Six months ago when Auntie Grace, artistic director of the National Dance Company of Ghana, asked me to teach a class for the company, I was slightly taken aback. At that point there was still a false boarder between my body and the international spaces through which I was moving.
But to move, to travel, to interact, and to create, has increasingly become a primarily physical experience. Similarly, having completed nine months of this year-long movement, I am ever opening to the chillingly physical nature of the transformations and understandings that this project has presented to my body. And this body, the basic yet elusive medium that both interprets and performs information and symbols, has dissolved and been re-built continually throughout my research.
The twenty or so joints of my spine, sweat into arches and new contractions in a dance studio in Burkina Faso, continue to elastically accept my travel to Brazil. Over the past three months I have taken company class with Dance Brazil, performed on a public stage as part of Salvador´s celebration of international dance day, and helped teach a movement class to a group of children in a poor area outside of Salvador. I have take ballet class taught to some of Salvador´s best dancers at a studio funded by a choreographer who somewhat adopts dancers, and I feel challenged to continually exist within this project, within Brazil, as first a participant and learner, a more direct route to fruitful collaboration.
The process of completing a Watson Fellowship is one of building precise visions and blueprints for action - black and white sketches that only experience and collaboration can color in. It is only action and time that invite these prints into the shadings of cultural truths and economic limits.
The past month has been especially broadening, with two weeks spent in Sao Paulo, one week spent in Rio attending the the global Laban conference, and then traveling back north to Salvador three days ago.
The experiences of putting the soars and sounds of entering and leaving studios, taking bus rides through Sao Paulo and walking through rainy twilight to brightly lit dance spaces, has tweaked and broadened even the most realistic expectations of these once far-off places.
Ivaldo Bertazzo, a choreographer notable for his massive collaborations with large numbers of children from the outskirts of Sao Paulo maintains one of the fanciest, chique dance studios I have ever seen. It is classy. Upon entrance the mostly upper-middle class clients of his pampering studio have to place their thumb upon a finger-print reading machine which then allows them to enter the studio. In a lean climate of artistic production he has carved out a sustainable and successful presence in the Sao Paulo and global arts scene.
It is difficult to dance, more difficult to fuse grace with a plan and perform a poignant piece of art, and in someways equally difficult to maintain a sustainable dance company. When I started this trip I had eyes pointed towards the exterior of dance companies, activities and programs that a stable company might maintain out of any extra resources they might manage to squeeze out of the ecology of art.
Re-focused, the dance company itself emerges as an initial and primary community building force. In Brazil, and more precisely in the poorer and more Afro-Brazilian city of Salvador, once a dancer joins a company, often the choreographer develops into a parental, or at least cultural guide and protector. In the case of Dance Brazil where I spent two weeks watching and taking classes with the company before they left for a U.S. tour, classes in singing are taught so that when the company is not active, the dancers will be more likely to find other work.
Mestre Jelon Vieira, the artistic director of the company, maintains a community arts center which he supports Capoeira training for kids who are at risk for drug abuse. It is a ways outside of Salvador and also seems to be a breeding ground for potential dancers. While I was there the center was dark, Jelon and the company were working tireless hours preparing for a tour. But you could sense in the way the dancers acted with Jelon, in the way he embraced each one as they would enter the studio, that the nature of building human ties and empowering relationships is something fundamental to the physical nature of creating and maintaining dances.
These moments of love, of support and acceptance, were somehow still perceptible in the back of my mind amidst the mayhem of teaching a movement class to two groups of children at a theater center outside of Salvador. A women and actress from a Capoeira group which I train with maintains a space on the third floor of her house where she holds classes for kids from her neighborhood. My roommate and I offered to teach a movement class and it was the first time that I broke the glass wall between analyst of community dance programs and teacher of dance.
As the second class came to an end, two evangelical preachers took to the street side and started broadcasting thunderous brands of Jesus pride. The amped screams of faith made finishing the dance class especially challenging, but it seemed fitting and the kids didn´t seem to mind to much. In their sweaty smiles and creations they were proud and open.
The jungle of dance is a humbling and ceaselessly human ecology. By human I refer to the realities of weight, of the stickiness of skin squeaking over floor, of the trust and dedication of studying movement.
It is in this ecology that I exist and my body is transforming. On the roads of Brazil, through dingy hotels and weeks of continual travel, my project, its dancers and its activists, continues to take care of me. It breathes and I respond in rhythm.
