Practice. Rehearsal. Cliches.

I'm learning to play the ukulele.

And it's hard.

My dad is teaching me. He's spent many years playing and teaching guitar and picked up the ukulele a few years ago. He has the unique ability to play the Marine Corp Hymn on almost any instrument. (It's no wonder I married a vet!)

I learned three cords, with which I should be able to play most popular songs. But, the challenge is in the transitions.

After only fifteen minutes of strumming and moving through the cords, my fingers were getting numb and cramping. I have enough on my plate - why am I doing this, I asked myself in a bit of frustration. Playing the uke looked and sounded so much easier than it was. And therein I found the nugget and the purpose!

The development and the skill comes from the practice of doing the same thing over and over again. Not in the "if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten" sort of way, but in the way that "when tested, you don't rise to the occasion, you revert to the level of your training". In learning the cords and working through my transitions on the uke, I need to put an immense amount of time repeating the training of transitioning so I can move onto the next level and be prepared for my "test". (Or in this case, family sing-a-longs).

Why share this little story and cliche quotes?

I'm preparing myself and many dancers for upcoming performances. It's the point in the year/ semester when my dancers/ students are tired and other stresses are pressing upon them (papers, family, the weather, allergies...) Learning the uke reminded me of the importance of practice in my everyday dance life.

The practice of showing up fully.
The practice of being mindful of my movement.
The practice of making choices within the process.

Many years ago, "practice" was a regular meeting of an athletic team to repeat drills. I was insulted when someone referred to my rehearsals as "practice". (Didn't they know I was making ART?)

Practice, to me, has come to mean the repetition of a skill in order to more fully develop the craft. This is showing up. Being present. Executing the degage, the plie, the tendu. Transitioning between cords. Again. And Again. And Again.

It takes time. It takes effort and energy. It takes patience.

Eventually, the transitions become easier. Not necessarily perfected, but smoother. The practice makes way for the artistry to unfold. (And, sports fans, I realize that a well crafted athlete can be beautiful).

Rehearsal has become to mean the practice of the craft of making. In dance, this is the refining of the timing, the intention, and the dynamic of the movement. Rehearsal provides many choices, options, and opportunities to dig deeper into the art-making space provided by the discipline of practice.

I remind myself and my students that the way we chose to execute and be present (or not) in class is the way we're going to perform. Our bodies are imprinting the way we're repeating the movement so that in the time of the test, we can trust our training (or realize that we didn't take that time seriously enough).

It's with this realization that I take comfort in my sore hands from uke practice and torn feet and bruised body parts from dance practice. I am reminded that the attention to the practice will result in a more fully-prepared performance.

Or, "you get out what you put in".

(Shout out to the military for many of the sayings I often hear repeated in my family circle and some included here. That practice worked!)

(I realize that cliche has an accent, but I normal alt codes aren't allowing me to insert the symbol.)


There are many ways we embody "practice". How do you?

Kinestetic Story Telling

Our bodies tell our stories.

I limped my way down the stairs. "What's the matter?" One dancer called out to me, almost a flight away. I shrugged my shoulders and rolled my eyes. "Same stuff" I replied, referring to the ligament damage in my ankle that seemed to flair at the same time each year. I modify movement in class, cross training and rehearsals, ice and take anti-inflammitories, and elevate my foot and "rest" when I can. (Yes... While writing. Grading. Reading. Researching. Observing.)

In my travels, I'm reading some fiction and non-fiction work about military life. In joking (?) military friends and I have reflected on the similarities between the dance world and combat training. Have you ever broken a bone? Well, yes, but I didn't realize it at the time. Endured extreme physical and emotional training and discomfort? Yep. "Lived" in your clothing? Yep. Ate limited rations? Yep. Had little sleep? Yep. ...

But. I'm an artist. You are a trained protector. There's a sociological difference. A political difference. But if we sit over a cup of tea and talk real, honest goals and values, we're not so different. You protect life, but realize there is a sacrifice that might come with that. I strive to provide beauty to life and know the personal, physical, economic, and emotional danger. But. We both understand that the body is the place where we experience life - joy, fear, anger, pain, happiness, sadness, excitement...  

