Understanding a Centre Between Ground and Sky: Reflections on Aikido and Dance

By Colleen Snell

Before my first Aikido class began, I sat in seiza, my lower legs bent beneath me. I felt vulnerable and uncertain. I felt vaguely as if I were trespassing, bearing witness to a powerful and enigmatic ritual. Dressed in a white practice keikogi, I was ready to fall, to stand, to focus. I was ready to look like a complete fool.

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Clean calm blue, quiet. Clean, calm blue.
We were given white clothes told left over right, knotted them fumbling
Vulnerable, wide-eyed small among tall people with wide feet, deep roots.
Waiting for the class to happen to me, waiting for me to
Happen to it.
Fresh, un-skinned.
We clapped warmed up breathing moving together.
We took practice swords; I introduced my hands to mine, then together
Falling folding
Elbows knees and limbs.
Transparent,
Being wrapped in being.
Feeling warm and resonant, digesting
Deeply calm, clean, blue.

– September 22nd, 2010, written following my first Aikido lesson

Before my first Aikido class began, I sat in seiza, my lower legs bent beneath me. I felt vulnerable and uncertain. I felt vaguely as if I were trespassing, bearing witness to a powerful and enigmatic ritual. Dressed in a white practice keikogi, I was ready to fall, to stand, to focus. I was ready to look like a complete fool. It was a wonderful feeling, as it had been a long time since something completely unexpected happened to me in physical practice. Indeed, I have been dancing since the age of four. To say dance has influenced my life would be a considerable understatement. Over the years, my physical responses have become trained, even outside of the dance studio. I have been taught to see my body as a “dance” body: a flexing coil of neurons and muscle. Sometimes it is a mechanical device that can be objectively assessed for strengths and weaknesses; sometimes it is the song of Walt Whitman’s body electric, seen from within and illuminated by the vibrancy of kinaesthetic awareness. Even at rest, my body is a dance body. Paradoxically, I have been dancing for so long I sometimes forget how to think of it as anything else. As I continue to study dance, to embody dance, I have begun to see the limits of my perspective, and to respond by seeking physical training in new contexts.

My first class at the Tetsushinkan Dojo left me with enduring afterimages, both tangible and ineffable. Above all I felt possibility stirring … the possibility of moving to a primarily functional body, in contrast to my experience of an aesthetic body. In Aikido, an uke “attacks” by striking or holding a tori, the “defender”, although these roles can become quite fluid. The tori uses their technique in a “throw”, or to bring their partner safely to the ground. In practicing Aikido I have begun to understand how to manage my energetic state; consequently, my body can absorb a strike, or mutate and shift to find space around a hold. As I continued training, I began to challenge my identity, my concept of self and my understanding of my own capabilities. The learning process inspired me. I finally felt I was receiving the tools I needed to pragmatically respond to some of the “dance problems” I had been pondering. This in turn transformed my experience of technique class, contact improvisation and creative practice. It has dynamically influenced how I see myself as a dance artist, a martial artist, and indeed, a self in the world. In learning Aikido I have constructed a new, if ephemeral, Aikido “body”. More than a set of complementary trained physical responses, this is a holistic embodiment practice – a new way of being in the world.

Breath-power

Aikido embodiment is a state: a somatic sense of moving from the centre, or tanden. The tanden is the body’s centre of gravity, located below the navel. This is an area dancer and Aikidoist Sasha Roubicek calls a “focal point for breathing” in her article for the Journal of Dance and Somatic Science (2009). Exhalation provokes the reflex to inhale, and as we inhale, the diaphragm descends and compresses our organs, which move outwards. In Aikido, breathing is generative, linked closely with the will to survive. It is this force of spirit, anchored in the body, which is the root of movement. The tanden is an expression of ki energy. Kisshomaru Ueshiba, son of Aikido founder Morihei Ueshiba, describes the tanden as “inseparable from breath-power” in “The Spirit of Aikido”. This is Aikido embodiment at its most basic, and it is this understanding that has triggered a change in my physical awareness.

Unlike traditional dance training, Aikido practice has challenged my way of being – both within and outside of studio practice. While dancing I would struggle with technique and corrections – sometimes leaving the studio exalted by my achievement or discouraged by what I perceived to be a lack of progress. During my Aikido lessons I began to realize class was not only training my body. I was learning bushido, a way of being a non-violent warrior. In Aikido and the New Warrior (1985) Bob Aubrey states the purpose of Aikido training is to work towards the “victory of peace”. This peace is internal harmony, it is responding to stress and emergency with calm confidence. Thus my understanding of embodiment, although it began in Aikido practice, became obvious to me as I considered my sense of self between classes. This was a larger self – not a variation of how I held my self in esteem. It was a new way of considering my physical body and indeed a new way of being myself rather than a new way of looking at myself.