It is now clear that I would be in a much stronger position to collaborate with Auntie Grace of Ghana. Her mandate is something I would now view with respect and action. The transformations that have gone on in my body and mind are still unclear to me. They have not yet found their words, and it is unclear if they call for expression through music, sketches, writings, or movement. But things feel comfortably strange and new like childhood, and this magic sung ´Brazil´ calls on another night.
5.15.2008
2.03.2008
Update for Found Time
Not unlike the give and take of a Capoiera roda, these quarterly updates are a source of dialogue. Out of my maiden days in Ghana emerged the first quarterly round up of thoughts, and the Watson fellowship´s response left poignant seeds of advice which came into full fruit throughout my time in West Africa.
The main title of my project, Moving Beyond the Stage, references an intentional gaze towards efforts related to dance that exist beyond the proscenium, in that exterior and well-lit space of life through which most of Western culture refers to as daytime, a time and space in our own culture which is more accustomed to the movements of walking and waiting than it is to samba or high-life.
I formerly understood this gaze to be one searching for a function of dance that existed not beyond, but around the definitive performance which informs much of dance training and viewing in the U.S. I was entangled in the notion that dance for too many of its fans was something to sit back and watch, not something that one might ever do. But dance is above all a process of acceptance and release, and both of these are accessed through gazing, as well as moving.
Strapped by notions of otherness, or elevated by notions of other-worldly feats, dance opens doors to those mysterious and awesome caverns of the imagination. But this moment of transmission is one free from the contingencies of architecture or setting--like the eye contact between me and a French speaking Burkinabe, this moment is one that explodes beyond the limitations of culturally determined variables.
What emerged from the verbal pas de deux exchanged with the Watson Foundation in November was an emphasis on the elevating power of big-league performance. Those all star displays of the rewards of training that keep dance within the public eye fuel thousands to lace up a dance shoe, or jokingly try and crunk at a club. But this timeless and beautiful relationship, that between the appreciated and the imitated, is one that crosses beyond the boundaries of different cultures or aesthetics. And the power of cool, the force of a perfect dip or a flawless heel rubbing against the dirt of a street in Burkina Faso, is one force among many responsible for moving dance beyond the stage.
Africa moves. In daylight, by bus stops, while waiting for its hard earned meal, Africa is public and beyond the proscenium. Yet growing out of the performative synopses that paint street life in Africa are resilient organizations and festivals which bring the point of transmission to an institutional and somewhat sustainable level. It is impossible for me to qualify whether my colloborations in Africa with dance companies or street dancing was more illuminating about the nature of dance, both have colored gorgeous realizations.
After my second week in Ghana there was a dance festival in a large park in the center of Accra. Efua Sutherland Children's Park housed the 2007 Yosokoi dance festival. The image of hundreds of dancers warming up to the various drum ensembles set the tone for an affirming yet culturally unkempt display of Ghanaian dance.
If able, sponsorship for the arts is an indispensable component for a responsible society. Conversations with some of the dance groups described the Yoskoi Dance Festival as one of the years most well attended and supportive dance event. The 15 groups in attendance were numerous local outifts from extremely poor neighborhoods who form competitive troups for the event. Including one group from an orphanage and one from a house for the disabled, the competition opened its doors to many. The event is entirely funded by a Japanese corporation, Yosokoi, which produces canned mackerel in tomato paste.
The corporate presence is far from subtle. All participating dance groups, or which there were about 14, all including anywhere from 20 to 150 dancers, had to wear a Japanese styled coat. Moreover, in the middle of many of the dances, the Ghanaian drummers would have to stop to let the required one Japanese song kick in. The 15 groups in attendance ranged from an all-children's dance group from the Osu children's home, to the forty or fifty person strong Lions of Africa Cultural Troupe.
The majority of the groups were large, strong, and comprised of dancers roughly in the 20 year old range. The top three winners of the competition were of this genre, but this classification did not make up the entire demographic. Three times during the performance individuals with wheel chairs made it onto the grassy stage. Either from the rasta acrobats or from the Ashanti New Generation Group & Achimota Secondary School, there was an clear acknowledgment and support for the disabled community of Accra. This was a tremendous source of making contacts withing the dance community in Accra, and I attended rehearsals and classes of several companies I met while at the festival. The economy is lean in Ghana, and community dance programs exist when people dance. This is a theme I will explore in depth over the next six months.
Among the map of things I learned in Africa, one of the most monumental lessons was the possible difficulties of administrative collaboration, I did have some trouble getting in with The National Dance Company of Ghana, funded entirely by the National Government, which was founded by Kwame Nkrumah in 1963. Looking back I wish I could have had a more collaborative relationship with this company, but my time in Burkina Faso was much more successful.
