Quiet but alive

With the start of the school year I have shifted my focus back to my students.  I am writing/finalizing my 1st term lesson plans, writing a welcome letter for parents, tweaking my syllabus and negotiating how integration hours are going to be handled.  
But there is a realignment that is subtle and I have just noticed.  I am thinking about these details from the standpoint of someone who wants her own artistry to continue improving.  Some examples:
1.  The new afterschool program will have a dance teacher, with a professional background.  The afterschool coordinator and I have talked and it will be held in my room.  I am planning to stay at least once a week to take the class as well.
2.  I am formulating a plan by which I will work with parents that are musicians, dancers or actors to incorporate their talents into our performances.  I will create some role for myself as well.
3.  There are several all school events for which I am determining whether I can gather a small group of interested teachers to dance to choreography based on my Laban principles, that I am working on now.
Not a huge laundry list, but the start of a beginning that can keep renewing my work and preserve the artist within me.

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Fela

Fela on Broadway!

Horton technique

Image via WikipediaHere we are in New York, and I took a 3 o'clock class in Lester Horton, a technique that was the basis for all of Alvin Ailey's choreography.  Ailey found Horton's classes in Los Angeles and took to them right away.  Lester Horton was one of the few dance teacher/choreographers, who worked with African Americans inclusively. Ailey found a home in not only the technique, but the studio and the man that created the technique.


I was amazed having taken Horton class many years ago, how much of the work still remained in my muscle memory.  It wasn't an easy, but it felt more natural than say Graham or Taylor technique.  I felt happy, centered and well worked.  My muscles were challenged without feeling my knees or other joints compromised.  This is where I want to make my home, when coming to New York.  


The teacher of the class was effervescent and motivating.  She encouraged us to dance with joy, which is always my main focus.  There were only 9 others and that made it less competitive and threatening.  I found it easy to fit in and most importantly, find a space to dance in the class.  The same could not have been said about the samba class.
Well out tonight with Jo, Ted, Tom and Lydia.  I feel in a celebratory mood.  
Cheers to keeping the artist within nearby.  I think it will be a great year.

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Two days

Tomorrow morning we board Megabus to go for Sunday and Monday in New York.  On Tuesday I have to be in my classroom to setup and begin the school year.  But for the present, I will have a last overnight in New York.  Other weekends and holidays will be scheduled, so that I can take a class, but this is really the weekend that will launch me into the year.  I feel ready and full of confidence for both, and I greet each day with a renewed sense of wonder and gratitude.
Above is a video from the hip hop event at Lincoln Center Outdoor Festival this summer.  It inspired me.  I hope it inspires you.

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New year

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Wednesday and Thursday marked the beginning of the new academic year for teachers from the Curley K-8 school, which met for its professional development.  


As we move into the first part of the year, I am thinking on a very deep level about how I will use the monies that are alloted to me for the Teachers As Artists fellowship project.  It has me the most bewildered because of the limitless possibilities I see available.  I need a good editor.


This weekend when we go to New York, I plan use my newly ignited creative imagery, as I go to sleep at night, asking my dreams to guide me.  I have tapped again that deep inner root allowing anyone to live within their creative powers more fully.  It is an intuitive sense that I used once, not so long ago. 


In recent years,  however, it seemed a fickle muse over which I had no power.  By the time my fellowship ended, this creative power seemed to be within my grasp again.  Now I need only to continue the practice of thinking, imagining, dreaming and scaffold it with those "left-brained" functions:  plan, organize and execute.


It is a myth that artist are disorganized beings, flying by the seat of the pants.  We just have a different pathway into the center of the problem solving process.


Cheers to the pathway I have begun.

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Re-ignited

My sister in law Josie and her husband who are both world travelers, are going to be in New York this weekend for the U.S. Open and so Tom,  Lydia and I are going to spend one last weekend before the start of school there.  Josie is a former middle school science teacher and assistant principal, and she and Ted live in Houston.
I have already established in this blog, how my summer fellowship helped me focus on being an artist again.  I am confident that I won't lose this when school starts, because of this connection and the confidence I have gained from this wonderful experience.  I will either take the intro Horton class this weekend or the beginning African.  They are offered at the same time, so I have a wonderful dilemma.
Being a teacher of the arts requires having a sense of self and purpose.  My purpose is re-ignited in a most glorious way.

