Ms. V. Goes to Class

At the Ballet or Ms. V. Practices a Little Self Care

 Dear Students and Readers,

 I spent the final weekend of my New York dance journey in ballet class! I studied for two intensive days with Master ballet teacher Finis Jhung in his Fundamentals of Ballet workshop for teachers. I cannot tell you how good and exhausted I feel after two full days of ballet! It was so invigorating to spend hours on barre exercises, practice and breakdown of  turns and turn techniques, and examine my own alignment and posture for more efficient movement.

 I also noticed that my weaker foot (the one I broke last year on my famous trampoline accident) was hurting bad after one day. I went to dinner with my sister that night and she urged me to approach my teacher and tell him about my injury. I was nervous…Finis is a presence—he carries himself like a dancer at all times, as if he is ready to walk onto the stage! His presence commands the room. But, Finis is a teacher and an excellent one at that. He understands performance and he understands learning and growing as a dancer. He listens to his students and assesses their skill level at all times.

 I went to him right away the next day and explained that I had some existing nerve damage from an accident and would need to sit out of some of the jumps in order to take care of myself. “Of course!” he said enthusiastically, “we all do what we need to do!” I was immediately relieved. There was no point in pushing myself beyond my limits or to further pain. I looked around the room at the other teachers, all of us at different ages and stages in our careers. Everyone was doing the same—taking care of their personal needs at the time right for them.

 As a result of my honesty with my teacher and myself, I danced better. I listened to my body and to my teacher’s corrections carefully. I stepped out when I needed to and stepped back in when ready. I missed out on dancing for maybe 20 minutes of the 6 hour day. And I really did perform well; I danced better than the day before. I could feel it.

 It felt great to just let go and enjoy ballet class, too. There is so much to be learned from and enjoyed in ballet class. I hope as I address ballet skills in school, you will find this to be so. Whether you join me for an afterschool ballet program or you practice your plies and tendus in warm up, I think and hope you will see the benefits that I feel.

Be open to new things. (yes, even ballet) Listen to your body and take care of it. Communicate with your teacher.

 Dancing at you from New York,

Planet Dance: A Week of Exploration and Reflection on Multicultural Dance Education

Dear Students:

I’m sharing some photos here of my incredible workshop last week at DEL: Planet Dance: Multicultural Dance Education. I attended this workshop with all of you in mind as you are always telling me you want to learn different forms of dance. Words can hardly describe the overall experience of this workshop, which had many interesting strands to it. But I’ll say a few:

 We began our week by talking about what culture is and what it embodies. (how would you answer ‘What is Culture’? Think about it). We looked at our own cultural makeup and created dances about it. We viewed several dances from around the world and analyzed the movement in each. We discussed the reasons why people dance and create dance: recreation, work, communication (to name just a few). We learned a welcome dance and song from Ghana. We practiced and explored flamenco steps and rhythms from Spain. We viewed a Japanese dance where the dancers used umbrellas. We created new dances inspired by all of these sources and more. We danced, created, and we discussed dance in great detail. The question we kept coming back to was:

 How do you teach a cultural dance if the culture is not your own?

 What do you think, readers? We talked about this at length. We talked about problems, concerns, sensitivity in exploring dance of other cultures. We did not come up with a final answer, but I know that I came  away from the experience with much to think about and share with you. This year I will be able to bring in even more residencies that I am hoping will expand our cultural dance knowledge and literacy. Do you have something you can teach me?

Included in the photos are pictures of my collaborative group. At DEL, we finish each intensive week by collaborating in a group and engaging in practice teaching for our fellow teachers. I am very excited about the work my group did because my collaborators and I really worked well together and listened to each other. Crystal, Eva, Monica, and Halley are smart, inquisitive and sensitive beings and I learned so much from them. Oh, they are great dancers, too!

 Together we created a lesson around examining bias in dance criticism. It was written for high school, but I think it has relevance to you, my K-8 students. We looked at images and text from a review and created short dances based on it. Then we gave each other feedback on the dance. Finally, we looked at the whole review and discussed the issue of bias and who gets to critique dance. We talked about how to respond to dance by naming what you see before placing judgement. It was fascinating and I am excited to do some of this with you!