The day after I arrived in Ougadougou I met with a French woman who works as an administrator for the dance company Salia ni Seydou, the travelled and accomplished duo hosting the 12-day workshop I had come to Burkina Faso for. We discussed what roles I might play in the workshop, determining how I might get to understand both aspects of the event, administration and choreography. As I had to concede I was not on a journey funded for broadening my own choreography, Sarah and I worked it out that the first week I would observe the sessions for the administrators, taking dance classes when time permitted. The second week I would spend more time with the choreography workshop. The special guest of the workshop was Carolyn Carlson, an American born choreographer who now lives in Paris, running the Ateliers de Paris; Carolyn Carlson. I left the meeting with Sarah very eager for the workshop to begin and surprised at how my French might actually be functional during my time here.
Attending the workshop were members from a diverse array of countries: Burkina Faso, Senegal, Cote D'ivoire, Congo, Belgium, France, Morocco, and Benin. The choreographers from Cote D'ivoire were especially hungry for the exchange of ideas about to take place.
Over lunch with one of them, he claimed that there was no contemporary dance in his country and that this was an invaluable chance for him to expand his conceptions of movement and expression. Indeed, the most stunning moments of the workshop were those of revealing new possibilities, navigating the mysterious territory of improvisational acts and previously unknown realities. Watching living artists fiercely dedicated to pushing their boundaries offered new routes and possibilities was a constant confirmation of the necessity of questioning, of looking beneath surfaces and assumptions and into the possibilities of art.
Also poignant in its spreading of sustainable dance in West Africa was the portion of the workshop focused on administration. The administrators from 15 companies learned the basics of running a budget, writing a contract, establishing a company with a pyramid structure of artistic director, general management, and technicians. The classes were taught by French citizens who work with Salia ny Seydou in France, and the efficacy with which the classes were organized rivaled anything one might see in New York.
Salia ni Seydou are cultural emissaries. Founded by Ougadougou natives Salia Sanou and Seydou Boro, in 1995 the duo formed a close relationship with French choreographer Mathilde Monnier and have since worked tirelessly to spread their found knowledge of the dance world to aspiring choreographers in the dusty and often desperate realities of West Africa. Attending the workshop proved to be a humbling experience which captured and galvanized all of the reasons I though I should be pursuing this journey.
I am writing from Brazil where I have been the past week. I just left a four hour session with the dance company Dance Brazil. Dance Brazil´s artistic director Jelon Veira, a Brazilian that splits his years between Salvador and Manhattan, is in town until March and has opened all doors to me. Today I helped resolve a technical problem with their speakers, and preceded to film the rehearsal for the assistant artistic director. Although it was in the voyeuristic stage of interaction, I know that over the next month strong relationships will form with the company, and through Jelon, the rest of Brazil.
I am enrolled in a language school and have picked up a decent amount of Portuguese during my first week here. The language is instrumental to my time in Belo Horizonte, Sao Paulo, and Rio, and I am digging deep into dictionaries and conjugation charts every night. At no other point during my journey have I felt such a time crunch. I have five months here, if my visa extension goes through six, and I foresee many collaborations throughout the country. Carnaval starts tonight, and loud police sirens and screams color the auburn air.
The main title of my project, Moving Beyond the Stage, references an intentional gaze towards efforts related to dance that exist beyond the proscenium, in that exterior and well-lit space of life through which most of Western culture refers to as daytime, a time and space in our own culture which is more accustomed to the movements of walking and waiting than it is to samba or high-life.
I formerly understood this gaze to be one searching for a function of dance that existed not beyond, but around the definitive performance which informs much of dance training and viewing in the U.S. I was entangled in the notion that dance for too many of its fans was something to sit back and watch, not something that one might ever do. But dance is above all a process of acceptance and release, and both of these are accessed through gazing, as well as moving.
Strapped by notions of otherness, or elevated by notions of other-worldly feats, dance opens doors to those mysterious and awesome caverns of the imagination. But this moment of transmission is one free from the contingencies of architecture or setting--like the eye contact between me and a French speaking Burkinabe, this moment is one that explodes beyond the limitations of culturally determined variables.
What emerged from the verbal pas de deux exchanged with the Watson Foundation in November was an emphasis on the elevating power of big-league performance. Those all star displays of the rewards of training that keep dance within the public eye fuel thousands to lace up a dance shoe, or jokingly try and crunk at a club. But this timeless and beautiful relationship, that between the appreciated and the imitated, is one that crosses beyond the boundaries of different cultures or aesthetics. And the power of cool, the force of a perfect dip or a flawless heel rubbing against the dirt of a street in Burkina Faso, is one force among many responsible for moving dance beyond the stage.
