophical dance base need to be formative and constructive for the parents.  Access to mental health therapy for dancers and their families need to be readily available and accessible.  Parents need to be recognised, congratulated and thanked.  Most likely it will take teenage ballerinas years to even comprehend the great sacrifices made on their behalf.

Mum and I 

Photo taken by my Dad while living in Mexico 

The Embodiment of Dance

Dancing with Danza Libre

Today my classmates and I from the Masters in Dance (I am a MAPP candidate in Dance Pedagogy and Technique) from Middlesex University in London, participated in a rich discussion about the embodiment of dance, the language of dance and our search for understanding and exploration of dance literature.  It was a wonderful discussion, collaborating with classmates and professors is very stimulating, one only wishes we had more time to share and that we could do so more often, and for a longer time.  It feels that when time is up, our conversation is just getting deeper.

The concept of embodiment of dance and dance knowledge is a complex and deeply personal experience.  How my knowledge is manifested through years of work and study is fascinating.  Embodiment of dance for me was a deeply painful process.  The world of classical ballet has become more inclusive through the years, but only if you retain White European physical characteristics.  As a Latina in the American dance world, I knew I was welcome but only if I looked European.  By the time I had fully developed my Latin roots were evident, my thighs became thick, my hips spread out and my waist seemed to shrink in comparison.  I was pressured to loose weight despite being thin.  I was made to feel embarrassed, and I felt embarrassed, and then felt angered by being embarrassed because my body is my biological and ethnic inheritance.  I came from a line of strong and healthy women, women that looked like me.  I quickly understood that I would not fit into the corps de ballet and had to become better, stronger and a unique artist to survive passing into professionalism.  I spent many more hours than my classmates working on this body,  Hours refining lines in front of the mirror and stylising my movement so it would look beautiful in my body with my dimensions.  I found a strong, powerful and feminine voice.  I learned to move my wide hips to my advantage creating rich and complex lines.  In my rebellion to survive a process that should have destroyed me as a dancer, I found my dancer’s voice.  

How did I learn? I took all the classes that my body and schedule would permit.  From those classes and pre-professional training I gathered knowledge and experience.  However, true learning occurred alone, when the dance studios had grown dark and most students had gone home.  I would learn to feel the movements and the corrections I had gathered so as to create natural movements within my physical frame.  It was in the silence and deep concentration of working alone with the movement, my body, the knowledge gathered and aesthetic intuition that I visualized, executed and learned to dance.

As I am older now and from the lens of academics, I can analyze that I was achieving  learning through a combination of critical thinking and deep reflection.  Learning by analyzing and doing.  

Yet despite my physical uniqueness, the place where I arrive to regarding my embodiment of dance is the same as all dancers, we seek to dance beyond our technique to create art that is aesthetic and communicative of the artist’s voice.  Creating connections between our learning is a challenging process aided by literature.  Interesting though that through literature we find echo but not an exact expression of what we seek.

Thank you to all my classmates for the literature recommendations made.  I did write down the names of books and authors, I hope my recommendations prove to be useful to you as well.

On Babies, Ballet and Early Childhood Development

"To be a really good teacher, 

one has to truly want each person to learn 

and want to touch each student."

                                        -Miss Mary Day.  

                                                                                             Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times article, 2006

With my first dance students: The Washington School of Ballet

Mary Day was an extraordinary artistic leader in the Washington DC ballet community.  She was the founder and director of both the Washington School of Ballet and the Washington Ballet.  When I started studying at her dance school, she was eighty-five years old, I was fifteen,  I was extremely fortunate to have been her student.  Her extraordinary eye for talent and how to develop that talent is still something we discuss in the dance classroom today.  When she passed in 2006, Anna Kisselgoff described her in a New York Times article as, "one of American ballet´s most distinguished teachers."

(Article Link: Kisselgoff, New York Times. 2006)

When I turned eighteen Miss Day called me into the office one day and asked me if  I was interested in learning how to teach?  She told me she liked the role I played with my classmates, the way I calmed everyone before a performance and always made other dancers feel more confident.  She loved hearing me give insightful corrections to my classmates when asked for help.  I was surprised she had noticed, Miss Day was a busy school director, and it meant the world to me that she did take notice-  At that age everything about life was overwhelming and the idea of having potential for teaching filled me with happiness.  Miss Mary Day thought it best that I started training as a dance teacher right away. It was a crazy time for me, I was dancing with Spanish Dance Theatre and was participating in a massive production with the Washington Opera to dance in Placido Domingo’s Le Cid. Still Miss Day thought it was time that I started my dance teacher training even though I was so busy. She believed I had way too much to learn to wait... and she was afraid that she was not getting any younger and wanted to make sure she could devote me that time. At that time I was too young to understand the great gift she was giving me. She was 89 years old at that point, and more lucid than I when she spoke of dance education. To this day, teaching class, I am my happiest. Miss Day was right to push me. She retired three years later after training me and passed away three years after that. To this day I miss her, and take great pride in my legacy.

Miss Day convinced me that my dancer´s life would be short and that my life long.  Dance education would last me a lifetime, and could become a great source of creativity and inspiration.  She taught me three rules to follow:

1) Do not let parents obsess about the student´s professional potential.  Students may surprise.  Tell them we have to focus on the child´s development first.  We start with skipping, it´s a long and slow process.

2) Always remember you are educating human beings first.  Everyone benefits from dance education regardless of where it takes them.