Resting-Restructuring-Reviving

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeI don't know if it has been very obvious, but I haven't said a word since a week ago Monday.  And that isn't like me.  Though the formal part of my fellowship is over, the learning has just begun.  In the days and weeks ahead, I know that I will reflect and re-learn from the experience I have been through.
Maybe, I am just a little wistful about not having a scheduled class on Saturday and Sunday.  Maybe I just needed to rest.
But I did lay the groundwork for dance technique classes.  Armed with my Ailey "key card" I have already begun plotting about going just for the day to New York, and taking a class.  You say, why don't you take a dance class in Boston?  There are plenty to choose from and instructors of the highest quality.
I don't know if this will make sense, but the feeling of being away from one's home base, at least for me, is terribly liberating.  It allows me to challenge myself, take risks, even look ridiculous.  But it feels like it is restructuring not only my body but allowing my brain to stretch and evolve.  The act of new experiences (I had never taken class in New York) has in fact, "revived" my heart, my creativity, my spirit.
And so as we head for the last holiday weekend, it is now a fact that I will be going to New York for a day and can go and challenge myself again.
But certainly not for the last time this academic year.  Nor will this be my last entry in the blog.  Writing is a tool that I have rediscovered just in time.

Bread crumbs

Image via WikipediaSunday was day 2 of my Laban workshop, and to say it was emotional is an understatement.  In the first place I had stayed up "past my bedtime" the night before, to be able to go to see "Fela" on Broadway, and so I was simply exhausted, but primarily it was about saying my good-byes to three of the women that had been in all 3 of the classes I had taken, and that was difficult. 

  

But here is the true gift of this fellowship.  I now have a community of dancers in New York that I feel a connection to and that I will continue to nurture.  Tara, a wonderful actress who originally went to Boston Conservatory lives in Brooklyn and teaches Pilates.  I plan to visit and take her class.  Lauren who graduated from University of North Carolina and is entering the LIMS program in the near future and Laura from Connecticut who is a dancer who visits New York often.  I will miss them but plan to keep in touch.  


The other gift this fellowship has given me is in the title of today's blog.  It is a reference to Hansel and Gretel, and how they plan to find their way home from the woods in which they are venturing.  Like Grimm fairytale counterparts, I am dropping crumbs of bread to find my way back home (New York) during the year, to keep the renewal fresh.  


I now have courage to come and take classes at Ailey during the year to work holistically while savoring and nurturing the artistic self that has resurfaced during August in New York.


So as I start the next phase of my year, I plan to write each day about my continued growth and development.  And hopefully to be able to write once a month about taking a class in New York.


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Body and Space

Image via Wikipedia

My instructor, Bruna began us with a body warm up utilizing the Bartenieff basic 6:

1. thigh lift
2. forward pelvic shift
3. lateral pelvic shift
4. body half
5. knee drop
6. arm circles

In discussing the exercises it was noted that most were homologous, but that arm circles were "counter" or cross lateral.  We moved into basic principles (some not all) of the Bartenieff system as they related to our exploration of space, including breath support, spatial intent (being clear where you are going in space), dynamic alignment and initiation/sequencing.  The related concepts Bruna stressed Saturday were grounding and counter tension.

Then she guided us through a self orientation relating to the who of ourselves.  Who are you?  What is your place in your family/society?  What are your movement preferences?  We drew our reflections and shared them with the group, after which we made a gallery of our work.

Next we used space individually exploring our kinespheres.  This was related to an understanding of near, middle and far reach.  After the guided experience, we drew our reflections and shared out.  Another understanding was the concept of volume.

This last activity was a transition from the study of body to that of space.  We began by experiencing growing and shrinking (navel radiation).  Our orientation in space was guided by direction and level.  We experienced dimensions, planes and diagonals.

We explored motif, body symbols, and wrote our own short phrases using the action body part symbols. Rusty told us about a free online download to write motif notation, using a mac oriented software called Laban Writer, which I downloaded today.