Africa moves. In daylight, by bus stops, while waiting for its hard earned meal, Africa is public and beyond the proscenium. Yet growing out of the performative synopses that paint street life in Africa are resilient organizations and festivals which bring the point of transmission to an institutional and somewhat sustainable level. It is impossible for me to qualify whether my colloborations in Africa with dance companies or street dancing was more illuminating about the nature of dance, both have colored gorgeous realizations.
After my second week in Ghana there was a dance festival in a large park in the center of Accra. Efua Sutherland Children's Park housed the 2007 Yosokoi dance festival. The image of hundreds of dancers warming up to the various drum ensembles set the tone for an affirming yet culturally unkempt display of Ghanaian dance.
If able, sponsorship for the arts is an indispensable component for a responsible society. Conversations with some of the dance groups described the Yoskoi Dance Festival as one of the years most well attended and supportive dance event. The 15 groups in attendance were numerous local outifts from extremely poor neighborhoods who form competitive troups for the event. Including one group from an orphanage and one from a house for the disabled, the competition opened its doors to many. The event is entirely funded by a Japanese corporation, Yosokoi, which produces canned mackerel in tomato paste.
The corporate presence is far from subtle. All participating dance groups, or which there were about 14, all including anywhere from 20 to 150 dancers, had to wear a Japanese styled coat. Moreover, in the middle of many of the dances, the Ghanaian drummers would have to stop to let the required one Japanese song kick in. The 15 groups in attendance ranged from an all-children's dance group from the Osu children's home, to the forty or fifty person strong Lions of Africa Cultural Troupe.
The majority of the groups were large, strong, and comprised of dancers roughly in the 20 year old range. The top three winners of the competition were of this genre, but this classification did not make up the entire demographic. Three times during the performance individuals with wheel chairs made it onto the grassy stage. Either from the rasta acrobats or from the Ashanti New Generation Group & Achimota Secondary School, there was an clear acknowledgment and support for the disabled community of Accra. This was a tremendous source of making contacts withing the dance community in Accra, and I attended rehearsals and classes of several companies I met while at the festival. The economy is lean in Ghana, and community dance programs exist when people dance. This is a theme I will explore in depth over the next six months.
Among the map of things I learned in Africa, one of the most monumental lessons was the possible difficulties of administrative collaboration, I did have some trouble getting in with The National Dance Company of Ghana, funded entirely by the National Government, which was founded by Kwame Nkrumah in 1963. Looking back I wish I could have had a more collaborative relationship with this company, but my time in Burkina Faso was much more successful.
The day after I arrived in Ougadougou I met with a French woman who works as an administrator for the dance company Salia ni Seydou, the travelled and accomplished duo hosting the 12-day workshop I had come to Burkina Faso for. We discussed what roles I might play in the workshop, determining how I might get to understand both aspects of the event, administration and choreography. As I had to concede I was not on a journey funded for broadening my own choreography, Sarah and I worked it out that the first week I would observe the sessions for the administrators, taking dance classes when time permitted. The second week I would spend more time with the choreography workshop. The special guest of the workshop was Carolyn Carlson, an American born choreographer who now lives in Paris, running the Ateliers de Paris; Carolyn Carlson. I left the meeting with Sarah very eager for the workshop to begin and surprised at how my French might actually be functional during my time here.
Attending the workshop were members from a diverse array of countries: Burkina Faso, Senegal, Cote D'ivoire, Congo, Belgium, France, Morocco, and Benin. The choreographers from Cote D'ivoire were especially hungry for the exchange of ideas about to take place.
Over lunch with one of them, he claimed that there was no contemporary dance in his country and that this was an invaluable chance for him to expand his conceptions of movement and expression. Indeed, the most stunning moments of the workshop were those of revealing new possibilities, navigating the mysterious territory of improvisational acts and previously unknown realities. Watching living artists fiercely dedicated to pushing their boundaries offered new routes and possibilities was a constant confirmation of the necessity of questioning, of looking beneath surfaces and assumptions and into the possibilities of art.
Also poignant in its spreading of sustainable dance in West Africa was the portion of the workshop focused on administration. The administrators from 15 companies learned the basics of running a budget, writing a contract, establishing a company with a pyramid structure of artistic director, general management, and technicians. The classes were taught by French citizens who work with Salia ny Seydou in France, and the efficacy with which the classes were organized rivaled anything one might see in New York.
