Jill Patterson
Over the past three years, 100 working artists have shared their stories and career paths on this blog. One of the biggest themes to emerge is about teaching - as an opportunity to explore our movement choices and curiosities, as an income source, as a means to find dancers, and as an opportunity to develop our audiences. This summer, we will repost writing from the 100 artist profiles about teaching as well as offer you reflection questions related to your own work. Click on any name below to read an artist's full profile.
From Onye Ozuzu
I think that in a world where technology is mediating the human experience more and more, it is not going to be performance where dance will have its most far-reaching and sought for effect. I think that people can get the dance performances they want to watch and we do, in the palm of our hands anytime of the day. We can play and re-play them to our heart’s content. I think that for the work of the actual moving body, the skills that we gather through our dedication and practice will be sought for more and more in our ability to SHARE them. Dance is, more and more, going to be about participation. So learning how to teach it, in various contexts, will be crucial. How is dance taught in a studio, to dancers? In a studio, to children? In a park to people that came for something to do? Through a video screen? In a football stadium? And how can these experiences be meaningful and transformative even if brief? What effect will it have on concert dance, on dance performance? Could greater participation actually increase dance audiences? And what about Dance Studies? I think that as our society becomes more and more diverse racially and economically, it will become crucial for practitioners and teachers of all styles of dance to become good at passing on the cultural context, and frameworks of dances as they teach them, perhaps to people who are unfamiliar.
From Jill Patterson
Teaching is THE role. Teaching has allowed me to continue in my role as dancer, and it ensures that dance will live on as an art form, and that we will have audience members to witness what choreographers and performers want to share, I believe. I absolutely love teaching; it fuels me in many of the same ways that performing does. I lose myself in the classroom, forgetting the rest of the world for a few short hours, immersing myself in my students, wondering how I can relate the information to them more clearly, watching them struggle and then so obviously succeeding when they never thought their body would allow them to do what was asked. I work with both majors and non-majors and enjoy both experiences for completely different reasons. In the past I have earned a living teaching at three different high schools, over the course of five years of my career. I find high school engaging as well, but there is so much drama in high school! And while I was grateful for those experiences, I often found myself saying, “I just want to teach dance!” ---- meaning there were so many other challenges to face in a public high school setting. However, I still keep in touch with many of my students from over the years. I have also also spent many a day teaching creative movement – THE HARDEST JOB in my book, by far! Teaching creative movement in the public schools is a huge component of what Ririe-Woodbury does, and I spent many weeks in the schools while with the company.
From Abby Fiat
Lifelong learning is for all of us. Let me talk about it from the students’ vantage point first. The students are the ones that keep it current for me. We are so lucky to be in the profession we are in. It is the profession….it puts us all together – our mind, our body, our creative spirit. Wondering, celebrating, exploring, discovering, struggling….. This is hopefully the environment we create for our students. There is not even a choice of keeping it current….that’s what has to happen. The struggles and epiphanies that the students are having are some of the same struggles and epiphanies that we are having – whether it’s our research, their research, their choreography, our choreography, our teaching, their learning. They are learning and so are we and they’re teaching us what to do.
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