What I write is my summary of learning but it doesn't really cover the scope of what I have learned in a short eight hours, with another eight occurring today.

I have always used an awareness of Laban's elements in my work.  But never have I had such a heightened awareness of how to observe not just others, but my own work, by this standard.  

As a sidebar, I went with my husband Tom to Fela on Broadway last night and was blown away.  In light of my learning about choreography, seeing Bill T. Jones masterpiece illustrated and felt like the understandings I have been carrying around in my heart all through the fellowship.  I was blessed to have taken some classes with Jones several years ago when he was performing in Boston, and am very familiar with his work (Still/Here, Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin/The Promised, Fondly Do We Hope...Fervently Do We Pray) but to see this synthesis of theatre and dance was profoundly meaningful for me.

Today in class we will be exploring shape and effort.  I can't wait to report out what my new understandings are from the experiences that I have today.

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Quiet week

                                           Ms. Furtado and kids, performing for mayorIt is very hard to believe that this is actually week three of my fellowship, and already I have been thinking of ways to extend learning so that it reaches into the school year. 
To ensure I won't lose the deep connections to the dance community that this fellowship has forged for me, I am planning a way of taking classes throughout the year at the Ailey.  I have discovered through the process of coming to New York for three weeks in a row, how easy and centering it is to come for the day and do what re-engages me.  So my plan is to come down once a month to take 1 or 2 classes at Ailey.
The hardest part of being a teaching artist, as I spoke about in my proposal, is feel connected.  I now know people in the dance and somatic community that I feel will serve as my yearlong link.  I know what is here and how differently it feels to engage myself outside my comfort zone.  It feels as if I have set down the breadcrumbs to find my way back to my "center" of learning.  
Today is the Laban portion of my classes, a method of which I already use and of which I have a working knowledge.  I already apply Laban to my curriculum.  My fundamental question is this; how do I apply Laban to my choreographic and performance skills to enhance my own artistry.  That is what I am seeking as my core learning today and tomorrow.
Tonight..."Fela".  Tomorrow; the possibilities are endless.

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Bartenieff-Part 2

one of the
Bartenieff
explorations

With our work on day two,  it is apparent how crucial it is to have keen skills of observation.  We began to use our understandings of the 9 principles to watch and be able to state what it was we had just seen.  


Much harder than it sounds.


In the context of Bartenieff, we are always making choices, based on the body we are given and the effects of environment.  We also began to see how this relates to phrasing, a key element of dance.


Today in addition to practicing the last of the "basic 6" we also went over the practical definitions and true meanings of the related concepts, which are:


Kinetic chains:  Approaching movement sequences of muscles that are engaged simultaneously or consecutively to produce support or movement; proprioceptive sensation of  connection in a linked way through fascia enveloping the muscle.
Grounding:  Stabilizing through an active relationship with the earth, achieved through a weighted or active outpouring or flow.
Bony landmarks:  Reference points to locate relationships between bone which facilitate stability and mobility.
Counter tension: Going in a direction that is to against the tensile action which is very stabilizing.


In our discussion of phrasing, we learned that movement has an initial preparation (finding the intent), an initiation (the beginning of movement), a main action and a recovery (follow through).  The preparation  phase of that phrase can be guided by

1. imagery
2. anatomical knowledge
3. dynamic intent/effort
4. shape initiation or 
5. spacial intent

Key to the work in phrasing is to know where the emphasis is placed.


The end of our day we learned a short dance phrase that Rusty taught us that we used as a tool to hone our observational skills.  We learned that by simply using Bartenieff terminology to describe movement it became for us, as movers, easier to be precise in our movement execution.


I will end this post with a quote from Peggy Hackney, who worked with Bartenieff, while still a dancer:

"Clarity of phrasing leads to clarity and efficiency in body usage."

My work with intent within the framework of choreography, can be guided thus.

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Bartenieff-Part 1

Today at the beautiful spaces at Art/Spaces 520, my first class in the Bartenieff approach met.  There were 3 of the women that I met last weekend at this class,  as well as five others.  We gathered in an intimate studio with mirrors on one side and a sprung floor.   Corinne Cappelletti, a certified laban movement analyst and her assistant, Rusty, a recent graduate of the program, were our instructors for the weekend.


