Supporting creativity Archives - Page 3 of 3

Supporting creativity Pt. 3

When students begin to take ownership of creativity, they change. Our students began finding ways to spend more time in the studio. They talked about how they were creative, what they struggled with. Girls talked about bodies. Thin. Tall. Big. Fat. Amanda took such great care of them through this. She saw each dancer–always called them “dancers” never kids or students–as an individual filled with beauty and movement. They came to see that as well.

They started to concern themselves with their performances. So they started concerning themselves with each other. They took care of each other and developed new responsibilities. New senses of self.

Their first performance as part of the company was scheduled for the week of the school’s Spring Concert. That meant that the stage was up. In the big venue. With lots of seats–and lots of people. Having performed on that stage many times I can tell you that it is a big space, it will swallow you whole. It demands a certain performer. Particular confidence. Bravado.

When the students took the stage, they were present. They took command. Tunnel vision. They had that audience.

The piece, according to the MiRo process, was a parallel process that the company used as they developed work. Students explored ideas, researched, completed movement exercise and exploration–the same ones that the company members completed. They wrote notes on the chalkboards of the studio. They wore their socks floppy. To say it was parallel process is misleading. They were members of the company and they prepared as such.

The work of the students was pervasive. It seeped into the work of the company, and why wouldn’t it? When Pitch Black had its premiere at Altria with outrageous score by JakobTV for saxophone quartet and boombox, the students were in the audience and, if you looked, they were on stage as well. On panels. On stage. On bodies. Projected, being thrown, from 100 feet away at the rear of the room. Our front row special guests–on a late night in Manhattan after hustling down the glowing streets of Times Square–watching MiRo perform while video projections bent, stretched, waved and laughed–the same students looking back at them from panels on stage.

They were there. We were there. It was moving. It was tragic.
Why had it taken so long? Aside from that, it was joyous. We were alive.

Ms. Amanda, Mr. Tobin? When’s the next rehearsal?

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Supporting Creativity Pt. 2

Our first year was a “learning experience.” In typical parlance this means that it was a failure. It was not.

We encountered MiRo Dance Theatre as they were developing a piece called Pitch Black. They met, appealed, auditioned, and werked a group of interested, curious, and some disbelieving students. MiRo did not spend time drilling technique though their director was a former ballerina. They did not spend their time watching video though their producing director was an award winning video artist. They worked and treated these students as members of a company.

Students started saying they danced with MiRo Dance Theatre. They were.

When we traveled to see the premiere of the work at Altria, MiRo delayed its start while they waited for the student company to arrive.

They had arrived. We all had.
This is how education works.

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Supporting Creativity Pt. 1

Several years ago I was in a beautiful position. As the chair of a small fine arts department in an urban independent school I was able to push, pull, advocate, and influence. The faculty around me were supportive. The administration was trusting. Our budget was enough and our facility gave us room to grow.

Times like these you learn to live. Again and again we would consider our methods and how well we served the students, the mission of the school, the faculty, and one another. We were open and looking for ways to make everything meaningful and memorable for our students. One gaping hole in our curriculum was dance.

Now everyone knows that there are standards for dance and that they are never fulfilled for many reasons. If you can imagine that, historically, arts programs are the first to be cut you can trust me that dance may not be an area that even gets onto the schedule. How could we make this work? Another challenge is that the certification process for K12 dance is essentially a technical certification–categorized with shop classes and the like. Earning the certification is one thing, maintaining it is nearly impossible. For this reason, many dancers and dance educators do not even bother. As an independent school, this was no real concern but this meant, from a practical standpoint, that there is no significant pool of dance educators to draw from in the same way that you may be able to tap into student teachers or practicum students in other content areas.

Having been a co-founder of a NYC dance company and having worked with professional dance companies in 5, 6, 7, or 8 past lives, I knew a little bit about the field. I knew that dancers had a few things in common. One of those things was a love of available space–often the more austere and forgotten the better–and a need for space. My company used to rehearse in a Julliard studio on odd weekends when classroom reserves were thin. We rehearsed in loft bedrooms with furniture stacked on end. We rehearsed in performance spaces like PS 2 in between performances of popular theatre programs, in church basements, and in performance venues–they thought we were performing but we ran it like a rehearsal.

The final frontier.

Our students needed opportunities to express themselves creatively.
Dancers needs space. We had space. I started searching. Alphabetically.

Miller Rothlein–then Miro Dance Theatre–was the first company who had a functioning web presence, a functioning phone number, and a functioning director who answered it. I told them what I had in mind. We have space and you have dance. We want to share. And that, as they say, was the beginning of something beautiful.

Years later, we reminisce on the amazing work they have done with our students.
It is nothing less than beautiful.

This year, at their annual fundraiser, two of their first students will be presenting a duet.
Seniors. Going where no man has gone before.

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the seed, the soil, the water,

the care, the shoot, and the growth.

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