Clearly this way of being has relevance in the context of artistic performance and creation, particularly in situations of great stress where emotional resilience is required. After an evening Aikido class, I feel the “residue” of my practice when I dance the next day. In class I meet variations on the same corrections – corrections I have received so many times I have come to think of them as prosaic dilemmas of contemporary technique. These hackneyed phrases include “move from your pelvis”, “feel grounded” and “pay attention to your breathing”. There is a reason these phrases are repeated – but it is has been difficult to respond to them. Aikido has begun to give me the tools to take action, to build my tanden and understand how to move from it. I now understand my centre as a “physical” place, that is, how it relates to physics as a centre of gravity, not only how it relates to anatomy as a muscular area. In dance I have been distracted by abdominal contraction, seeking to engage the transverse abdominis and rectus abdominis and to fortify the internal and external obliques. Centering in Aikido builds the tanden as an organic place, heavy and powerful. It is a massive region to be expanded, not only contracted.

The tanden is also a poetic place; it frames the way I interface with space. In technique I now have the choice to contract or expand my centre; my body is available to mutate in the moment, to modulate energetically. This engagement of centre has opened me to the possibility of malleability, and to the importance of dynamism and nuance in movement. I have learned I can absorb with my centre, not only “contract and hold” my abdominals, or simply “drop” the weight of my pelvis. I can eat space as I press outward. This kind of engagement has enabled me to see a great depth of possibility. I can open or close my centre, throw it through space, lift it out of my hips, release it or rebound it through the balls of my feet into the floor. Thus, I have discovered I can intuitively engage with my centre. This sense of choice in movement has begun to build itself from a non-verbal place within me, layer upon layer. It animates codified movement phrases vibrantly in the moment as I navigate through them, dynamically choosing from a repertoire of available responses.

Aikido and Contact Improvisation

Being movement, rather than consciously trying to manipulate it, has also had a tremendous impact on my decision-making process in dance, especially within the context of contact improvisation. It is within this framework that Aikido first appeared manifestly applicable to dance, not only in terms of pragmatic technique, but also poetically. Perhaps this should have been evident given contact improvisation founder Steve Paxton developed aspects of his technique from Aikido training. Improvisation emphasizes the lived process rather than the achievement of a product. This phrase is wonderfully similar to my discovery of experiencing rather than manipulating, or working without looking at myself. It is the process – not the product – that dictates the outcome of any creative endeavour, indeed of any life-affirming activity. Thus my work in improvisation has shifted from improving my execution of future repertoire to a focus on my decision-making in the moment, much like responding to a situation in Aikido. Much of my understanding of centre was discovered in this context.

As I began to build my tanden, I became more capable of sensing my partners’ centres as well, and grew better at engaging with them while maintaining the integrity of my own intent. Many of my partners remarked I was “strong”, but this was not bristling muscular force, it was increased efficiency and focus. With my Aikido embodiment I could decide to use my centre to support or resist oncoming force, as in lifts, or to soften into someone and feel my centre of gravity abandon control as it left the floor. Increased choice and the power of centering has given me a heightened sense of self-assurance, which now enables me to take risks more confidently, trusting myself to respond safely if I hit the floor. There is new freshness to my dialogue with others. During improvisation I feel more in contact with the “essence” of others’ being; I am more capable of listening to their intentions. I predict my relationship with others – both dancers and non-dancers – will continue to evolve as I study Aikido. I have yet to fully comprehend how to assume responsibility for my own movement – versus trying to “make something happen” to another person. Although my short study of Aikido practice has enabled me to understand how to move more intuitively and to no longer look at myself in movement, I believe working to realize this same transition regarding a partner remains a rich area to explore.

On Being in the World

Aikido continues to fascinate me with its ability to transmit knowledge of being an integrated whole. Aikido techniques are at once functional and transformative. They have improved my efficiency while imbuing my movement with meaning. Aikido practice has been not only a gateway to embodiment, but also a way of relating to others as integrated beings, through eye contact, touch and focus. It is not surprising then to realize that by synthesizing improvisation, dance technique and Aikido practice, I have begun to develop a deeper understanding of the somatic possibilities inherent within my choreography. My practice now stresses how I experience embodiment and how I create a sense of myself to generate movement from within. Again, I am no longer looking at myself. Furthermore, I can now recognize this same shift of understanding is reflected in much larger paradigm shifts in contemporary dance making. I see my transition apparent in how I am drawn to CI, Fulkerson’s release technique and Ohad Naharin’s Gaga. All of these examples parallel the meeting of Aikido and dance, working from both literally and figuratively a “new centre” – the individual’s subjective experience of movement.

Focus, centring, breathing and dancing … Aikido is permeating everything I do. It has changed how I drink a class of water (dropping my elbow to increase efficiency) and how I stand in the subway (centre dropped low for stability). Small details like these are of great importance. More dramatically, in December I was attacked from behind as I arrived home late one night. A middle-aged man had seen me take money from a cash machine, and in desperation, grabbed my bag. We struggled and he prevailed, running away with my bag. Getting to my feet, I pursued him, and he stopped, emptying the contents of my purse on the pavement. He was quite threatening, and while the street was deserted, I nevertheless felt calm descend. I spoke to him quietly, telling him where to find my money. He took thirty-five pounds and left me my camera, my wallet and my notebooks. Excepting a scraped knee, I was unharmed. At first as I reflected on this experience, I felt disappointed and afraid. I was disappointed because I had not produced an Aikido technique; I did not use a method I had learned to bring my attacker to the ground. And yet, I have come to see I did use Aikido to defend myself. In a situation of urgency and stress I acted non-violently, simultaneously discovering an intense calm and a presence bristling with awareness. I did not stand outside myself; I acted intuitively from a centre I previously had not known.

