We have colleagues

I just came across an amazing book, that is really apt for the work we were pursuing in the lab, and that I hope you all continue to explore. Quote from the book, "Research seems to show that the ability to get a handle on the world is closely allied to the ability to handle it physically, with palm and thumb and fingers.1 Similarly, in the studio, our research-project saw dance makers thinking not in words but through a language of movement and mass, of pauses in space and time, advances, realign- ments. As a work of ‘bodymind’, choreography creates consciousness in forms that can hardly be translated into words."
Thinking in Four Directions: Creativity and Cognition in Contemporary Dance by Robin Grove, Catherine Stevens and Shirley McKechnie
I downloaded it as an ebook (it has video links as well) from MUP
http://web.mup.unimelb.edu.au/e-store/

The morning after ChoreoLab -- thoughts/organization

I feel the Choreo Lab was a huge success. I felt nourished, challenged, stimulated, loved, and fully engaged in process/product as well as community. I am so happy and honored that I got to be a part of it.

The following thoughts are only possible because you all jumped in with such great generosity and bravery to create this Lab. I feel so grateful to J.R., Celeste, and Lisa, Kristina, and Loren for making this opportunity to get into this stew together.

What might I experiment with the next time, if I were to be part of the planning team?

These are some questions I would ask myself, that were all stimulated by the amazing work we just did together.

0. What is “embodied learning”? Is it the same, different, a subset of “learning through dance”? Let’s understand/analyze/define what learning through dance is... how does it work? (Once we know how it works, then we can communicate this to others....) (Remember when TPR - Total Physical Response was popular for second language acquisition? This might be embodied learning, yet is so different from “Learning Through Dance/Dancing to Learn”)

1. Dance for Teaching/Learning (in Education)

1. Learning how to learn (in general) - possible connection to current brain research e.g. Dan Siegel/how I learn (specifically)
2. Learning some “facts” from academic curriculum

(What are our values about these different aspects of learning? Do we understand (after what the choreos presented in this lab) that we might need to tackle a. before we tackle b? or tease out/analyze/understand a. to get to b?

1. Dance as Research

1. inquiry through the body/with the body -- how? methods/methodologies
2. dance as applied to different phases of the research process (when is this analogous to point 0. above?) Forming a research question or hypothesis, creating a method of inquiry, collecting data, analyzing data via different types of coding, quantitative, and qualitative methods, synthesizing analysis with prior research, research done in the community of peers, etc.

1. Documentation of dance (process/product)

1. purposes/why?
2. methods and media
3. linking b. to a. (I think this is probably something Kristina and Loren know a lot about)

1. Advocacy for “Learning Through Dance/Dancing to Learn”

1. in general for any individual/group
2. in an educational setting

and, as a corollary, how are we communicating these things amongst ourselves in the Lab? how do we “discuss” or “dance discuss” or “video/power point discuss”? Can we discover ways that communicate amongst all of us (working together in the lab) clearly, effectively, richly? what happens when we communicate if we are outside, at lunch eating, in the St Denis studio, in the Rose studio? (this is yet another question of interest to me- issues of place, time of day, situations for communicating)

I think/feel it was a fascinating idea to have individuals hold different aspects of these question/facets of what we were doing -- i.e. “faculty, researchers, and choreographers.” What did we learn from that? A lot! Let’s see if we can articulate it together (please help!). Also, since I am interested in all the facets and have explored all in the past, I would love the opportunity to be in a Lab/think tank situation in which all of us could work on all of these aspects -- where we acknowledge ourselves as choreographer/teacher/researchers and we all get the opportunity to be in choreographer sessions, researcher sessions, and teaching/planning sessions... of course, this could easily be overwhelming... I might be the only person who would want to be present for all these sessions. It would mean not giving researcher and choreographer sessions concurrently so that those who wanted to could participate in all -- this would take more time. (Discussion here of how we want to create an experience in relation to time.... when do we want to experience an expansion of time, a constriction of time... how does the way we interact with time influence our learning? our learning through dance? our communication via documentation in dance or other medium?)

exposure to/discussion of different ways being considered to research/share the work of the choreographers working in the Lab by Kristina/Lisa -- case study was chosen, what were some others being considered? How would this discussion be supported by a dance research process or how might the dancers and choreos be stimulated by these various research methodologies/choices?

other questions that emerged from our work together:

-- improvisation and set choreography as differing processes/media for research and presentation

-- teaching and directing as similar yet different ways of facilitating -- what do we learn as students in these different processes?