3) This is by far the most important one of all: When in doubt always focus on learning.  When things are not being done correctly in the classroom the student´s learning will be compromised.  If I were to focus on learning, I would always make the correct decisions and modifications to lead me there.  The focus is not on my teaching process, but on the students´ learning journey.

Her teaching philosophy and consequential rules are still relevant today.  In the last few years however there has been a shift from the old days, when I studied with Miss Day.  With the development of early stimulation programmes and parents requesting classes for younger and younger children, there has been the evolution of Baby Ballet as part of our course offerings.  My dance teacher preparation contemplated my starting with Ballet I for 6 and 7 years old.  In the last twenty years though, I have found an increasing demand for teaching younger and younger students.  So much so, that the term "Baby Ballet" has become a common course offering.

It is no surprise that parents are seeking early dance programmes for their children.  Children are able to receive classes in music, languages, gymnastics, dance and other areas.  All wish to take advantage of children's mental plasticity and great learning ability demonstrated by children in their early stages.  The programmes are packaged commercially with very attractive names such as Baby Einstein, etc.  In general, parents perceive that these programmes will promote the development of extraordinary, genius babies.

Fascinated by childhood development and after working at preschools and deciding that I truly needed to learn and prepare better, I decided to start studying Early Childhood Development.  My studies carried me through a Bachelors in Education and a Graduate Degree in Early Childhood Education.  I became particularly attracted to the Theory of Multiple Intelligence Theory developed by Howard Gardner.  The theory identifies Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence as one of the intelligences of human beings.  As a dancer and teacher I was a witness of the daily manifestation of bodily-kinesthetic intelligence.  Gardner states that, "characteristic of such an intelligence is the ability to use one´s body in highly differentiated and skilled ways, for expressive as well as goal directed purposes" (1993) of course dance education fits perfectly within this description.  In a quest to understand bodily intelligence I entered in a long process that did help me prepare my classes better.  I reached several conclusions in my learning process that I believe will affect my approach to Dance Education for the rest of my professional practice.

Firstly, as dance teachers we need to receive better formation regarding child development and learning theory focused in our knowledge of the different developmental stages, areas of learning, social-emotional aspects of child development, special needs, and sound pedagogical practices.  Our field is filled with extraordinary teachers with impeccable dance formation, exquisite connoisseurs of their dance form...how magnificent would it be that combined with our knowledge of dance with a profound expertise in educational and pedagogical theories.

Secondly, we need to enter a sincere conversation with parents regarding the expected outcomes regarding an early stimulation programme of dance.  The ethics of a dance form that seeks truth and beauty through an unbreakable work ethic, can not fall into false commercial claims of creating young geniuses by taking a dance class at an early stage.  No early stimulation programme can promise such a claim.  Early stimulation programmes provide children with readiness, higher self-esteem, and greater experience.  However, developmentally children will be able to reach certain milestones once their cognitive and physical maturity reach the stage that allows such a change to occur.  These milestones can not be hurried or changed in their process.  Cognitive psychology though the work of  many researchers such as Skinner and Piaget, have been able to identify developmental changes and milestones, and all of these imply maturity as a result of a biological process.  Children do not need to start Baby Ballet at a very early stage in order to become dancers.  Formal training begins when the child is physically, cognitively and emotionally ready to receive the complex and taxing knowledge that will pave the way to their learning.  Starting early implies that the student is exposed to information earlier, but not that learning will occur earlier.

Third, and lastly, early dance programmes that are well-structured bearing in mind the students´ developmental process can be extremely enriching for a child at very early stages.  Stage experience at an early age can be exhilarating and can help forge a healthy self-esteem before insecurities set in at a later stage.  As Gardner eloquently states, "But the body is more than simply another machine, indistinguishable from the artificial objects of the world.  It is also the vessel of the individual´s  sense of self." Artistic exposure at an early age can lead to great musical and dance appreciation.  Developmentally, children need plenty of exercise and their development of strength, balance and coordination is greatly aided by dance activities.  Furthermore, children learn by playing, a dance programme that provides opportunity for improvisation, imagination games and exercises all enhance a natural development of the dancer within.

Baby Ballet Course: Developing Self Awareness Onstage

National Auditorium with Mariana Solano and Adriana Porras, teacher assistants

Miss Mary Day

As I reflect on my dance journey, I have taken a moment to revisit my dance mentor, Miss Mary Day the founder and director of both the Washington School of Ballet and the Washington Ballet.  As I read through articles of hers, I came across the following words of Kevin McKenzie, one of her students, former principal dancer and artistic director of the American Ballet Theatre, he eloquently explained:

As time went by, students at WSB looked forward to earning the distinction of being known as a “Mary Day dancer.” The best of her students had a confidence born of the sense that, by virtue of an innate quality that Day had recognized, they were part of a select group. “Those of us who grew up under Mary Day’s tutelage were proud that in a crowded studio we could be easily picked out,” says McKenzie. “The characteristics that made us stick out were a fine musicality and sense of line, [and] heads and arms that worked through a harmony of breath and sensitivity.”

Miss Mary Day was ahead of her time.  She spoke of differentiated learning, of interdisciplinary studies and of the role of dance education in the development of the child- all years before these topics would come into vogue.  She would always tell me that the focus was on learning, if the focus was on learning the dance student would never get lost.

I share here this article in hopes to preserve her memory and wise words.  Today I miss her dearly and feel great gratitude to have been her student.

Magazine article link: DC's Grande Dame: DT Lifetime Achievement Awardee Mary Day


Interview Kevin McKenzie:

Remembering Miss Day