The day began with a brief getting to know you exercise, where we introduced our selves and changed places with another person in the circle.  At that point we were ready to warm up, using locomotor movement to begin the work of us trusting and working together.


We started with walking, changing speeds and levels followed by a brief time of stillness to gather and regroup.  Next we began backward walking, then lower movement, followed by rolls and stillness. 


Corinne then posed the question for our next segment of exploration, "what is fundamental for you as a mover?  We were given big sheets of newsprint, and started to reflect on the question and shared out after our time of inner reflection.


For me this illustrated perfectly how Bartenieff trained clients to "be active participants" in their rehabilitation.  I sensed how unique this approach must have been at the time she was forming her theory of dynamic alignment and functional anatomy.  Her background in both biology and dance was fundamental in her approach to bring the medical world into the dance world.


In the next segment, we explored her nine principles and Corinne gave us definitions which had been distilled for ease of understanding. The nine principles are:

1. Breath support
2. Core support
3. Dynamic alignment/connectivity
4. Weight shift
5. Initiation/sequencing
6. Spatial intent
7. Effort motivation
8. Rotary factor
9. Developmental patterning (relating to the layered learning of an infant)

breath-amoeba

core distal-starfish

head tail-snake

upper lower-frog

body half-lizard

cross lateral

As  a class we experienced the six developmental patterns first individually and then with a partner.  And finally we talked about Bartenieff's "basic 6" exercises, learned how to execute them and practiced individually.  They are:

1. thigh lift
2. forward pelvi shift
3. lateral pelvic shift
4. body half
5. knee drop
6. arm circle (saving for day 2)

So much more is swirling around in my head that I will leave for processing later.  For now I leave you with a quote from Bartenieff.  One of her "gems".

The essence of movement is change.

There is a dream I have, that I will have the wisdom to keep "changing" and learning my whole life.

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Fellowship Week 2-Upper West Side nights

Image via WikipediaAs I begin week 2 of the fellowship, I am finding my stride and using the day (I arrived at 10:45 today) to settle into the neighborhood in which I am staying.  

Processing Part 2

My intentions were good, but my week (since Tuesday) was so about home and family, that in the final analysis, there were no real times that worked for my life as a "blogger/artist".  That is the reality of life as a wife and mother for many women, including myself.  It illustrates clearly why the TAA program is so crucial to teaching artists in the Boston Public Schools.

Talking about the skeleton

Today as I roll along bus, it feels as if the "stars are aligned".  Not only did I get up with a surplus of energy and good-will,  my family, who is going on this weekend of the fellowship, also got up early and full of eagerness.  We arrived at the terminal an hour ahead of our bus's departure and were able to take the earlier bus.  

So today I want to reflect on Anastasi's workshop last weekend.  There were many lessons and understandings that will continue to shape my work throughout the year.  Here are the three main concepts which I will cover in my next three posts:

1. the elegant foot as tripod (see the page link to right)
2. our breath
3. alignment

Within these categories,  a fuller understanding of these concepts was gained through the experiential work we undertook.  These are "techniques" I can grapple with and use all year long.  Looking at the foot I learned:

1.  Irene Dowd is a direct link to Lulu Sweigard, a pioneer of the ideokinesis movement.  Ideokinesis, one of the oldest mind/body training techniques was developed by Mabel Todd, a New York voice teacher, whose back injury (which impaired her ability to walk) served as the impetus to find a new way of using muscles and imagery to correct her limitations.  

As Mabel discovered her own methods, and began to move with extraordinary grace and skill, her emphasis switched to teaching other these mind-body methods.  She continued to coach voice students, and the combined practice took her to Boston.  In the 20's she moved back to New York, where she wrote her first book, The Thinking Body.  Here is a video excerpt of that work.

So Irene as that link,  has synthesized Todd, Sweigard and others.  We spent a large portion of day one on the architecture of the foot which Dowd refers to in her book as "elegant".  Here is an exerpt from the book, Taking Root to Fly:

Dowd says that

The foot itself is composed of lengthwise and crosswise arches so that each foot is somewhat like a dome with a triangular base. Ideally, when we are standing still, the weight of the leg transfers from the ankle equally forward and back, one half of the weight going through the heel and one half going through the ball of the foot. (p. 30 in Taking Root to Fly).