Salia ni Seydou are cultural emissaries. Founded by Ougadougou natives Salia Sanou and Seydou Boro, in 1995 the duo formed a close relationship with French choreographer Mathilde Monnier and have since worked tirelessly to spread their found knowledge of the dance world to aspiring choreographers in the dusty and often desperate realities of West Africa. Attending the workshop proved to be a humbling experience which captured and galvanized all of the reasons I though I should be pursuing this journey.
I am writing from Brazil where I have been the past week. I just left a four hour session with the dance company Dance Brazil. Dance Brazil´s artistic director Jelon Veira, a Brazilian that splits his years between Salvador and Manhattan, is in town until March and has opened all doors to me. Today I helped resolve a technical problem with their speakers, and preceded to film the rehearsal for the assistant artistic director. Although it was in the voyeuristic stage of interaction, I know that over the next month strong relationships will form with the company, and through Jelon, the rest of Brazil.
I am enrolled in a language school and have picked up a decent amount of Portuguese during my first week here. The language is instrumental to my time in Belo Horizonte, Sao Paulo, and Rio, and I am digging deep into dictionaries and conjugation charts every night. At no other point during my journey have I felt such a time crunch. I have five months here, if my visa extension goes through six, and I foresee many collaborations throughout the country. Carnaval starts tonight, and loud police sirens and screams color the auburn air.
12.11.2007
The Melbourne International Arts Festival
For seventeen rapid days in October, Melbourne hosts its premiere fete, the Melbourne International Arts Festival. Presenting a diverse and challenging cross-section of the international performing and visual arts sector, the 2007 Melbourne Festival captured with depth the contrasting hues and concerns of contemporary art. During the festival the approachable and charismatic artistic director Kristy Edmunds displayed her untouchable vision and aptitude for the life of the contemporary arts festival. Quick to speak on the differences between a festival and a more regular arts presenting organization, Edmunds' presence permeated all hours of the gathering, from early morning press events to last call at the Artist Lounge or Spiegeltent. The founder of PICA (Portland Institute for Contemporary Art) and its celebrated TBA festival, Edmund's cool and broad perspective on the necessity of contemporary art within a responsible society informed the breadth of the artistic programming.
During the festival the stand-out gems were the many events revolving around the residency of Merce Cunningham and his company the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Termed the Merce Cunningham Residency by the festival, all in all there were at least two dozen events, exhibitions, and concerts connected to Cunnigham's presence in Melbourne. Pieces from Cunnningham's repertory performed during the festival included Suite for Five (1956-1958), eyeSpace (2006/2007), BIPED (1999), Views on Stage (2004), and Split Sides (2003), which included live accompaniment by Sigur Ros.
Surpassing all of these performances in its uniqueness, The Melbourne Event was a free and outdoor performance in Melbourne's Federation Square, a bizarre and modern civic center which served as an apt backdrop for Cunningham's urban yet illuminating aesthetic. There was a transcendent harmony between the trams and traffic that travelled through the heart of Melbourne with the spontaneous pace of the chance-informed choreography and musical score.
During the festival the stand-out gems were the many events revolving around the residency of Merce Cunningham and his company the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Termed the Merce Cunningham Residency by the festival, all in all there were at least two dozen events, exhibitions, and concerts connected to Cunnigham's presence in Melbourne. Pieces from Cunnningham's repertory performed during the festival included Suite for Five (1956-1958), eyeSpace (2006/2007), BIPED (1999), Views on Stage (2004), and Split Sides (2003), which included live accompaniment by Sigur Ros.
Surpassing all of these performances in its uniqueness, The Melbourne Event was a free and outdoor performance in Melbourne's Federation Square, a bizarre and modern civic center which served as an apt backdrop for Cunningham's urban yet illuminating aesthetic. There was a transcendent harmony between the trams and traffic that travelled through the heart of Melbourne with the spontaneous pace of the chance-informed choreography and musical score.
Other notable performances of the festival were those by Dutch theater group Dood Paard, the music of Dan Zanes, Laurie Anderson, Toshi Reagon and Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, and Kiki & Herb's raucous Magical Drinking Tour.
The dance presenting included a premiere of Sydney based choreographer Shaun Parker titled This Show is About People, the elaborate Kagemi of Sankai Juku, Glow by Melbourne locals Chunky Move, and The Show Must Go On by Jérome Bell.
The dance presenting included a premiere of Sydney based choreographer Shaun Parker titled This Show is About People, the elaborate Kagemi of Sankai Juku, Glow by Melbourne locals Chunky Move, and The Show Must Go On by Jérome Bell.