Aikido is not something to be practiced and then hermetically divided from other experience. On the contrary, Aikido is a practice that cultivates the relationship of the self in the world. As an embodied individual, the only way to make sense of this new information is creatively. For several months now I have been working on choreographing as a whole, researching and exploring the somatic qualities of movement around the theme of survival. I have tried to understand the generative force of martial arts through my own story as a Canadian. I gravitate to the distinctiveness captured in Margaret Atwood’s quintessential book, Survival (1972). Describing Canadian identity, Atwood offers:
“Our stories are likely to be tales not of those who made it but of those who made it back, from the awful experience – the North, the snowstorm, the sinking ship – that killed everyone else. The survivor has no triumph or victory but the fact of his survival; he has little after his ordeal that he did not have before, except gratitude for having escaped with his life.” (para. 14).

This resonates within the context of Aikido practice, where there is no reward other than the continuation of training and there is no “winner”, there is only survival. To creatively reinforce my exploration of survival, I have employed imagery inspired by Aikido. With the support of four wonderful dancers, I have worked on filling and emptying the body with energy and breath, using this force to animate the dancers’ relationships and charge the space. I no longer see the dancers as mere physical entities, but integrated somas. Together we are attempting to create visual poetry through imaginative self-experience. Thus, my experience of Aikido has led me to understand the integrated self in a broader context while deepening my personal and cultural identity.

Since my first class at the Tetsushinkan Dojo in September 2010, much has changed. I have explored a functional body, energetic and integrated, both separate from and linked to my concept of myself as a dancer. I have enriched my identity and my understanding of my own capabilities. This in turn has transformed my experience of technique class, contact improvisation and creative choreographic practice. Aikido work has dynamically influenced how I see myself in the world at large, not just as a dance artist, but also as a martial artist. With the ephemeral embodiment of a “new warrior” I have seen Aikido’s potential to act as a gateway to the larger Gestalt, as a whole that is more than the sum of its teaching methods and training. I can now appreciate Aikido as a way of living with ritual, dignity and respect. While Aikido certainly has offered me solid strategies to “improve” my dance, I now understand “improvement” is not the intention. I am beginning to appreciate a new centeredness that validates my own experience of my movement – that my esteem must be holistic and internal not exterior to myself. Thus my introduction to Aikido practice has had a profound impact on my self, a resonance that has less to do with movement and more to do with a powerful understanding of not what I do, but how I am centered in the space between ground and sky.

Colleen Snell was born in Canada, where she began dancing at the age of four. She trained at Toronto’s Canadian Children’s Dance Theatre as a company member. She then completed her post-secondary education at LADMMI in Montreal, where she became fully bilingual. Colleen recently completed her Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Dance Studies with Distinction at the London Contemporary Dance School (LCDS) in England, and will soon complete her Masters thesis in Contemporary Dance, focusing on inter-subjective states. Colleen has worked with artists such as Irene Dowd, Risa Steinberg, Maeva Berthelot and Winifred Burnet-Smith (of the Hofesh Shechter Company). With Dancemakers she was a guest artist for the FastTrack series in 2007 and a teacher in the EDAP program for both 2010 and 2011. She is currently fifth kyu in Aikido.

Feature: Latin Nights: Salsa and Samba Sensations in Montréal

Article by Lys Stevens

Summary | Sommaire

Caroline Paré and "Mambo D" Delille Thomas at ¡ Vacilón ! by BIYA Productions / Photo by Marie-José Hains

Montréal writer Lys Stevens explores the vibrant culture of Latin dance and discovers that Samba, the dance she is currently developing a passion for, is one of the few forms that is not a partner dance.

La rédactrice montréalaise Lys Stevens explore la vive culture de la danse latine. Elle découvre que la samba – pour laquelle elle développe une passion – est une des rares formes de danse latine solo.

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Montréal writer Lys Stevens explores the vibrant culture of Latin dance and discovers that Samba, the dance she is currently developing a passion for, is one of the few forms that is not a partner dance. Merengue and bachata from the Dominican Republic; the cha-cha-cha, mambo and rumba from Cuba; forró and lambada from Brazil, the Argentine tango and the hugely popular salsa, are all dances performed in a couple. The multiplicity of forms and the interconnections of influences between them are dizzy-ing to a novice practitioner such as Stevens. What they have in common, including samba, is an Afro-Latino rhythmic base. Latin dance is a story of the displacement of peoples: at its foundation, Latin America is an uneven mix of indigenous peoples, European colonizers and Africans brought during the centuries-long trans-Atlantic slave trade of the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries. The mix creates a rich complex of cultural expressions, with dance a vital and treasured element among them. According to Montreal salsa dancer and teacher Caroline Paré, these are also ‘street’ dances: underground urban popular social dances that emerged as a social release and celebration of cultural roots. Many of these dances have a more refined ballroom dance counterpart that often has very little to do with the street form danced by the people who created them. But both streams are increasingly lending their energy and infectious qualities to the wider culture of dance in Canada.