As a class we experienced this "tripod of support" through a series of deep muscle movements in not only the foot, but the leg, hip and abdominal muscles, as we learned through our  exploration, no muscle works by itself. Look for the lesson, Tripod 3, under my resource links.

Much of our work was based on Feldenkrais practices, which opened my eyes to a more whole bodied approach to both dancing and injury prevention and treatment.

2. Another experiential lesson we attended to was one concerning our breath.  We looked in depth at the myriad of muscles and connective tissue that were involved and our focus was on the different muscles we could train ourselves to feel and utilize.  I will talk about this more in depth later.

3.  Finally, we spent time discovering and manipulating our own alignment through the visualization of our spinal column, shoulder joint, upper, mid and lower back muscles as well as the nerves, fascia, tendons and ligaments.  

 This weekend is about Irmgard Bartinieff, another pioneer of the mind/body movement, and a contempory of Feldenkrais.  She studied with Rudolf Laban before fleeing Europe to the United States, and I will be very excited to post what I learn about her method on Saturday and Sunday.

Until my next post- ktk

Home-after the weekend

It has been over 24 hours and I have found no time to write at all.  The business of getting back to life at home has taken precedence over my fellowship and that is as I would have predicted.  There were groceries to buy, my daughter's concert to attend, my husband to appreciate and spend time with and the dog to walk.

I also feel that I need to regroup about what this upcoming weekend is about but now that I have experienced life in Manhattan for 3.5 days, the shift that I talked about earlier will carry my spirit forward into the next segment of my fellowship.

I walked about the neighborhood on Sunday early before it was jammed with tourists.

The last 24 hours have been about talking and not internalizing and by tomorrow morning I promise I will be ready to open this blog with a more substantive entry.

So for now, peace be with you dear reader, let your dreams be the stuff of creation.

Processing Part One

Image via Wikipedia

Because such a foment of ideas are swirling in my brain, and because of the late nature of my classes,  my Saturday and Sunday posts are really a day off the actual experience.  But I feel that as I get into the nature of the work of this fellowship, that will begin to change.


Side note:  I do plan to continue this blog for the school year, as a record of the entire process of this fellowship.  It was reinforced by my instructor all weekend, that we are lifelong learners in a continuum.  This as a concept, is very dear to me.


Fellowship week #1,  which was 3.5 days, has been about giving myself permission to think independently of family, friends, even computer (hey look!  I can still write with a pen or pencil to record ideas) as much as it has been about living into my own body, my own life.  


But to do this has required me find what the present means for me.  That discovery was greatly enhanced by the techniques gifted to me in my anatomy/kinesiology class.  I was certain that there would be concepts I would hear and learn that I could pass along to my students.  I was hopeful there would be something for me as well, but completely floored by the number of new strategies the work has presented to me, as the artist.  I had hoped for as much, but always aware that my over optimistic expectations.


Anastasi showed the class not just new techniques, but approaches to finding new pathways to learning and moving.


On Friday, when I left Boston, I was in a state of disbelief and focused primarily on the hows of my trip (subway, hotel, bus, etc.).  Today, I not only feel native to the city (one of my primary objectives) but have shifted in my thinking is from how to what if.  


I wrote the following notes longhand at Le Pain Quotidian, by Bryant Park, so I didn't use my laptop.  Here were my perceptions while dining on divine soft boiled eggs and french bread with a cafe au lait (sorry you will just have to put up with the food references, I am an artist who's a foodie).   Please note the subtle shift in thinking from my earlier posts.

Right now I am dining in Pain Quotidian, as though I have all the time in the world and there are no constraints on me, except for the challenge of eating slowly, one of those habits I have yet to control.  Time has indeed morphed for me in the last 3 days.  After the frenetic pace of packing, preparing and departing Boston I felt launched into a world that was new and yet familiar, worried about the details I might have overlooked or mis-interpreted.  

The discovery of this first week has been about time.  Given a finite amount is frightening and yet, because of the work that has helped me focus on the now, I am more aware of how to use time not just productively, but in a healthier and more life changing way.  