9.18.2007
DesArt-Indigenous Dance Performance in Australia Part 1
I met Patrick outside of the Alice Springs Resort, a grassy oasis sitting awkwardly amidst the arid and sandy valley that cradles Alice Springs. He is currently the producer of a dance performance on September 8th connected with the MobArts festival. The festival is produced by DesArt, an organization in Alice Springs and Darwin that lobbies for the representation and respect for the creations and rights of the Aboriginal people of Australia. The Australian government has displayed legislation that is nothing short of racist, and the white black relations of this country are heated and unjust.
On August 17th, 2007, the parliament in Canberra passed a law that some say will go down in history as one of the most racist legislations in modern society. Others are more receptive of the policy, as it provides huge funding for infrastructure such as medical care, police, and housing projects. Conversely, state wide bans on grog (alcohol) infringe on what is normally conceived of as human rights. Here are two different articles from Australian source on the legislation. Australian Broadcasting Company , AAP.
The dance event brings together some of the oldest and most respected members of the different tribes, and has a special importance considering the recent legislations of the government.
The timing of the event in relation to recent legislation is not the only factor of unique importance to the dance event. The old telegraph station is one of the fist colonial settlements the English built in Alice Springs. Part missionary, part cattle ranch, the settlement was responsible for the ‘re-education’ of the Aboriginals. Many of the dancers have parents and grandparents who were round up by the mission, only to experience dislocation, sickness, and sometimes death.
Patrick was quick to warn me that the dance performance would not be a display of remarkably dynamic choreography. Aside from the Mornington Island tribe who is notorious for their expressive dances, dance for indigenous communities in central Australia is not, by their definition, a mode of performance. More so, dance is an appendage for ceremonial events such as meetings between tribes and initiation rights. This performance starts to blur the boundaries between ceremony and performance, and the terms of the event have been a touchy issue for both Patrick and the eight tribes attending. The languages represented by the tribes attending are the Pitantantjarra, Ngaanyatjarra, Arrernte, Alyawarre, and Luritja. The special guests coming from far out of town are the Mornington Island Dancers. Hailing from Queensland, the Mornington Island group has an extensive international touring history, and is notorious for their more elaborate dances.
Historically, dance corroborees (meetings between different tribes) of the sort to be had on September 8th are held out bush. They are not open to any individuals who have not been initiated into the Aboriginal community. The Aboriginals to this day practice a very important initiation ceremony. For the males this includes circumcision during the teenage years, I am not sure what the woman undergo, but it is now held in close contact with health facilities. Before, when the dances were only to be viewed by initiated members of the community, the dances were thought of not as a performance or as choreographed expression, but moreover the accompaniment to the ritual or ceremony at hand, which was undoubtedly more important than the dance’s movements. Here, dance is tremendously tied to storytelling, ultimately linked to different clans' totemic animals, and the land that these totems entitle them to. 'Songlines' are songs that tell the story of the territories that each tribe guards over, and from what I've read a whole mapping of the territories of Australia can be drawn from the ancient songs of the Aboriginals. The connection between the dances presented on September 8th and the ‘dreaming’ of their totemic animal is inextricable.
Patrick and DesArt are trying to bridge the gap between the arts of the Aboriginals with the dominant culture of white Australia. Through sensitive preparations and much discussion with the different performers, the performance, on September the 8th, will be the first of what many people here hope to be a tradition of supported public performances of indigenous dance. The benefit goes to hugely diverse areas of society. From the indigenous performers who get the chance to celebrate their culture, to their children who often dance in the performance, to the divisions in the dominantly white community of Alice Springs and, more broadly, Australia, the dance performers will hopefully be one of unification and recompense.
In a society where problems of domestic abuse, alcoholism, and diabetes plague daily life, these dance events offer a chance for tremendous gathering and the meeting of old friends. 8 different groups are attending, some from more than 1000 km away. The next week will be spent preparing the location at a dry river bed, promoting the performance around town, and spreading the word to the many hostels for indigenous elderly and disabled.
'NZAC' New Zealand's Arts Curriculum
My intention to travel to New Zealand as part of my Watson project came to fruition in Hong Kong while attending the Hong Kong dance and education festival. While in Hong Kong, I was compelled by New Zealand's forward thinking dedication to dance as an art essential to society.
In the U.S., the majority of community dance programs and dance outreach programs are administered by arts presenting organizations and private dance companies. In New Zealand, the government picks some of that effort up. Curious of the history and labour that went into passing NZAC (New Zealand Arts Curriculum), I sat down with one of its primary designers, Dr. Christina Hong.