As an artist, I might view the world in different colors, but I still see and feel the pain. As a dancer, I ask, "What if we could understand the language of our bodies?"

I've been invited to many non-dance classes to "speak". In an exercise, I ask my attendees to pay attention to the non-verbal movement of a partner when telling a story. I ask the partners to repeat the MOVEMENT of the storytellers. I ask the storytellers to reflect on the movement of the partners. Who is the storyteller... really? What is being said by the body that verbal language can't communicate? How are the perceived mind and perceived body telling the same or different stories? What is the REAL story of the storyteller?


What story does your body tell? 

#whydancematters - community, collaboration, communication, and choreography

At the end of most processes, I ask my dancers to self-reflect.

What have you learned?
What has effected you?
What would you like to share with others about your experience?
What will you take with you, after this process has ended?

I'm including some of these thoughts from the past four months. (With their permission to post publicly).

#whydancematters

DanceUP, space, and intangible value

A few weeks ago, Dance UP, the local branch of the national service organization Dance USA, announced that it was closing its doors. My breath caught in my chest and my heart leapt into my throat when I read the announcement. I double checked the calendar to make sure this wasn't an April Fool's joke.

It wasn't.

For the past seven years, Dance UP has provided the Philly Dance Community with an array of programs to support performance, classes, awareness, and advocacy. The organization was a "safe space" for dancers of all backgrounds, genres, walks of life, ages, and stages in career, providing a neutral, physical space for people to gather, in addition to the services they provided out in the community. Some of these services included (this is not a comprehensive list):

• a website for quick access to local resources (including jobs, grants, performance opportunities, classes, and consultations)
• a physical library 
• a physical workstation with computer and internet 
• a regular eblast that included "Deadlines at a glance," news, and discounts for dancers
• "DancePass" a membership program that allowed dancers discounted rates for performances, classes, and other professional services (photography, videography, website design)
• International Artist Exchange programs with Poland and Hungry. Dancers from Philly went there and brought new experiences home. Dancers from there came to Philly and shared their perspectives. 
• Scholarships. Based on a lottery system, the scholarships helped artists attend classes and conferences and develop their professional training - something that many organizations provide to their employees. Many dancers are self-employed and it is up to the artist to continue their professional development, costing time, money, and limited resources. There is great value in continuing professional development and DanceUP helped reduce the financial strain. 
• Advocacy. DanceUP provided a voice within the greater Philly community. 
• New Stages for Dance. A program that provided subsidies to professional companies to produce their work. 
• Philadelphia is Dancing Wall Calendar. A great gift! A great way to get access to great pictures! And a great way to get to know what's happening in Philly dance and who's around. The Wall Calender included dates of performances and pictures of members of the local scene. 
• The Portable Dance Floor. A safe way to show dance in any space, Dance UP rented out the portable dance floor to organizations showing dance in "non-traditional" spaces. The portable dance floor was sprung, protecting the health and safety of the dancers. (Why need a portable dance floor? you might ask. Would you ask a professional athlete - baseball, basketball, tennis, to play on solid concrete? No, they need a specific surface on which they can execute their craft. Likewise, dancers need a specific surface - a sprung floor, usually covered in marley - to best perform their craft with regard to their health, execution of performance, and quality of work.)
• Dance in Public Places. This program provided free rehearsal space to Philly dancers in the Gallery at Market East. 

Sigh. 

It's that time of the year when I'm going through files and piles and reflecting and purging. I found this intended post, which I'm sharing now. The programs that DanceUP provided were sometimes intangible, but those benefits are sometimes the most impactful. (I haven't altered my original thoughts in finally uploading this writing)

Changing space as a performance practice

In February 2014, I had the opportunity to perform and rehearse in several different spaces. One of these spaces included Dance USA Philadelphia's Dance in Public Places - at the Gallery at Market Street. This super unique program offered rehearsal space to local dance companies and simultaneously allowed the public to watch the work in progress. The dancing, itself, occurred in a store-front, with large windows and a speaker system that played both in the enclosed storefront and outside to the passersby. A representative from DanceUP stood outside of the storefront to greet and talk with the audience. The dancers and choreographers remained in the store and their process unfolded, undisturbed.