La rédactrice montréalaise Lys Stevens explore la vive culture de la danse latine. Elle découvre que la samba – pour laquelle elle développe une passion – est une des rares formes de danse latine solo. Le merengue et la bachata de la République dominicaine ; le cha-cha-cha, le mambo et la rumba de Cuba ; le forró et la lambada du Brésil, le tango argentin et la très populaire salsa : voilà toutes des danses de couple. La multiplicité de formes et de filiations peut être étourdissante pour une débutante comme Stevens. Tous les styles, y compris la samba, partagent une base rythmique afro-latine. L’histoire de la danse latine s’inscrit dans la dispersion de peuples. À la base, l’Amérique latine est un mélange irrégulier d’autochtones, de colonisateurs et d’Africains déportés au cours de la traite des esclaves du quinzième au dix-huitième siècle. Le métissage donne lieu à un amalgame complexe d’expressions culturelles où la danse fait très bonne figure. Selon la Montréalaise Caroline Paré, artiste de danse salsa, les danses latines sont aussi des danses de rue, des danses sociales urbaines et marginales qui ont émergé comme échappatoire sociale et expression de traditions culturelles. Plusieurs styles comptent une contrepartie plus raffinée en danse de salon qui tient souvent très peu de la forme populaire et des peuples qui l’ont créée. Néanmoins, les deux courants prêtent de plus en plus leur énergie et leurs qualités contagieuses à la culture de danse au Canada.



Read the full article by Lys Stevens in the January/February 2012 issue of The Dance Current print magazine. | Lisez l'article intégral de Lys Stevens dans l’édition imprimée de janvier/février 2012 du Dance Current.

In Conversation: Zab Maboungou

In Conversation with Philip Szporer

Summary | Sommaire

Zab Maboungou / Photo by Cindy Diane Rhéault

Zab Maboungou has always moved well in the world. The dancer, choreographer, artistic director of Zab Maboungou/Compagnie Nyata Nyata, and a teacher of philosophy at Collège Montmorency in Laval, is a self-described “child of colonization”.

Zab Maboungou a toujours bien mené son mouvement dans le monde. La danseuse, chorégraphe, directrice artistique de Zab Maboungou/Compagnie Nyata Nyata et professeure de philosophie au Collège Montmorency à Laval se décrit comme une « enfant de la colonisation ».

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Zab Maboungou has always moved well in the world. The dancer, choreographer, artistic director of Zab Maboungou/Compagnie Nyata Nyata, and a teacher of philosophy at Collège Montmorency in Laval, is a self-described “child of colonization”. Born in Paris to a French mother and a Congolese father, she arrived in Montréal in 1973, never intending to stay in Canada. Engaged in the world of ideas, she has long stated that “the art of talking means the art of being able to assume yourself as a person, as an entity, exchanging, dialoguing”. In January, Maboungou will deliver the keynote address at the annual International Association of Blacks in Dance conference taking place for the first time in Toronto. The theme is “Connecting Our Diasporas Through Dance”. Writer Philip Szporer sat down with the innovative and opinionated Maboungou in her school’s warm and welcoming studios on bustling St-Laurent Boulevard in the heart of the city’s Plateau district. Their conversation touched on a number of topics including defining the African Diaspora, the drum as a device for regeneration and the democratization of dance.

Zab Maboungou a toujours bien mené son mouvement dans le monde. La danseuse, chorégraphe, directrice artistique de Zab Maboungou/Compagnie Nyata Nyata et professeure de philosophie au Collège Montmorency à Laval se décrit comme une « enfant de la colonisation ». Née à Paris d’une mère française et d’un père congolais, elle arrive à Montréal en 1973. Engagée dans le monde des idées, l’artiste affirme que « l’art de la parole veut dire l’art de s’assumer en tant que personne, en tant qu’une entité en échange et en dialogue ». En janvier, Maboungou donne une conférence au colloque annuel de l’International Association of Blacks in Dance. L’événement se tient pour la deuxieme fois à Toronto et s’articule autour du thème « la danse comme liaison à nos diasporas ». Le rédacteur Philip Szporer retrouve la novatrice et obstinée Maboungou dans les studios accueillants de son école sur l’animé boulevard Saint-Laurent, au cœur du Plateau Mont-Royal. En discussion, ils parcourent nombre de sujets, y compris la définition de la diaspora africaine, le tambour comme outil de régénération et la démocratisation de la danse.



Read the full interview by Philip Szporer in the January/February 2012 issue of The Dance Current print magazine. | Lisez l'article intégral de Philip Szporer dans l’édition imprimée de janvier/février 2012 du Dance Current.

Profile: Out Innerspace Dance Theatre

Juxtapositions, specificity and urban cool
Article by Kate Stashko

Summary | Sommaire

Tiffany Tregarthen and David Raymond / Photo by Wendy D Photography

There’s a newly energized duo in Vancouver these days. Although their company, Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, has been based on the West Coast since 2007, Tiffany Tregarthen and David Raymond are now on the cusp of an exciting shift in their careers.

À Vancouver, en ce moment, un duo dynamique se trouve insufflé d’une nouvelle énergie. Même si leur compagnie, Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, se retrouve sur la côte ouest depuis 2007, Tiffany Tregarthen et David Raymond se retrouvent au seuil d’une transition professionnelle excitante.