Currently associate professor at Unitec’s dance department, New Zealand’s leading university for contemporary dance and choreography, Dr. Hong was instrumental if not essential in passing NZAC. NZAC is a government-funded arts education policy that makes dance compulsory for primary school children. I sat down with Dr. Hong to talk about the hurdles of getting such an innovative policy off the ground.
When asked about gathering support for NZAC, Dr. Hong replied, "New Zealand was always ahead of its time with regards to arts advocacy. One must remember our size can be our greatest strength. I always figure that because we are so small, any arts policy that might be possible, however forward, would be possible here."
As for getting dance considered within the New Zealand Arts Curriculum, she said it was important to view dance, like visual art, and drama, and music, as one of the four expressive arts. “Once that community was crafted within the four other art-forms, it was much easier to get NZAC off the ground. We were also in an environment in which the three other representatives were all willing to work together, never was the drama or music leader not willing to budge on something. Given the cooperation between the four disciplines, progress within the Ministry of Education was possible.” Viewing dance as its own breed, a more feral animal than the other three expressive arts, would probably have buried any chance for a government funded compulsory dance curriculum.
She went on to describe how a successful metaphor, ‘literacy,’ became wide spread in the arts and education sector. “In 1999, 'literacy' emerged as a popular metaphor through which to present arts advocacy. Being literate, in any discipline, became something we often described the importance of dance through. It also meshed with my own dedication to post-modernity, and its presence in New Zealand as a multi-cultural society.”
When I first heard Dr. Hong speak in Hong Kong, she first greeted the audience in Maori, than in English. New Zealand has been innovative and broad-minded in embracing its position as a post-colonial nation dedicated to the diverse cultural aesthetics of contemporary society.
She went on discussing the problems with quantifying the benefits of dance, and more broadly, art. “Another point of argumentation was fitting dance under the outcomes based education model. Some argued that dance might be quantifiable, and its outcome apt to some sort of evaluation system, but that is really impossible.”
One of the other reasons NZAC was successful was the timing. The proposed it directly in the middle of a 5-year national curriculum evaluation, the Ministry was prime for that kind of pro-active move. In the fall NZ is up for a presidential election. The Nationals, who have been out of party for the past 8 years are gaining momentum against the incumbent Labour party. The longevity of New Zealand’s revolutionary arts curriculum policy is not certain.
Documented benefits exist, for more references to the affect of NZ integrating dance into the public school system, view:
http://www.tki.org.nz/
http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/
In the U.S., the majority of community dance programs and dance outreach programs are administered by arts presenting organizations and private dance companies. In New Zealand, the government picks some of that effort up. Curious of the history and labour that went into passing NZAC (New Zealand Arts Curriculum), I sat down with one of its primary designers, Dr. Christina Hong.
Currently associate professor at Unitec’s dance department, New Zealand’s leading university for contemporary dance and choreography, Dr. Hong was instrumental if not essential in passing NZAC. NZAC is a government-funded arts education policy that makes dance compulsory for primary school children. I sat down with Dr. Hong to talk about the hurdles of getting such an innovative policy off the ground.
When asked about gathering support for NZAC, Dr. Hong replied, "New Zealand was always ahead of its time with regards to arts advocacy. One must remember our size can be our greatest strength. I always figure that because we are so small, any arts policy that might be possible, however forward, would be possible here."
As for getting dance considered within the New Zealand Arts Curriculum, she said it was important to view dance, like visual art, and drama, and music, as one of the four expressive arts. “Once that community was crafted within the four other art-forms, it was much easier to get NZAC off the ground. We were also in an environment in which the three other representatives were all willing to work together, never was the drama or music leader not willing to budge on something. Given the cooperation between the four disciplines, progress within the Ministry of Education was possible.” Viewing dance as its own breed, a more feral animal than the other three expressive arts, would probably have buried any chance for a government funded compulsory dance curriculum.
She went on to describe how a successful metaphor, ‘literacy,’ became wide spread in the arts and education sector. “In 1999, 'literacy' emerged as a popular metaphor through which to present arts advocacy. Being literate, in any discipline, became something we often described the importance of dance through. It also meshed with my own dedication to post-modernity, and its presence in New Zealand as a multi-cultural society.”
When I first heard Dr. Hong speak in Hong Kong, she first greeted the audience in Maori, than in English. New Zealand has been innovative and broad-minded in embracing its position as a post-colonial nation dedicated to the diverse cultural aesthetics of contemporary society.