Thank you for inviting me and going on this journey with me. It was an amazing gift!!!!!!!

love, Michael

Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival Choreographers Lab 2010

Comments sparked by Loren's video (see post above)

I posted Loren's final video on my facebook profile. Here are the comments that appeared:

Celeste Young: (Biology teacher at the High School where Curriculum in Motion happens)
I was noticing when I was at the Pillow with you that you were using the principles of Backward Design & it is really evident in the video (nice job, Laura!). The Teaching HS Biology is focusing on how to use inquiry, which is essentially backward design/constructivism/whatever name you would like to put in there - basically having the goal chosen (standard), figuring out which questions to ask to help your students begin to think about the topic, then figuring out which activities to do & which evidence to collect to validate that the students are "getting it", all the while incorporating the assessment piece (which isn't necessarily testing! It can be reflection in a journal (my least favorite word in the English language), a "ticket to leave"- stating something that you learned & asking one question that you still have), drawing a picture, or choosing a movement to reflect what you learn. It just struck me that as a society, we don't have a common language for assessing movement. A student could just stand up there and move... but if the teacher doesn't know what each movement represents, then she can't assess the student. However, if the student explains what she is doing (like your type of movement, Celeste), then that is the common language. Hmm... like Lisken said, the movement that the student uses might be the tool for him or her to learn the material... it may not mean anything to anyone else but the student, but if that helps the student learn, then great. But it's important for others to be able to assess whether the student "got it". Enough rambling... not even sure that makes sense!

Lisken Van Pelt Dus: (Latin/French/Spanish teacher at the High school)
One of the things that strikes me (in intersection with some other questions I've been considering, too) is the notion that there are some people who cannot function without embodied learning as a tool. By extension, there are others for whom it is not an especially important mode - and, of course, the whole spectrum between. What this suggests to me is that we need to find ways to embed this learning more generally into teachers' methods, rather than presenting it in chunks, so that it becomes one among many modalities through which students are being given the opportunity to take in and consider ideas and to express their own - in other words, it seems like the mentoring work you've been doing is a move in the right direction.

On another note, how fortunate we (Celeste Y., I, others) are to be in a district where we've had superintendents and principals who DO get it!

L'Ana Burton: Dance Teaching Artist/Connecticut, has participated in my workshops for HOTSCHOOLS Summer Institute
I sat BREATHLESS watching this video Celeste & now I am DETERMINED that I will be at this Lab next year to experience this FOR MYSELF ! AMEN. ALLELUIA What a wonderful thing- you really brought to the surface the jewels we cannot quite GRASP or ARICULATE and suddenly they are VISIBLE. I wanted to take my notebook & GET THE ENTIRE TEXT PART DONE ON PAPOER- In fact- yes that's exactly what I will now do! I AM SO EXCITED & CONNECTED & IN LOVE WITH THIS WORK : BRAVO !!!!! BRAVO !!!!!

Video Documentation Research Process of the Choreographers Lab 2010

What an incredibly full week at Jacob's Pillow! I am thrilled for the opportunity to dig into layered questions around documenting process in relation to the arts and to education at this year's Choreographers Lab, to not only witness the investigations of "embodied learning" and of documentation of this learning, but to fully engage in the research myself from the perspective of video.
See my "teaspoon" sketches/sharings throughout the process...

Reflection - Layer One

Reflections and further thinking after Choreolab 2010 at Jacob’s Pillow

In honor of Michael I am setting my timer for 42 minutes:

I am left with the realization that many people, including and, possibly especially, dancers, cannot finish the sentence “Because I dance I know...”  In the contingent that can muster an answer or two, few of those then transcend into language and expression that can be understood as as acutuality by people outside of the dnace realm.  This, it seems, is a problem.

From this realization, I begin to ask some questions of myself -

What is embodied learning, really?

Is it merely a hands on practice of investigation used in classrooms?  If it is more than that, and I believe that is most definitely is, then how so?  

Is it enough to say that because I am in motion I am learning?  What is the practice that allows me to know that I know?  That allows an onlooker to also know?

What is meant by learning through dance?  

What is meant by danced learning?

Are these questions asking different things, and if so, what?  Do their evi/dances manifest in different ways and if so what are the identifiers?