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There’s a newly energized duo in Vancouver these days. Although their company, Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, has been based on the West Coast since 2007, Tiffany Tregarthen and David Raymond are now on the cusp of an exciting shift in their careers. After years of working with list of collaborators that reads as a who’s who of the Vancouver dance scene, including Wen Wei Wang, Simone Orlando, Josh Beamish and Amber Funk Barton, they have crystallized what drives them and what excites them about creating new work: it’s a meticulous and specific approach to the integration of movement with sound. “We think of sound as a character and a voice in the body,” says Tregarthen. Raymond adds that “the body is a physical analogy, a reflection of what the sound is doing.” The couple’s newest work premiering at The Dance Centre in January, is strongly based on this self-described “dogmatic” approach to the integration of movement with sound, drawing on their strong chemistry as a couple and a current curiosity about characterization (specifically in superheroes and cartoons).

À Vancouver, en ce moment, un duo dynamique se trouve insufflé d’une nouvelle énergie. Même si leur compagnie, Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, se retrouve sur la côte ouest depuis 2007, Tiffany Tregarthen et David Raymond se retrouvent au seuil d’une transition professionnelle excitante. Partenaires sur scène et dans la vie, ils ont travaillé pendant des années avec des collaborateurs des plus en vue du milieu vancouvérois, y compris Wen Wei Wang, Simone Orlando, Josh Beamish et Amber Funk Barton. Maintenant, ils cristallisent leur pulsion créatrice : une approche méticuleuse à l’intégration du mouvement et du son. « Nous imaginons le son comme un personnage et une voix dans le corps », explique Tregarthen. « Le corps est une analogie physique, une réflexion du son », ajoute Raymond. Ils présentent leur dernière création en janvier au Dance Centre. La pièce intègre le son et le mouvement par une approche décrite comme « dogmatique » par les artistes. Ils puisent aussi leur chimie en tant que couple et leur présente curiosité autour des personnages, en particulier des superhéros et des personnages de bande dessinée.



Read the full article by Kate Stashko in the January/February 2012 issue of The Dance Current print magazine. | Lisez l'article intégral de Kate Stashko dans l’édition imprimée de janvier/février 2012 du Dance Current.

Report: Can you copyright a dance?

An Interim Report
By Chris Dupuis

Summary | Sommaire

Can you copyright a dance? In the grand scheme of things, the answer seems to be a resounding “not really”.

Le droit d’auteur s’applique-t-il à la danse ? Globalement, la réponse « pas vraiment » semble retentir.

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Can you copyright a dance? In the grand scheme of things, the answer seems to be a resounding “not really”. Rip-offs abound in the art world and as one high profile case involving American pop star Beyoncé and Belgian art star Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker recently demonstrated in the media, it is no easier for a choreographer to control their work than it is for any other type of creator. Writer Chris Dupuis discovers that a similar scenario could easily happen in Canada where dance is covered under the Canadian Copyright Act as a “choreographic” sub-section of dramatic work. The definition is not exactly rigorous – it includes “any work of choreography, whether or not it has any story line”. Copyright protection may be possible if the work is original and has been “fixed in writing” or, in the case of dance, notated, or, though it has yet to be tested and is thus not for certain, videotaped or filmed. So while copyright protection and the possibility of defending infringements of that copyright are theoretically possible – without test cases and precedents, the practical value of it is unknown.


Le droit d’auteur s’applique-t-il à la danse ? Globalement, la réponse « pas vraiment » semble retentir. Le pillage foisonne dans le milieu des arts et le chorégraphe qui veut protéger ses créations se heurte aux mêmes difficultés que les autres créateurs. C’est ce que démontre le récent cas très médiatisé entre la vedette populaire américaine Beyoncé et la vedette belge de l’art Anne Teresa de Keermaeker. Le rédacteur Chris Dupuis apprend qu’un scénario semblable aurait pu se dérouler au Canada, où la danse figure dans la loi canadienne sur le droit d’auteur. Une sous-catégorie d’œuvre « dramatique », l’œuvre « chorégraphique » ne jouit pas d’une définition particulièrement rigoureuse ; elle comprend « toute chorégraphie, que l’œuvre ait ou non un sujet ». Pour bénéficier de la protection du droit d’auteur, une chorégraphie doit être originale et « fixée par écrit ou autrement ». Pour la danse, c’est-à-dire qu’elle serait consignée dans une partition ou, bien que cela ne soit pas éprouvé, enregistrée sur vidéo ou film. En théorie, la protection du droit d’auteur et le pouvoir de se défendre contre les violations dudit droit demeurent possibles. Cependant, en l’absence de cas type ou de précédents, la valeur actuelle du droit d’auteur en danse reste inconnue.


Read the full report by Chris Dupuis in the January/February 2012 issue of The Dance Current print magazine. | Lisez l'article intégral de Chris Dupuis dans l’édition imprimée de janvier/février 2012 du Dance Current.

ASTUCES POUR PROFESSEURS: TIPS FOR TEACHERS

La relâche hivernale
de Katharine Harris de l’École nationale de ballet du Canada

Terril Maguire at Seven Seeds Yoga / Photo by Sheila Cullen

La motivation n’est pas toujours au rendez-vous pendant les longs mois d’hiver, sous le soleil timide et dans le froid pénétrant. Professeurs comme élèves souffrent facilement de surmenage pendant cette période de l’année. Vous avez franchi le premier grand jalon de la saison de danse, le spectacle de Noël, et la reprise des classes n’est pas toujours inspirante. Comment passer outre cette baisse énergétique saisonnière ? La réponse pourrait fort bien s’avérer une relâche.