As a viewer, I was allowed the opportunity to see the nitty-gritty process of these dancers and choreographers. Trail and error. Let's try this... and this... and this... It takes so much time to make a dance. In a traditional performance, the audience doesn't see this. A different type of work is being executed. Performing requires a set of skills. Honing the craft requires another set of skills. Here, the audience was allowed the opportunity to see all of those skills in process. 

As an artist, I was afforded the opportunity to experience space on a different scale. We were dancing on a portable, sprung floor on one section of the store front. In a traditional studio, the walls are generally a good marker of the end of the floor space, but in this situation, I needed to develop a different spatial awareness of the edges of the sprung floor, because the edges of the storefront were wider than the floor, itself.

Nora Gibson Performance Project rehearsing as part of Dance in Public Places.
Photo taken from inside the store front.

KYL/D rehearsing as part of Dance in Public Places.
Photo taken from the mall.

Often, dancers are trained to "project to the nosebleed section" referring to the very back of the theatre. We're told this in performance, rehearsal, class, and the practice of all three. But, what if the furthermost audience member is only a few feet away? Or 300 feet away? How does a performer negotiate the audience space? In my experiences as an educator, dancers project to the space in which they're rehearsing. Then when they get into the performance space (usually a week before the show if they're lucky), a new challenge of spatial awareness and depth perception is added to the excitement of nerves and live performance. In this store-front at the Gallery at Market East, I was able to practice my spatial awareness of my audience from many perspectives. I was challenged to make decisions about who my audience was. This was an empowering opportunity, not often afforded to dancers who are the object of seeing. We are the object of the viewer. In this instance, I could make choices on who I saw and how they saw me. 

Did I choose to see the people outside, watching me, or ignore them?

Did I choose to project to the full space of my visual field - past the glass windows, past the stairs, across the vaulted ceiling out into the street beyond the mall- or did I choose to allow my projected, energetic space to be limited to the enclosure? Or to the actual dancing floor space? Or to the building structure?

If I choose to energetically project to a large space, how did I negotiate the reality of the smaller, physical space of the enclosed store-front and the smaller sprung-floor space, through my movement?

I played with these questions in each of my rehearsals, with differing results. I'm grateful to DanceUP for this opportunity to change spaces and challenge my own dance practice of rehearsal and performance - and challenging my own definitions of what each of those can be. Thank you! And thank you to the Knights Arts Foundation for helping to fund the adventure!

(end of original writing)

Intangible Value

In dance - practice, performance, and education - the value of what we do is often not measurable by monetary accounts, but by real-life experiences. The work we do is valuable. The work artists do connects, builds community, and prompts conversation and thought. It encourages dreaming, hoping, believing, creating, and action. It is not measurable by its stock options but by the dancing that occurs in the kitchen at Thanksgiving and the conversation that occurs on the bus because of the mural on the side of the building. It's in the appreciation of the sunrise and how it can be captured in a painting or photograph or poem and how that brings you back to your breath and the moment that you and your grandparent watched it rise together over the ocean. (And how you were so annoyed that you didn't get to sleep in. And the reflection that occurs because of said annoyance, response, and action). 

Art - dance - reminds us to be human. That has a value that cannot be measured. 

Thank you, DanceUP, for everything you'd done for this community. Your presence will be missed, but the values you created will endure. 

Here are some links, resources, and stories related to this post and to DanceUP and it's closing:

DanceUP - Dance USA Philadelphia

Dance USA

Article from the Inquirer about DanceUP losing funding

Article from CBSPhilly about DanceUP losing funding

Dance:UP Dance in Public Places 2014 Final from DanceUP on Vimeo.