Teaching Dance at The Brooklyn Conservatory for Music
/Have I told you about this already?
My “audition” to teach dance to little kids at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music?
How I had to demonstrate my approach to teaching rhythm on the first day, the sixth day, and the twelfth day of a twelve week session?
How rhythm - articulating it, demonstrating it, counting it out - I’m just so bad at that. So so bad.
First week, I said, would go like this:
“1…2…3…4.
1…2…3…4.”
Every time I said “1”, I hit the lollipop drum I had brought in, with my lollipop mallet, dipping on the 1, rising on the 2, 3, 4.
Big nods and smiles from the committee doing the interview.
“Go on.”
Sixth week, I said, maybe something like this:
“1..2………34…5..……6…7…."
Randomly striking the drum whenever I felt like it and stomping through the space - also randomly.
Side glances from all on the committee.
Twelfth week:
“12 12 12 12 12 12 12!!"
I sang, forgetting all about the drum, spinning around while making strange movements with my arms, and ending in a “ta da” sort of pose.
Long pause, an "ahem" followed by:
"Do you know anything about rhythm, or teaching rhythm?"
“Not really, but since they're only 3 and 4 years old, having fun together is the priority in this situation, right?”
I was ushered out of The Brooklyn Conservatory of Music so quickly that I forgot my lollipop drum.
My mallet too.
I was asked to substitute teach an adult ballet class at The Brooklyn Arts Exchange one Saturday (my rhythm appears to fail me, time and time again — in Brooklyn).
I’ve taken loads of ballet classes, but never really thought about how one would account for, or plan the counting and rhythm part of a ballet class.
Because that aspect of things felt so completely out of my depth of understanding, I pretended it didn’t matter that much, and I could figure it out on the fly.
Halfway through barre, a woman interrupted my teaching:
“Stop. Just stop. This is ridiculous. No one can follow what you are saying, AT ALL. Please just stop. Let’s call it a day, and go home. We’ll ask for our money back on Monday, okay everybody?”
Oy, the humiliation on that day was of a certain kind — it makes me shutter thinking of my hubris, imagining I could fake that kind of thing with no one noticing.
Teaching technique has always been hard for me when it comes to the rhythm and counting part.
I always start with a
“5, 6, 7, 8…”
because it seems like the right thing to do, and I’ve heard other teachers do it, and I mean, All That Jazz, but for me, it’s really not the way to go:
After the “8” everything dissolves into nothing resembling what preceded that number.
My students have rolled their eyes, many times at that particular moment of loss during dance class.
I, however, have always plowed through, and kept me, and them, dancing.
To the rhythm or not, we’ve kept dancing.
And there was the time, which I know I told you about, at The Alvin Ailey School:
I was in the front row of a Samba Class, having the time of my life, dancing to the drums, sweating, shaking, and following the choreography pretty well, I thought, until the teacher came over and whispered in my ear:
“Go to the back of the room. You're messing up the entire class with your lack of rhythm, which is off and wrong, and just…please, step out of the front row and move to the back of the room NOW.”
Ah well.
These things happen.
No more ballet or teaching rhythm to little kids for me.
Samba though - I’d go again, for sure, but I’d place myself in the back this time, out of respect for the work, and out of understanding more clearly, what I’m good at, and what I”m not.
Some things you can fake.
Some you can't.
Your dance mission for the week is to find your own rhythm by listening to your breath.
By slowing down and getting quiet.
Notice how fast you want to move.
How slow.
Does your dance stop and start, or does it continually flow?
Notice your breath and let the rhythm, in this moment, come from there.
With Warmth,
Joanna
of
Joanna and The Agitators
sweetly agitating/persistently upending
www.joannaandtheagitators.com