Let's Talk Dance Still, you gotta love 'em!
This is last in a series of articles chiding the traits of American teenaged girls, and I want to finish up by saying that what is truly amazing about the teenage girls that I know is, them. Of course, they frustrate me but I never cease to be amazed and in awe of the resilience and fortitude of these young women. If we could just capture their potential, bottle it and sell it back to them when they realize they still have much to learn. Alas, it is not to be. We have to take them as they come each day, each class, with all their fears, obsessions, stresses and disappointments and help them muddle through the muck of teenage life to find the joy at the end of the tunnel.
I was recently asked to comment via email interview on the effects of technology on the dance students of today. Although I had noticed certain things that were driving me insane, I had not yet put them into words. Once I did, I saw just how debilitating this technological craze is to the sociology of our young people in the cloistered atmosphere of a dance studio. Advancing technology plagues the dance studio because it is changing the dynamic of the social skills and self-discipline of the teenagers we teach. Did we need anything else to promote a short attention span, an overwhelming focus on "me," a new intensity of instant gratification demands, and the urge to announce unprovoked opinions. This is what cell phones and IM have done for us all. This is how teenagers are being raised and who to role model it better than adults!
One of my biggest pet peeves now is the IM (instant messaging) mentality. Isn't it ironic that the acronym is, of course, in the first person as in "I'm?" So now we have these self-centered, unfocused learners who are scattered in thought and body, have no sense of order, routine, space or sound parameters and can not control their verbal nor physical exhortations. Everything they think, they feel they need to say, immediately upon thinking it which is really not thought out at all! That is the way IM works. These kids make up conversations in order to accommodate their addiction to keyboarding. They falsely believe that this is communication and call it "talking to their friends." They bypass rules of grammar and spelling so that they can be the fastest person and "talk" to the most people about their "nothingness." Consequently, since they quickly run out of things to say that can be spelled in symbol or acronym; they begin to make idiotic comments or inappropriate comments for shock value and to gain the attention of all those "online buddies." Now what happens when they bring this concept to dance class?
Everything they think, regardless of its relationship to class they feel they need to say and say it first. No one knows how to raise their hand anymore and ask a sensible question or just be quiet and listen to instructions. They are "quick to the draw" as in their IM world. One tool I use to demonstrate to teens how this behavior is not conducive to learning is to have two dancers stand face to face and all the others stand around them. I ask the two in the middle to look right at each other and with great intent tell that other person about the most important day of their lives. At the same time they are talking at each other at the same time, I have the rest of the class, circled around them, tell about their day from morning to arriving at dance. When everyone is finished, I ask the two in the middle to tell me about the other person's really important day. They can not of course, nor can anyone tell me anything significant. I tell them then that in that moment they have ceased to be human because they have over-ridden, not interrelated with their peers and ultimately have learned NOTHING.
This is what IMing is all about, firing off information at people all at the same time and in the end, no one has gained anything. When this happens in dance class, the concepts and information that are truly important and will help to advance the dancer have been usurped. Down the line when the dancer becomes frustrated because "I can't turn," I suggest that focus and concentration on the process of turning in dance will produce the desired product, but since it is their choice to allow other worldly distractions to intercept their learning, that the brain is at a loss for information with which to help them progress.
I have an expectation of all my dancers to maintain focus and commitment, dedication to themselves and their art form. I accept no excuses for poor behavior and I do not react to the changing nature of humanity in its machine-morphing stage. I do not teach machines. I teach people or actually "people to be," in the case of teenagers.
Dance and the arts may be the last thread of continuity that we maintain with our past. The arts give us our only hope of being human in this ever changing world of the BENIGN. Got to run now...I need to email my daughter : ) LOL!
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.