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1. Dans les sports comme la course, le cyclisme ou l’haltérophilie, le repos s’inscrit naturellement dans l’entraînement. Ainsi, les tissus du corps se réparent et l’athlète refait le plein d’énergie. La récupération permet aussi de cultiver la motivation pour affronter les prochains défis. Cela s’applique tout autant à la danse, mais parfois, c’est facile d’oublier que vos élèves et vous pourriez profiter d’un repos.

2. En tant que professeur, renouvelez votre inspiration avec une pause. L’enseignement est un métier très exigeant et votre pratique profiterait peut-être une période de récupération. Souvenez-vous d’être à l’écoute de votre corps et de votre propre rythme. Vous vous consacrez beaucoup à vos élèves ; accordez-vous le temps de vous recentrer.

3. Plusieurs options s’offrent à vous pour une relâche. Essayez une activité qui n’est pas liée à la danse et que vous n’avez pas l’occasion de faire souvent. Pour bien vous reposer lors d’une fin de semaine bonifiée ou d’une semaine complète, choyez-vous. Planifiez vos repas et préparez-vous quelques bons plats. Une alimentation saine influence directement l’énergie ; il est ainsi toujours important de bien manger.

4. Si possible, songez à faire une retraite qui offre une semaine ou une fin de semaine de pratique intensive. Les retraites de yoga sont un bon exemple : elles incluent les avantages d’une activité physique, mais le programme diffère de votre quotidien.

5. Si vous prenez une classe ou participez à une activité pendant la relâche, que ce soit quelque chose que vous connaissiez bien ou une aventure quelconque, soyez à l’écoute du corps. Ne vous défoncez pas afin d’éviter les blessures et l’irritation musculaire. Dosez votre énergie et prenez plaisir à l’activité.

6. Ce n’est pas toujours évident, mais respectez-vous ; participez à des activités au véritable niveau de votre forme physique. Vous pouvez conseiller la même chose à vos élèves lors du retour en studio. Chaque classe et chaque jour sont différents. Tous les danseurs – professeurs et élèves – doivent régulièrement chercher l’équilibre entre se mettre au défi et se pousser trop loin.

Que votre relâche soit active, reposante ou un mélange des deux, revenez en classe avec une énergie positive. Vos élèves y répondront et tous en profiteront. Vous reviendrez revigoré et inspiré d’être en studio pour cibler votre prochain objectif en danse.

Taking a Winter Break

The winter months are always challenging with their lack of sunlight and dreary cold weather and it can be hard to find motivation. Both teachers and students easily suffer burnout at this time of year. The first big hurdle of the dance year – the holiday show – is over and classes can start to feel routine and uninspiring. How does a dance teacher break themselves and their class out of a seasonal slump? The answer just might be by taking a break.

1. For athletes who train in other sports, like running, cycling and weight lifting, scheduling rest time into their training is natural. Rest is when the body repairs tissue and replenishes energy stores. It’s also when excitement and motivation for the next challenge can build. The same is true for dancers, yet sometimes it’s easy to forget that taking a break may be beneficial for you and your class.

2. For teachers, a break can restore personal inspiration and energy levels. It can be necessary for your own practice to take a time out, relax and recharge. Dance teachers need breaks to remind themselves to listen to their bodies and their own rhythm. Because so much time is spent focussed on your students, it can take effort to turn that focus back to yourself.

3. With time off, there are many available options. Try focussing on a non-dance related activity you like and perhaps don’t get to do often. A nice way to take advantage of a break, whether it’s a slightly extended weekend or a full week, is to be good to yourself. Meal plan, go grocery shopping and prepare a few healthy meals for yourself. The nourishment of a proper diet directly impacts energy levels, so eating well is always important.

4. If possible, consider a retreat, allowing a week/weekend of intense, concentrated practice. Yoga retreats are good examples as they include beneficial physical activity but also offer a routine that is different from the day-to-day you’re used to.

5. If you take a class or participate in an activity during your break, whether it’s returning to an old favourite or trying something new, remember to tune in to your body. Don’t go all out and cause injury or irritation to your muscles, pace yourself and enjoy being active.

6. It can be difficult, but be honest with yourself about your fitness at that exact moment and participate in the class or activity accordingly. This is also good advice to offer your students, when you get back into studio. Each day and each class is different; balancing the act of challenging yourself without overdoing it is something each dancer, whether teacher or student, must do on a regular basis.

Your retreat may be active, restive or a combination but it’s important to come back to classes with an energetic and upbeat attitude. Your students will react to your mood and the positivity you bring to studio following a break is beneficial for all. You’ll likely all return feeling re-invigorated and inspired to get back into the studio and start working towards your next dance goal.

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What Do Dancers Know?

On life, movement and brain elasticity
By Sheila Heti

Several years ago, I performed in a ballet. I played the part of the “non-dancer”, although I danced.

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Four women danced with me – all members of The National Ballet of Canada. I loved seeing them stretching all the time, eating hummus and carrot sticks, and talking on their phones to their boyfriends, who did not dance.