Difficulties come when the artist educators themselves have not made decisions about the distinctions and/or have not yet found the bridges and the deep water diving suits required to push us past the sentimental and stereotypical statements surrounding I just feel it in my body ( my gut, my heart...could THIS be some actual physiological response to information?  recognition stimulating the neurons to fire more rapidly - pupils dilating, heart rate increasing to keep up with the increased need of blood and oxygen to the brain???)

I know that we did investigate some of this but I also feel that in speaking with our audience there was a definite lack of common language that assists the identifying therefore, once again, relegating danced knowledge to that ephemeral temoprally sensitive place that allows us to shrug and say - “well, I could just feel it, you know?...”

So - WHAT IS IT? And what do we KNOW because of it?

I am thinking a lot about the process of how we record information.  Although we feel duty bound to name the many learning styles and modalities, to say that I am ( or you are) a kinesthetic learner however, feels at this point like a cop out.  Is there anyone you have ever met who did not have an increased sense of understanding or knowing after having an embodied experience of some kind in their explorations?  Maria brought up the new research on motor neurons and I think that there is some very important information there - it goes well with the somatic investigations of kinsethesia - the idea being that once you have had an experience in your body then when you see something similar happening there in an automatic sympathetic motor response in your body as you watch it occuring on someone else.  This idea added to the notion that there are mirror neurons, acutal neuronal structures that recognize and remember the information gathered through motoric investigations gives us some real information.  As we investigate the neuro-motor pathways are open and evaluating every moment.  WE analyze the data as it comes in and we adjust our responses accordingly - in better informed trials or in highly skilled and decisive actions.  There mirror neurons are seperate from the original neuro-motor pathways - and yet they are stimulated by initiating a memory process surrounding the action in question - they help us know what we know and why - they help us layer and cross modalities so that we connect our verbal knowledge into our motor knowledge, our motor into verbal, our written to motor to verbal , our sight to written to motor to verbal - you get the idea - 

but is the actual physical structure in our nervous system getting stimulated by TO CONNECT differing types of information that allow us to integrate our knowledge in a deeper way.

SO - when I suggest that by spending time in motor investigation in order to know - suggesting too that because I dance I gain knowledge that I would not have gained otherwise - could this be part of the why and the how and the multi layered proof needed?  

BEyond the question of emdodied learning - is the further question of what is embodied research?

What is research?  We hold a question or a hypothesis outside of our selves based on formerly gathered information that holds together as agreed upon truth - or knowledge.  AS I hold it away from me in the form of a question or hypothesis what takes place?  I ask a series of questions of the question as object - how to investigate it through movement to find out something I didn’t know before?  If I know a., b. and c., what if I alter how I see or use a.?  Will the overall relationships still hold?  As silly as it may sound what does it mean if I investigate the rhythmic or inflective potential of the word research itself?  ( RHy......tttttthhhhhh/MIC or rhhhhyyyytththththththmimimi c c c c or R H Y THHHHHHHHHHH/      mic) Isn’t this analogous to documenting the changes in gestation periods of frog eggs as we consider the patterns of warming climate in the northeast?  

Is not the process of working on idea in space and time, similar to going to a library and looking something up?  

Here’s a question - How do we look things up on and in the body?  

What is it when we observe others in movement investigations and what do we see?  

How do we know we are seeing it?  

What allows us to recognize or identify information?

I am determined to continue to push this investigation -

Descartes already used the I think therefore I am simplicity thing - to say I dance therefore I know is not enough.

There are levels and layers - 

Dance to investigate specific curricular problems

Dance to investigate intuitive honing

Dance to interpret learning expressively

Dance to know one’s self

Dance to know one’s self in relationship to....( fill in the blank)

Dance to re/search what one knows and how many ways one came to know it

Dance as a partner or peer in the normal research arsenal of books, internet, media, reading, writing and talking - to add to the depth of ways we investigate and know.

ok, I htink that’s it for the moment 

to post or not to post, THAT is the question.

To be continued....

We have called it a wrap. All scattered our separate ways. The work has been profound and deep. I will be processing for a long time. I think the work we created was extraordinary, ground-breaking, and desperately needed. Our next steps are to get it out there, in all the possible forms it might take. I wish I could organize my brain to make more sense of things just now, but hopefully one of you will post some reflections and get this rolling.