Global Networks...

It was so great to meet and connect with our MAPP community at our Skype on Sunday, and what a big one it was! I think Skype served us well. Particularly on the level of supporting each other, sharing thoughts and questions as we embark on our individual modules. It always amazes me how easy it is to connect and also how addictive it is at times. There are new forms appearing at a fast pace. Technologies changing rapidly and connections growing. Ken Robinson who writes on the subject of creativity, touches on how we are in the process of great change and our communication methods have gained rapid momentum; “Inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil points out that evolution of biological life and of technology have followed the same pattern. They both take a long time to get going but advances build on one another and progress erupts at an increasingly furious pace” Robinson (2001p.27) So I guess we may be at the point in time of the Dinosaurs now that analogue technologies are dying and we have reached a sort of amphibian stage. Who knows we might have Skype set in our reading glasses soon as we go about our business. I don’t think it’s far off. With Spotify (with which I have only just begun to understand) I can connect with 111,625 followers who also firstly want to ‘chill’ then acutely want to ‘chill with ‘tranquility with a beat’ what a crazy idea if you were to tell the fourteen year old me alone with my Sony Walkman! I find it exciting how our experiences have led us all to this one place. This mostly virtual place, and how our learning community of the ‘now’ is so fruitful to us. Our global network includes students that have connected with us from Dubai, The States and all over the UK. Giving us all the opportunity to develop ourselves our thinking and our pedagogies. We have discussed our commonalities; our dance, our module handbooks, our anxiety’s and our excitement as we move forward in time with the development of our research journeys or mapping out of whom we are and where our past learning occurred. I expect our passages to this point are diverse. I would like to see our journeys painted on a map of the world visually and colourfully drawn with zig zaggy lines all meeting at a final point, demonstrating our journeys from our first dance ever (where it took place) to the dance… our last dance or representation of our dance at the University theatre for our final viva’s. It may have been a slow drip urging you or a seed planted; a conversation with a colleague, an article in a journal or a search on the web that led us here to MAPP DTP at Middlesex University. Who knows, but somehow we have all arrived at this virtual place within and belonging to our ‘global network’ Decades ago we would have all had to physically have met in a classroom, Possibly moved city or town. I feel lucky… and wish us all a great term.

Today makes me...Thank you Summer

Looking back over the summer period I feel fortunate to have had the time to be a little more grounded in my thoughts with moments of stillness too having the chance to getaway and experience a change of scenery, climate and culture. Organically time has been on my side to ground my plan and to read my key texts and absorbing some of the literature has proved a valuable experience. I knew for me I would not be able to switch off completely but also knew I needed rest from full time work, family and juggling as we all do. Certain texts the reading flows and others are a struggle however returning to my research question usually sorts me out as I have had to be strict in not reading literature that leads me to get off the point i.e what I really want to find out/my research enquiry. We only have 3 months! The work of Anna Halprin has gelled together everything I understand ‘dance’ to be for my consciousness, my practice and pedagogy. Evaluating the therapeutic and creative aspects of dance in the lives of children within the dance class. As a communication and expression through embodied movement. My hope is that I can understand through my research settings and experiences and what this flags up within a children’s dance class. I decided to get my head out of the books and practically experience it for myself. I was quite scared of this, considering I spend my days dancing, teaching and facilitating dance to my pupils. This was a new experience for me and as with the MA and every module I have approached will changed me also. I finished work last Friday at 9pm got in the car and started my adventure to Folkestone (with a brief stay over at my sisters.) So I arrive at 9am and go straight to the beach! Just me myself and I and then head to the studio where I meet Lian Wilson who has been trained by Anna Halprin herself and danced on “The Deck” at Tamalpa, Marin County, California. Anna is now 94! The class was small, mostly non dancers, eight students in total. During the course of the weekend stories of our bodies unraveled and I witnessed some of the most moving and embodied dances I have seen in a long time. The commitment to each’s dance was very special and it has changed me or found me again? I’m not quite sure yet. One of the things that stays with me is something that was said by Lian the Tamalpa teacher that; “Our minds can trick us, but our bodies don’t lie.” This really helped me with the notion of embodiment, speaking through movement, listening and knowledge held in our bodies. I am also two weeks into my research. Three different contexts: • State Primary School • Special School • Private Dance School Already some notable things are being flagged up and sometimes when a child says something or moves the data hits you like a bolt of lightning. One boy in a group discussion was explaining that the reason he enjoyed dance was that he could be free. He went on to give an example of when asked to draw at school they always had to copy a painting or style and what he wanted to do was draw his own feelings. Another girl said (who has an abundance of natural resources when it comes to movement and dance) “Dance is as important as science!” On the other hand there was a boy who in week one explained he didn’t like dance. So I am interested to see what unravels there. Week 2 and with the setting and situation being a little less unfamiliar he did join in. There has been a great deal of excitement, giggling, shyness, happiness and even angry swearing so emotions are become apparent. I welcome them, which I think the children find bizarre too. I am really looking forward to connecting with the MAPP community again and wish us all a great term. Really happy we have the opportunity to connect via Skype twice a month also even if it be just to listen sometimes. There I’ve challenged myself!! Speak soon everyone. If you have a chance take a look…this is beautiful… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWxpn8wOj70

Dance Pedagogy

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zUh3ISo7Ykw

Beyond Somatophobia- Karen Barbour 2005

http://www.junctures.org/index.php/junctures/article/viewFile/140/144

Dance with benefits

http://socialdance.stanford.edu/syllabi/smarter.htm

Twyla says...."You gotta have faith" Interesting Interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atGJkkzVe54

Keep on Moving...