Late one afternoon, two of the dancers and I were sitting on a park bench near the rehearsal hall, when we noticed two old men doing what people sometimes do when they walk toward each other on the street: they stepped toward the road, blocking each other’s path, then stepped in the other direction, then toward the road, several times, unable to get by. Finally, one of the old men took the other by the shoulders, positioned him to the right, and moved by.

Leslie, one of the dancers, watching it, said, “That has never happened to me – never – that sidewalk dance.”

“What?” I had thought it was a universal human experience, but the other dancer, Agata, agreed with Leslie.

“That has never happened to me, either. How does it happen?”

“What do you mean, how does it happen?” I said. “How does it not happen?”

Leslie shrugged. “Maybe I always know exactly where I’m headed, and it’s really clear to other people on the street where I’m headed.”

Agata confirmed: “When you’re dancing across a stage, the most important thing is that you see the spot you’re dancing toward, and you move toward it with clarity, so everyone can tell where you’re going.”

This made sense to me. If a dancer doesn’t move across the stage with true intention – with so much purpose and certainty that it communicates to all the other dancers, “This is where I’m going,” you would always see dancers knocking into each other in a dance performance. That skill – of knowing (and so communicating) exactly where you’re going, and so getting there – this was a skill that dancers took with them into the world.

Their experience of being human was slightly different from everyone else’s, since dancing had trained their bodies in specific ways.

“I never bump into anything,” Leslie said. “I must just have a really good sense of my body in space.”


Six months later, it was winter, and nothing felt any good. I felt outside the current of life. I was nostalgic for the summer, when I had been dancing and hanging around the dancers, learning new things. Those six weeks, everything had felt fresh: there was movement and music. I was using my body in strange ways. I was fully distracted from the question that had preoccupied my mind for the nine months before I started dancing – a question that returned, that winter, with real force.

It had not been two years since my husband and I had divorced, and I still did not know why our life together, which had not been so bad, had come to an end. The week I moved out of the house we shared, I called my mother in confusion and grief. She told me, “One day you’ll understand. Don’t think about it now. It’s too soon to know why.”

It was the most useful advice she had given me, and for some time the puzzle left me, but by that winter, it was back, and it was soon all I could think about. Why we divorced – it was the first thing my mind went to when I woke up, the last thing I thought of before I slept. It preoccupied me night and day.

How I longed to live in accord with my mother’s advice – to have the question rest in the back of my mind as I lived my life, an answer one day coming to me. How could I return to the happy, unfettered place I had been in while dancing; how could I retrieve that mental freedom I had known only six months ago?

In a bookstore one overcast and wintry day, I picked up a book that called to me: The Brain That Changes Itself by University of Toronto professor Norman Doidge.

I went to a café and began to read. Conventionally, neuroscientists thought of the brain as an organ that did its major constructive work in early childhood, finishing off its work in adolescence, and then remaining fixed (or deteriorating) through adulthood. Doidge’s book elaborated a more radical and contemporary line of thought: the brain is “plastic” and its structure changes throughout one’s life.

Pathways that have been underused can be strengthened, and pathways that have been strengthened from overuse can be weakened from disuse. “Use it or lose it,” as the neuroscientists say. As someone whose brain was stuck on the problem of her divorce – someone who hoped to turn her mind from that path – I tied myself to that statement, and to its corollary: “If you want to lose it, don’t use it.”

I remembered my day in the park with Agata and Leslie. Their experience of never doing that sidewalk dance had something to teach me, I was sure. I wanted to be like them. I didn’t want to dance with my divorce while walking down the street the way those old men danced with each other.

What was it about a dancer? Dancers – unlike the rest of us – have somewhere to go. They have a clear intention. My mind, knocking into my divorce, was feeble, where their bodies excelled. Their bodies were the embodiment of clarity, intention, direction, discipline. I had to get my mind to be more like their bodies. I had to make it clear, directional, disciplined.

That winter, I carried Doidge’s book with me everywhere, and underlined sentences on every page. Beside some underlines, I put stars: Neurons that fire together wire together **.

If a woman thinks about her divorce at a corner of the city, every corner of the city reminds her of her divorce. I soon became aware of how everything – books, trees, preparing food, sunlight – was wired to my divorce. Whatever fired, the mystery of my marriage fired with it.

If I didn’t want to think about my marriage, I couldn’t think about anything.

My purpose now was clear: to train my mind to be more like a dancer’s body. To do this, I knew I would have to start with my body: Make it like a dancer, I told myself, and maybe your mind will follow – your will purposeful and under your control, so you can direct your thoughts cleanly and confidently in the direction you want to go in – so your thoughts move across the stage of your mind with precision and ease.

I walked down the cold, city streets, and I tried to be aware of my body’s reality in space – its relation to people and things.

Paying attention to my corporeal nature for the first time ever, I focussed on the limits of my skin – I tried to know how far (and in what ways) I extended in the world. Without knowing this, I would surely knock into my marriage forever.

I tried to sense my actual height, the shape of my arms and legs. It was strange: without meaning to or being aware of it, my mind had settled on an understanding of my body that did not correspond with my body at all. My mind took my body as extending a foot or two beyond my actual flesh; it was blobby, not the narrow shape of arms, a torso and legs. I had been experiencing my body in a fabricated way; was everything else – like my understanding of my marriage and my divorce – as far from reality as that?