She went on discussing the problems with quantifying the benefits of dance, and more broadly, art. “Another point of argumentation was fitting dance under the outcomes based education model. Some argued that dance might be quantifiable, and its outcome apt to some sort of evaluation system, but that is really impossible.”
One of the other reasons NZAC was successful was the timing. The proposed it directly in the middle of a 5-year national curriculum evaluation, the Ministry was prime for that kind of pro-active move. In the fall NZ is up for a presidential election. The Nationals, who have been out of party for the past 8 years are gaining momentum against the incumbent Labour party. The longevity of New Zealand’s revolutionary arts curriculum policy is not certain.
Documented benefits exist, for more references to the affect of NZ integrating dance into the public school system, view:
http://www.tki.org.nz/
http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/
Community Dance in Auckland, New Zealand
On August 14th I visited an undergraduate class of Dr. Ralph Buck. ‘Community Dance’ is a class engineered by Dr. Buck to educate dance students how to teach dance to children in primary and secondary schools. I first met Dr. Buck at the Hong Kong Dance and Education festival in the summer of 2006. He serves as associate professor of dance at the University of Auckland and in 1994, lobbied for a complete revision of the dance pedagogy at one of New Zealand’s leading universities. His vision of dance education is one driven by, ‘joining solidarity with significance.’ Finding the most significant ways to fit dance into the multi-cultural aesthetics of New Zealand fuels his efforts.
An essential component for the second and third year students enrolled in the class is to design and teach a three session long arts residency program. Dr. Buck usually contacts a local school for children with special needs to work with throughout the semester. I attended one of the sessions taught by Dr. Buck’s students, as well as a follow up class in the classroom at the University.
This class is innovative in its focus on teaching dance to children with special needs. Moreover, underlying Dr. Buck’s pedagogy is a commitment to providing undergraduate and graduate students of dance the skills and knowledge to carve out a career with dance in New Zealand’s society. Rather than teaching endless ballet, he teaches how to design and propose an arts residency program. Instead of spending hours on the annals of dance history, he chooses instead to imbibe his students with the tools to use dance in alternative community programs throughout Oceania—one of his alums is currently working as the founder of a traditional dance competition in Fiji. In an environment of dance education and pedagogy that is primarily concerned with pumping out technically impeccable dancers for a market that is jammed with bodies, Dr. Buck’s conception of what it means to teach dance is visionary and sustainable—whether or not it hinders perfect pirouettes.
Two weeks after our first meeting I was invited to accompany one of his classes to their residency program. The joy on the kid’s faces as we entered the gymnasium at the school outside of Auckland was buzzing. As soon as they saw Dr. Buck, smiling kids exclaimed Dr. Buck! Dr. Buck! The idea behind Dr. Buck's class is to promote the completion of a final product. Directly related to the situation of dancers going into schools or other institutions as artists-in-residence, they have four classes to work with the students, with the ultimate goal of having a performance. In this community dance program, moving beyond the stage includes moving onto the stage.
The class broke into two groups. The first group started a warm up that included running, breathing exercises, and expanding and decreasing size (get as large as you can, get as small as you can). Meanwhile, the other group started a warm up by having the students do solos, each about 10 seconds long. One kid, Dean, was a great hip-hop dance, he was a 21 year old baller, who offered shout-outs to his homies, his aunties, his crew, his ladies, and his grandfather. Sporting a diamond cross as bling, he was raw, down to his practiced popping and locking. Another student, Blair, was testy, grumpy, not trusting anyone but he smiled broad when he actually started dancing.
One could not estimate or evaluate how important these classes are to the children. Although some of the student’s class leaned towards the side of teaching new moves rather than offering the students an avenue towards the creative process of choreography, the impact was ecstatic. Not only do the students of Dr. Buck’s undergraduate class in community dance learn the challenges of bringing dance to a diverse selection of individuals, simultaneously a community who would otherwise not have access to the benefits of dance might open their minds to creative movement.
8.27.2007
Abstract
This website is a forum for writings evoked by experiences abroad. While traveling through Oceania, West Africa, South America, and Europe, I will post writings predominantly based on my interactions with dance. The title of this website, 'Moving Beyond the Stage,' is the title of a yearlong project I proposed to the Watson Foundation (http://www.watsonfellowship.org/). I am now traveling for twelve months researching various incarnations of that groovy, elusive, and ancient animal called dance. Posted writings vary in form. Whether reports of interviews with dance advocates or practitioners, or observations of innovative and alternative community dance efforts, or critical reviews of performances, this blog is primarily a stage for the cavernous mysteries of art in its international manifestations.
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