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

Image via Wikipedia



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.