In the recent weeks I have not had a choice but to work through things in an primal organic way. Like a survival for my mental wellbeing to stay comfortable in this state of ‘unknown’ feelings of anxiety, tiredness, prioritising, thinking and feeling my way as if on my hands and knees blind searching for my glasses. Well I think I have found them. Hence me blogging! finding my voice again to say something. Weirdly this actually juxtaposes with real life as I am getting new glasses! I have moved house and I realise looking back that I did not absorb the stress of the build up with enormity of moving my family etc …instead I immersed myself into Module 1 in my MA. I thought seeing as I had had a long period of numbness in my mind that the emphasis had to be on and in my mind. In module 1 the focused on reflection and getting my mind to dissect my practice, my life, my motivations and philosophies seemed to sit comfortably with me. However observing and discussing ideas on embodiment and the whole course embedded with mind and body connectivity I realise I have to face the next phase of ‘me’ and not forget my body it cannot be left behind. Sometimes when teaching one spends so much time looking and thinking about the bodies displayed in front of us we forget our own. Well I do. So the physicality of Bikram yoga in half term really has addressed the wakeup call my body and mind needed. Lying in Savasana staring at the ceiling I began to piece my thinking of the last few weeks together. I realised I was connecting with my body again. It then got me to think about times when I have felt a loss of that connection and or shock at the enormity of experiences of life like ‘writer’s block’ to dance. A similar pattern emerged at times of grief, loss, change all have all taken a toll on my body and mind connection and dance has always brought me back. I have always been interested in people and the journey of life and also considering death too, mortality and our time on earth. How we as humans we seek connection with other humans, why we choose the paths we take, who we share our lives with and how time can change us. Over the last day; my questions and ideas have led me closer I hope to…linking together my thoughts and reading over the last few weeks and ultimately my research! Recent events seem to be calming and I am absorbing them as life experiences as part of the journey. As we are all finding out juggling work with study. Art mirrors life or art is life? Many dancers use their own deepest life experiences to fuel their most prominent work. When watching Martha Graham’s piece “Lamentation” it struck me how it depicts grief so clearly and uncomfortably. It speaks a language directly to anyone who has suffered the loss of your own flesh and blood. It is a powerful, visual expression of sorrow. Martha in interview speaks of an audience member that approached her afterwards and thanked her as she had lost a son and had up until that performance not been able to cry. It has done its job very well if it creates any emotion in a human. As that is what art is partly there for? It stirred an emotion to promote healing amidst grieving. Why does a person buy a painting? Why do we listen to a certain song at a certain time? For some it is purely an aesthetic thing or even materialistic thing, for others there has to be a story; there has to be meaning or a memory recalled. To understand this connection between dance as art and its power to heal and communicate link people together on an equal plane even as therapy or learning experience is where my interests lie. I am by no means a therapist but I have seen in my classes young and old gain some sort of therapeutic, creative experience that has nurtured their lives and filled them with something of their own, or made them see things in a different way through ‘the dance’. Looking at dance as a form of creative expression for recovery that has psychological, social and communal benefits such as of a Morris dancing group or a ladies tap group for instance. One thing I have seen in the deterioration of my father and his mobility in his final years and that as soon as your mind gives up on the will to move your body to the best of its ability it is a spiral downwards both mentally and physically. So movement and dance has a place for everyone’s mental and physical health. Anna Halprin’s ideas of an awareness of the body and movement (Thank you Adesola) as a healing medium interested me. Firstly I liked her as a person (from what I could see and read) and I seem to be able to connect with her philosophy not so much “parades and changes” where it mainly comprises of disrobing as to me nakedness (the dancers perform naked) is something I am not impressed by or shocked at. True nakedness to me is something I don’t think I am capable of with anyone… or even myself at times. Nakedness in the exposing of fears, lies and secrets. That would be more shocking. The work I really loved was from when Anna worked with Senior citizens for a year, found an Island and used rocking chairs for them to sit in whilst they moved and danced rocking in the sunshine as she said ‘she had never seen such soulful dancing in her life’. Anna Halprin 2005 Anna went through cancer and remission all that have been expressed through her work to me an inspiring and likeable lady. Whilst recently exploring various choreographers work I have seen in myself a definite like of some things and with others on some occasion’s anger and frustration at my lack of connection with it. I stepped back and thought about this. It’s ok to not like something it doesn’t mean it is not valuable to me or anyone else. It also helped me to decipher where my interests lie.