The children are tuning up their senses.
Photo by Ernest Braun, 1953.
Children using streamers to experience the visual patterns of their movement.
Photo by Ernest Braun, 1953.
THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER
It is important that the child’s everyday experience be brought into focus by the teacher in the dance class. It is also an enhancement that the teacher add to whatever is lacking in the child’s realm of experience. The teacher can bring this approach to class by knowing the characteristics of the child’s age level, being aware of her background influences and keeping up with the subjects she is learning in school. The teacher must also have established a friendly and sympathetic atmosphere in the classroom so that the children are free to respond. From the response of the children, the teacher can get her cue whether to dance about fairies and flowers or fire engines and scribbly houses, or just a wiggly movement with a sudden stop. In teaching this way, you never know exactly what will happen in advance of a class. The teacher must plan, but the plans need to be flexible. Therefore a children’s class is never repeated the same way twice. Each class should be a creation in itself—a completed dance drama that captures the essence of a child’s life in that one moment.
DANCE EDUCATION AND TRAINING
We can think of training, first of all, in terms of a learning process. For a child to learn and to progress in technical training, she must have a desire and interest in this direction. What an enthusiastic student she will become if she is aware not only of “what” she is doing but “why” she is doing it. If her technical training is grounded in a kinesthetic awareness of movement, it will be a pleasurable experience. If, in the presentation of a movement idea, the teacher permits the student to take an active role in its development and she is given the freedom to try for herself until the movement “feels right,” she will be able to find meaning in what she is doing.
The child strives for perfection because she understands what she is doing. Her effort takes on purpose, and her attitude will be alert and inquisitive. Over a period of time, she develops initiative and self-discipline. She finds a zest and joy in the learning process. She must be continually activated in her learning in order to develop. A wise teacher will give increasing demands and challenges with very careful respect to the child’s level of development, thereby avoiding discouragement and frustration by not forcing the child beyond her capacity. The child, when ready to meet these new demands, can then work with concentration for the desired control and refinement. Her achievement of these ideals will give her the motivation to continue.
In addition to the process of learning, there is a question—“What is she learning?” She is learning the science of body movement itself, rhythmic factors, elements of force and space, and the relationships of moving with other people, among other things. She is also learning how to discover dance ideas from what she feels, sees and hears. She learns how to use the materials of dance to shape movement experiences into patterns and to create forms for her dance ideas. The result is that her knowledge is not limited to rigid techniques but rather to fundamental materials of dance that draw upon the vast potential resources of the child herself and the principles of art.
A technical training of this nature will enable the child to acquire aesthetic values of images of beauty that emerge out of her own well-spring of responses. What one child has created is shared with others in the class, what they have created as a group is shared together, and in this way, the children gain from each other a breadth of aesthetic values. Because each child has formed her expression in her own way, there are individual differences. Seeing these differences helps all the children be flexible and open-minded, and appreciative and responsive to the feelings and attitudes of others.
A training which integrates technique with expression at every level of the child’s growth will bring forth a child who dances with spontaneity, the freshness and vitality of the expressive mind flowing through the muscles and nerves. When children are trained in the disciplines of intrinsic art principles, they dance with great grace and freedom.
NOTE
1. Classes cost fifty cents apiece. Teachers for the co-ops were trained at Dancers’ Workshop and included A. A. Leath, Norma Leistiko, John Graham, and many others.
MOVEMENT RITUAL I
Try this experiment: Make a list of your senses, and put them in the order that you first think of them. Avoid looking at my list until you have made your own. Did your list go something like this:
1st Sight
2nd Sound
3rd Smell
4th Touch
5th Taste
THE KINESTHETIC SENSE
There is a good chance that you did not mention the kinesthetic sense at all. Most people do not. What is the kinesthetic sense? The kinesthetic sense has end-organs and nerve endings in our muscles, tendons, ligaments, bones and joints that make it possible for us to have any awareness of our movements. Nerve endings in the inner ear allow us to know our body placement in space and our body directions. All of these are part of the proprioceptive nervous system. I can conceivably imagine living without any one of the senses listed above, but can you imagine living without any awareness of your movement? You’d bump into everything, stumble and fall down all the time. You wouldn’t even be able to eat because you couldn’t get food into your mouth. If you can imagine what it would be like to live without a kinesthetic sense, imagine how exciting and ALIVE you would be if your kinesthetic sense were to be heightened and cultivated way beyond its present consciousness. Just as a painter cultivates a keen sense of vision, a musician a keen sense of sound, a cook a fine sense of smell and taste, so the dancer, the athlete, the acrobat, and the actor need to develop a sharp kinesthetic sense. Since movement is the basis of life itself, and since we move all the time, then why shouldn’t all of us develop this heightened awareness so that all of us may live a more ALIVE life and become dancers.
Let’s do another experiment to give you a chance to experience what is meant by the kinesthetic sense.
. Blindfold (or close) your eyes so that you may rely on your movement sense, then …
. Move around the room for 5 or 10 minutes.
. Afterwards, write down quickly your sensations and feelings.
. Read aloud what you wrote.
. Share what you discovered with someone else.
. With your eyes blind-folded or closed, try another set of movements like pushing, pulling, crawling, walking backwards, etc.
When you begin to isolate and pay attention to yourself moving you have begun the process of developing your kinesthetic or movement awareness sensibilities. You can do this as you walk down a street, carry a load, or shake hands. Your daily pedestrian life is a potential dance.
SPACE,
