Teaching Tradition

Dance Studio Life Magazine, Volume 20, Issue 6, August 2015, p.68.

I love the shared aliveness of the field of dance - the kinetic way we pass our knowledge down person to person, class by class. Articulating through body and voice all that we understand and feel.  I get excited to know that the generation of students I am teaching are absorbing the information I gleaned from time with my teachers.  The dance family tree is rooted in the oral tradition – which is defined as information that is passed down through direct interactions between teachers and students.

I recognize that my body of dance knowledge is the result of hundreds of unwritten lessons from teachers whose paths I crossed.  Recently, I had a realization of a specific point I was sharing with students in a modern technique class.  The lesson I was sharing was clearly a synthesis of two significant teachers in my training.   

My first modern teacher, Bill Evans stated: “If everything is important than nothing is important.”  It was a message I received loud and clear in a choreography class and was quickly able to translate, under his eyes, to elements of performance. I still try to employ that profound lesson in real life – prioritizing family, work, creative projects, and necessary rest.  

Mary Cochran, my modern teacher in graduate school, shared the term “graining.”  She explained that she learned this concept during her time working with Alwin Nickolais.  My understanding of graining is to purposely soften the body, breath, and focus before a strong movement with emphasis or accent.  The softening before the strong action makes the accent that much more important.  A lightbulb moment!  Mary Cochran’s term “graining” was the physicalized concept of what Bill Evans was talking about.  To purposely soften before an accented movement actualized the concept that there must be variations in importance within a choreographic phrase.  

Graining was a concept we simply experimented with in technique class – it was not a term tested in a written quiz or a definition to be memorized.  Mary simply shared what she knew and we were able to make the connection in our own way.  This concept of graining brings great individuality to life as dancers experiment different ways to shade a classroom combination.  Showcasing the individualized interpretations allows for different ideas to be appreciated. 

I am confident other dancers in classes with Bill Evans and Mary Cochran made other significant personal discoveries that they share with their students.  That is the beauty!  Although other dancers shared the same time and space, I was ready to pick-up on that particular thread.  I now extend that braid of personal understanding to my students and it ties us together in a way.  I always like to state who I learned a concept from with my students.  I feel like it highlights the real-life process of handing ideas down with your own brand of understanding.  

Just as the roots of a tree twist and knot, so do the threads of knowledge passed down dancer to dancer.  I am energized by the sharing of ideas and deeply believe in the power of the individual learning process within the fertile soil of our oral tradition.