Let's Talk Dance Abducted By Aliens, of Course!
With any luck at all, the dawn of 2007 means that teenagers have all been reprogrammed to be courteous, focused, loving, giving and calm in demeanor. What? This did not happen? I love the commercial where the mom and daughter are having the "opposite of a fight" over the cell phone but still in that very teenager tone of voice. I find this so amusing and so realistic of the way teenage girls and moms talk to each other.
Does anyone sympathize with the dance teacher of upwards of 20 teenagers in the same room at any given time? Don't get me wrong, I love them. I even "own" one, but there are few personalities as challenging as a teenage girl. And what's more, put them in a room altogether and you could ignite a deathly fire of sharp-tongues and ill-placed verbal barbs.
In follow up to my last month's Teenagers Have a Way with Words article and the notion of just what DO dance teachers do all day, this month I will respond to this delightful comment made to me in a teen ballet class last fall:
"This is the exercise teachers give because they can not think of anything else to do!"
Au contraire. I can think of several things I would rather be doing than spending my precious time with a room full of ungrateful children. Couldn't most of us? Were it not for manners and orderly conduct, I think I would have reached beyond acceptable teacher protocol and responded with, "Honey, I can booster rocket the exercise but it would not change the fact that you have yet to master the task of a 4-count repetition of a single movement." Grrr.
It is a actually during this years that they are abducted by aliens and their senses are subdued; subsequently they are brainwashed to believe they have power over all the land and they make these unsubstantiated and poorly thought out statements with no real connection or awareness that the words have been formed in their brain, produced by their vocal cords and are spilling out of their mouths like a bad toilet leak.
Believe me, I do KNOW that I was one of these "teenaged creatures" once and oh, how I wish I could retract about 95% of what I said during those years to may parents and my dance teacher. That would probably leave a skeleton of comments like "goodnight and good morning." Everything else was rubbish!
In all fairness, are there times when we, as teachers, do give an exercise because we can not think of anything else? Perhaps, but rather, it is because we do not want to think of anything else. We are bored, tired and distracted from the day (as the students are) and it just seems daunting to try and create an exercise to excite the unexcitable. I sometimes think that teenagers should just take Classical Indian dance where they can roll their eyes constantly and not be thought disrespectful! So, yes, it is true that at times, I just don't care what the exercise is because it does not seem to matter to the class either. But that is only less than 10% of the time.
The other 90% and up, I know very well what I am doing and I certainly have a reason for presenting the exercise in the manner that I have. Dance teachers have lesson plans too. We did not learn to teach in an educational void. In fact, order in the ballet class is inherent in its curriculum and historical structure. It is not tricky to understand that tendu comes second or third at the barre and that a slow tendu will precede a quick tendu. If you find this boring, it is because somewhere along the way someone failed to teach you to focus on achieving and mastering a skill.
In an advanced class, an exercise which reaches beyond idea of stretch of the leg, control of the supporting side and turn out, to incorporate the ideas of articulation and quickness of movement change, might be appropriate. And no, teachers are not doing this to "kill you!" There is another popular teen question, "Are you trying to kill us?" What if we said, "YES!"?
At a beginner level however, there are few variations that will achieve the intended outcome. Ballet is a progressive training and you can not jump to the end and expect that the outcome will be a good, solid, sustaining technical base. Ballet and all dance forms require patience and practice, concentrated attention and focus to achieve the intended outcome. But how do you make a teenager growing up in a world of "instant gratification" and Instant Messenger, understand this?
Persistence. Maintain the order and routine of class. Plant the seeds of expectation and assure the students that the results will be the reward. Build trust and do this by not allowing their alien alterations to push your buttons as a teacher. Guide them. Facilitate learning as best you can and pray for the day that they come back to you and ask, "Did I act like THAT in class?"
What is my response? A simple teenage "Yep."
Kathryn Austin, R.D.E. can be reached at kaustin2@cfl.rr.com or by snail mail at PO BOX 771518, Winter Garden, FL 34777.