Our first night

Rainy and cold at the Pillow. Autumn has set in here. So strange to have come from the heat of Atlanta to suddenly this. Is as disorienting as a beginning could possibly be. We begin. A circle full of inquisitive, beautiful, impassioned people. So many hearts/minds at work trying to step into this universe that we will all create together in the next seven days. Darwin in the neotropics, " No one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more to (hu)man(kind) that the mere breath of his body." Speaks similarly for me at the Pillow.

When I think of the moments of transformational learning that happened when dance was the tool for learning, these are some of the stories. Moments of grace and catastrophe.
- Imagination. Bobby was a freshman in an English class for freshmen who didn't have the literacy skills to handle high school. (This was a residency when Michael was my co-artist.) Bobby was willing, but confused. As light bulbs gradually went off for the rest of the class, Bobby was amiable, but the light bulbs of learning weren't going off. On the last day as we did our circle check in/check out in came around to Bobby. He said, "I realize that I have an imagination." I made pleasing sounds and moved on to the next student. He stopped me and repeated, "I realize that I have an imagination." He elaborated, "When I was a kid the other kids would grab a cardboard box and say, 'let's play racing cars' and I didn't get it. It was just a cardboard box. I didn't get it. But now I get it. I realize now, I have an imagination!" Later as the class worked on their written reflections I sat down next to Bobby. He wasn't writing. He was listening. The school band was rehearsing in another room, the sound wafting through. Bobby said, "I can hear the music and see all these things happening. This has never happened to me before. I have an imagination, and it's not going away is it?"
- L'ana Burton, dance teaching artist, did a residency in a school in CT with 4th graders - the Holocaust Unit. They made two dances, and a third surprise dance. The first dance was from what they read. They created movement images from their readings. The second dance was from their own writings that were responses to what they were learning and feeling. The third dance was a gift to L'ana. When it came time for the whole school sharing to show the dances the students announced that they had learned so much from L'ana that they had choreographed a dance for her that expressed the learning they had done with her. I am looking at this gift from the students as both an assessment of their experience, and their docudance
- Biology class. THe students were in breakout groups creating dances using cell structure as the source material. Dan, the Biology teacher, and I were standing watching and chatting as they worked. One student came running over to us and said, "I don't know who to ask, but we need to know or we can't finish our dance. We need to know how does the MRNA molecule transfer information? Is it a direct pathway or indirect? What is the quality of the movement? We need to know so we can put it in the movement." Dan said, "I don't know....." "Okay," said the kid, "We'll figure it out." ANd he went running back to his group. Dan turned to me and said, "No one has ever asked me that before..." It was a transformational moment for Dan.
- The broken glass. It was at the end of a Biology class. A double period class. Dan (same teacher) announced that when the bell rang, they should finish up their dances and then he would let them take a break but they didn't need to bolt when the bell rang. One troubled young man, who had finally gotten totally on board with the movement work, and was trying some amazing physical expressions of the science ideas - didn't hear. He was too busy dancing. WHen the bell rang, like Pavlov's dogs, he bolted. In a grand exuberant leap out the door - pushing the door of the classroom, which unexpectedly hit the corner of a desk, and the glass panel in the door shattered. THe remaining students were shocked. And high school drama ensued. One student went running after the boy, others gossiped immediately. The boy hadn't realized what had happened and had flown off full tilt down the hall when his friends caught up with him. Stunned, scared. In trouble. The boy did the unexpected (according to all later accounts) He went to the principal and told her that he just broke the glass in the door of the biology classroom. THe principal and the boy returned to the classroom. Dan and I were there, picking up pieces of glass with some of the other students. The boy showed the principal what happened. She listened. Everyone listened. Finally she said, "Well, I think you will have to pay for the glass." "I know," he said. Pause. Everyone was holding their breath. "How much do you think that will be?" She said, "About $70-75." A huge sigh of relief. "I can do that", he said. And then class resumed. I walked down the hall with the principal. I congratulated her on having a school where that kid would come to her and take responsibility. "Oh no," she said, "This is thanks to the Pillow. You guys have a way of pulling a sense of responsibility out of these kids. Even kids like ___"
- There are so many stories.....