 I also have some flamenco inspired movement to share with you, courtesy of my teacher, Puela. And there is so much more!

 Dancing at you from New York,

Dear friends and readers,

My New York Odyssey is part of my own journey to not just explore and try out new methods of teaching, but to assert and demonstrate my love for dance by, well, dancing.

As a full time dance teacher and mom, I don’t take dance classes much anymore. My time is so divided and my job and my own children demand my attention. But, my job requires that I know something about dancing...And, my children want me to be happy (which, it turns out, involves dancing).

The thing is .....

Going to dance class requires some bravery on my part. Will I be good enough? Will I need to take too many water breaks? Will I injure myself again? Will everyone there be 15 years younger than me and busting out the triple turns?

I know better than to sit back and watch while everyone else participates but sometimes I get nervous. Today was different, though.

Today I attended a one day choreographers’ workshop at Broadway Teachers Workshop in Manhattan. I attended three workshops led my Broadway choreographers who discussed process, notation, and style. The very first workshop, “It’s All About Style,” was my favorite. Patrick O’Neill, the associate choreographer for School of Rock, led this session. He talked about well known choreographers and how we associate certain styles with them but yet there is so much more to each individual’s body of work. He also really addressed the teachers (us) by first thanking us for what we do, and by later giving us the time and space to discuss how we address musical theatre choreography with our young students.

We were seated in a fishbowl formation as if we would have a discussion for the whole time. I got comfortable. Until he started to discuss Jerome Robbins. Well then I really perked up because I love Jerome Robbins and West Side Story. And THEN he said, “let’s listen to the music in ‘Cool’.” If you are an FFAC parent, or teacher or student, then you know that our 4th graders performed ‘Cool’ back in the spring at the Big Show. Holy Broadway legends, my friends! Here was this successful choreographer talking about the influence of Jerome Robbins and “Cool” on the theatre and dance worlds!

Then he said, “Let’s try it! I need 4 volunteers.”

4 volunteers?? To dance in this fishbowl of people? Will I mess up the combo? Or fall? Maybe. But would I be learning some of the original choreo from “Cool?” Before I could answer any of these things in my head, I was on my feet.

Yes, I propelled myself out of that chair to learn Cool. You better believe it. I got to snap and kick and I even sang some of the melody ALONE when he asked how we would get our students into the music. I was braver than usual for a tiny moment and it was worth it.

Afterwards I left the room as people lined up to meet him and get a selfie. I gathered my things to go to lunch because there were too many people waiting to talk to him. I thought about how I would thank him for the opportunity to learn, how I loved that number from West Side and had staged it on my own wonderful students.

It’s only my second day here AND it just happens to be July 4th. I’m thinking of my family, my school, my students, and all the reasons I’m here. I’m so excited to begin my dance learning journey in New York.

Tomorrow is my first day at the Dance Education Lab in Manhattan. I have had my eye on this incredible place for years. When I applied for my Fund for Teachers Fellowship, I knew it was the perfect place for me to travel to.

Here’s a quote from the website that sums it up beautifully:

“An experimental laboratory, DEL is a safe place for new and experienced dance teachers to enhance their skills, develop sequential curriculum, and learn from one another.”

This week I will be immersed in the DEL essentials course, exploring particular methods of DEL that I can apply in all of my classes. Next week I will spend a week exploring early childhood dance. The following week I am taking a course entitled “Planet Dance,” where I will investigate and practice methods of curriculum design in multicultural dance.

Pretty incredible stuff, right? I look forward to putting new strategies into place in my classroom.

The school year is over and I have begun to plan for my New York Odyssey! I am thrilled to be headed to NYC to study dance education in depth for three weeks. Grateful to Chicago Foundation for Education and Fund for Teachers for supporting my journey.

I am a dance teacher in the Chicago Public Schools. And I am thrilled to be going back to class! I asked my students at Franklin Fine Arts Center what I should learn/do/and bring back from New York. Here is what they said:

“more brain dances”

“dance materials”

“hip hop and ballet”

“new moves”

“more activities for across the floor”

“more moves”

“good ideas for choreography”

“pictures”

“new warm ups”

“new games”

What I should do:

“eat hot dogs”

“See the  Statue of Liberty”

“See Hamilton”

“go on a boat”