The only thing I can compare it with, is the first year of our daughter Lydia's life, when time seemed to almost stop, because I was focused on the individual moments, not big picture.  

I am a big picture kind of person and for me to find this space within time,  is a broad gift, it will me time to re-imagine the possibilities.

Now it is 7:45 (I came in at 7 am) and the cafe is filling with people.  Busy noisy people from every walk of life.  But I am still in my time bubble and used time to reflect and refine some of the thought I have here, in the moment.  Not to plan, not to worry, but to live fully in the present.

What a gently experience that I can carry with me throughout the week.

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Day 1: Re-orientation

This week the workshop is taking place at Gotham Physical Therapy in Union Square.  My first challenge of the day was how to get there.  The directions were to take the R or N train which I walked to Times Square to catch.  Four stops and there I was.


When I walked out of the subway, I was in the midst of the weekly farmers' market.  It felt like I had died and gone to heaven.  And Union Square is amazing.  Teaming with the brilliance of New York with people and sounds I am so in love with this neighborhood now.  The only time Tom (that's my amazing husband, if you didn't read Thursday's post) and I have gone there is at night to a specific theatre (The Public which is technically below Union Square) or restaurant.  This is the first time I have seen it during the day with neighbors and others moving to the rhythm of its very distinct "music".  I will return now that I know how to get here.


The class was with 11 other students, several of them going to Pratt Institute in the fall for dance therapy.  There was one other public school teacher of dance and one student going for her master's at NYU in dance ed.  One student studied at BC in theatre and dance and lived in New York teaching Pilates.


The day was filled with remembering much of what I had learned in college about anatomy.  What re-engaged me was having an instructor who, as a former dancer, spoke through the lens of movement.  


Anastasi Siotas  gave us a Feldenkrais experiential called the tripod, which I can use as a new practice.  After engaging us in this practice for just about 30-40 minutes, it had completely realigned how I used my body in walking.  Simply amazing.


Anastasi talked about the skeleton in depth.  One of the very interesting concepts he presented us with was that of the bone "remodeling" itself and that the skeleton changes every ten years, based on what it has been challenged to do.  He is a certified "Bones for Life" trainer and teaches both here, in DC and in Australia, where he is from originally.


Anastasi shed light on a theory of Irene Dowd and her theory of functional anatomy.  A book I will now add to my library is her, Taking Root to Fly.


Lesson of the day:  my posture and use of body will be ever effected by the work I have done in just one day.  I can't wait for part two.

Ready-Set-Go

This will be a short post until later this day. I am thinking of this weekend as my orientation to the city and haven't found many events because my class will be going to 7 at night. But I am also going to keep my eyes, ears and spirit open to the magic of New York. Next weekend the The 29th Annual Downtown Dance Festival begins so it will be a much more active weekend.


I will write more later. Now, it is time for breakfast and a date with the "R" train.

Vertical Lines vs. Horizontal

Image by Kevin Labianco via Flickr

The day has finally arrived and I am ready.  I am packed, know how to get to my hotel, have an idea what I need to get tonight before class tomorrow and am mentally feeling like a ninja.  I have plenty of writing to do during the bus ride so I feel my level of distraction make the trip fly.


The idea to go to New York for the fellowship was always on the top of my list.  While others were looking overseas for artistic renewal, I remembered how every street in Manhattan could  amaze and delight me.  How the masses of people made me feel so secure and so at home at the same time.


Yes, I romanticize New York "out of proportion" to quote Woody Allen.  I cut my teeth on movies that showed me its possibilities, not liabilities.  But growing up in small town Iowa, how can you blame me?  Iowa, the place of my upbringing was to me too homogenous and rigid as an artist, though being an Iowan has a place in my character formation.  But coming to New York always feels in so in many way, like a real homecoming.


I remember going to an exhibit at the MFA in Boston and seeing Wright Morris' work; his work resonated with me and I remember my epiphany when I read his words about the Iowa that I knew as well as the Midwest in general.  His quote, and here I paraphrase, was that in the Midwest, the world was endless horizontal lines, as opposed to New York, which was vertical.


The energy is different and I do anticipate mine will be as well at the end of this fellowship.

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