I started to see how different my life would be had I spent it dancing. A writer engages with possibility; the imagination accepts all things. One version of reality is made of the same substance as any other; truth does not have a certain substance that less truthful versions of the truth lack. But a dancer doesn’t abide in fantasy and imagination. The body has its limits, and a dancer is constantly aware of her body’s constraints and nature’s laws. While the mind can go anywhere, the body cannot.

The world wasn’t imagination. The world was flesh. I was flesh. And our divorce was flesh, too.

But this knowledge did me no good. Experiencing the limits of my skin, while interesting, did not prevent my thoughts from knocking into my divorce right and left. My attempt to make my mind like a dancer’s – intentional – got me nowhere.


As I read on in Doidge’s book, I learned some new things: that the brain is most elastic, and produces the greatest number of freedom chemicals (my non-scientific term for the chemicals that put the brain in a plastic state where the most change occurs) in early childhood. Neuroscientists theorize that early childhood plasticity is related to not knowing the value of things; one thing is as important as anything else. Children take in dust particles on the ground with as much serious absorption as they take in the sounds that come from their parents’ mouths, as the sight of a truck going down the street.

Everything is important.

Change becomes harder as one becomes older because the brain has settled on what is important. The brain pays more attention to certain things – maybe the same things over and over – and leaves other stimuli – stimuli that could potentially change it – behind.

I realized I had been going about my task all wrong. The problem with my mind wasn’t that it lacked intention – had nowhere to go – but rather, it knew, with all too much certainty, what path was important, and it went there with way too much zeal. I had trained my mind, as a writer, as rigorously as those dancers had trained their bodies. It wasn’t that my brain was knocking into my divorce at every step, but that my brain danced across the same line of the stage, always to the same point somewhere near the wings, where my divorce stood.

I had to make my mind less like a dancer’s! I had to scramble it up, confuse it, so it could find meaning and value in other places; so it could bump into so much: lampposts, political history, asbestos, peanuts, all things. The dancers were a negative example.

I had to become like those old men on the sidewalk, knocking into things, each other. That was their freedom – their very free dance.

Now I knew what I had to do, yet I could not do it. I was unable to find everything equally interesting – the streetlamp, the ceiling, an orange peel on the floor. I could not pretend that puzzling through the economic situation of Venezuela had as much pull as why my marriage had not worked out.

I had to accept it: my brain was like a dancer in Swan Lake. It had to dance stage right, then toward the footlights, then swirl off-stage, then on, the same way every night until closing, even if it was driving me mad. My brain would have to move in all the ways I was exhaustingly familiar with until this particular production was over. I had to let it play.

And that is what I did, giving up. Some nights I paid attention to the show. Sometimes, like a stage mother, I ate a candy bar and watched it with half a mind.

Then, without expecting it, a few years later, in the course of one night, the production ended.

I had a dream. I was sitting in a white tub, in an all-white room, with a circle of my female friends standing around. I was explaining to them why my husband and I broke up. Then an older woman – whom I had never dreamed about before, but who in real life owned the hotel where my marriage finally ended – entered the room and asked me what I had been saying. I told her that I was explaining the reason for my divorce.

“Was the sex not good?” she asked.

I shook my head. “It’s because he wasn’t strong.”

When I woke, I remembered the dream in its entirety. I wondered if this explanation was right or fair. It was not a reason that had occurred to me in my waking life even once. I could see how it could be “the reason”, but I could also see how I had also not been “strong”.

What was more important, perhaps, was the feeling I had waking from the dream – like the stage of my mind had been struck. (To strike is a theatrical term for taking down the set, the flats, the risers, everything, once a show is over.)

Yes, I felt better. The stage of my mind was struck.

That night, I wanted a drink. I called a friend and asked her to meet me at a bar I knew well, near where we lived. When I entered, sitting at the bar was the grey-haired owner of the hotel I had dreamed about the night before. It felt bizarre to see her there. I ran into her maybe twice a year. I went up to her to tell her I had dreamed about her.

“Last night you were in my dream,” I said.

Her eyes widened. “I dreamed about you last night,” she said, and she proceeded to tell me her dream: “We were in the Arctic. There was nothing but snow. And you were worried. You couldn’t figure something out, but you were trying very hard. I said to you: ‘Watch the polar bears. That’s where you will find the answer.’ Then we watched a polar bear that was sitting on an ice floe, and then the ice floe drifted away from the land, away from the few other polar bears that were there.”

I didn’t know what to make of this. We had both dreamed of these all-white places, in which we had had somewhat the same conversation.

After saying wow and wow and wow, I went to sit on my own, at a little round table. I considered what a beautiful closing image to a ballet that would be – a ballet about divorce, say, and what it means to separate – like being a polar bear, mysteriously floating away from one’s people and land.



A version of What Do Dancers Know? Originally appeared in Boulder Pavement, the digital arts journal of The Banff Centre Press.


Sheila Heti is the author of five books of fiction and non-fiction, most recently, the novel How Should a Person Be? and the children's book We Need a Horse. She lives in Toronto.

Sheila Heti / Photo by Chris Buck