Definitions

Kristina just asked me if I had a definition for dance, which I do and use in my work all the time. It is the first part of every workshop I do. And then there are other words that I feel we will be using/defining in our work. This is what I wrote to Kristina:
Actually, I do! I define dance as: movement aware of itself practiced with intent. I define choreography as movement aware of itself designed for affect.
I use the word "aware" as in the zen/meditation/spirituality sense - some colleagues argue my use of the word aware, suggesting that it means self-conscious.
I usually do an exercise with non-dancers where I use that definition and then I say - "now, just take one arm up in the air and down again." (they do) and I say "We all just moved." Now. Take a few deep breaths, be aware of all the movement in your body. Your heart beats, your organs are working, your blood is flowing. ALl that movement is going on without you "doing" anything. If it wasn't moving, you wouldn't be alive. Now we are going to take our arm up and down again, but this time, be aware of what you are doing, and make some choices. Fast? slow? Palm facing towards you, or away? Are you going directly overhead? SLightly out to the side? Breathe again, and when you are ready be aware and bring your arm overhead and down." They do. and i say "We all just danced. In my book, we all just danced."
Other words to define:
Cleave - this comes from Lisa saying that researchers take things apart, and artists put things together to create something. And I was reading a book by Alan Watts and he talked about the word cleave. Which means to break apart, and to hold together.
Words that need defining:
Teaching Artist (probably Eric Booth's definition is the one most used in the field)
Protocols (as in ways to talk about work)
Commission:
Teaspoon: this is a concept from a friend of mine, Nicole Livieratos. Little tiny phrases, ideas, etc. Just a teaspoon of an idea.
Grace: A friend of mine, Anne Bluethenthal, was talking about "moments of grace" in teaching
Catastrophe: I thought catastrophe was a nice opposite of those moments of grace.
Document: (defined on website)
Docudance (working definition on website)
Transformational learning

Our Creative Process/Environment

Lisa shared with me a selection from Ann Bogart's Viewpoints, written by one of Ann's dramaturgs. It gives detail to how he works to create his dramaturgy for Ann's work. His process involves collecting lots and lots of visual imagery and creating interactive wall displays from which she directs her actors to gather their material for their characters. I think about how each of us works on our work. The environments we create in, the ways we create an environment to work in.
My colleague and amazing choreographer Nicole Livieratos keeps her studio pristine, except for one curious piece. A red wagon. An old iron garden table. That somehow figures into the work. Not actually, but in her thinking.
My studio walls get covered with writings, drawings, images, scraps of paper with quotes on them. And books, books, books everywhere. I actually don't write in the studio. Not very much anyway. I write at the kitchen table, much to the dismay of any attempts for an orderly dinner.
Ann Kilkelly, another great artist, keeps boxes catalogued and things go in the boxes. But the boxes contain all - no spillage.
Michael (one of our lab participants and long time colleague/friend) and I spent deep retreat time together looking at this question among many others, and he articulated the outdoors as his studio.
And of course - each of these spaces becomes a document of the artist's working process.

We have an opportunity to collectively build our creative process/environment. I remember one Choreo Lab when Joanna Haigood came to the Pillow to visit. She came to the studio, where our walls were covered with papers and drawings. She said, teasingly, "Uh oh. Lotta thinking going on in there."

We have an opportunity to be witness to how the transformation of the space documents our thinking process/creative process over the course of our eight days together. How can we learn to "read" these signs? How will this influence the work we create, as well as how the work we create influences the space?

Paolo Friere

As I was packing books to send on to the Pillow for our onsite library, Friere's Pedagogy of Hope opened to this passage:

"Never does an event, a fact, a deed, a gesture of rage or love, a poem, a painting, a song, a book, have only one reason behind it. In fact, a deed, a gesture, a poem, a painting, a song, a book are always wrapped in thick wrappers. They have been touched by manifold whys. Only some of those are close enough to the event or the creation to be visible as whys. And so I have always been more interested in understanding the process in and by which things come about than in the product itself."
- Paolo Friere, Pedagogy of Hope

Math and Matter

My new docudance is an interplay on ideas of "matter" - weaving "matter" as in the scientific term, and "matter" as in things that have meaning. The resonant question is about the work we do - mattering.
My premise. Art-making makes things matter. Art-making, and using creative process as a tool for learning. In our case, using dance-making as a tool for learning. It makes things matter. Creative process helps us to get to: It matters. Which makes me think about the kids (especially in high school) who ask “Why do we have to learn this? It doesn’t matter. I’m never going to need this in my life!”
I felt like that in High School - the science and math classes. I was going to be a dancer - why would I need science and math? Now I am a science geek - why? Because it gives me a sense of joy, delight, wonder. I connect to the world through dance and science. When our students connect to the dance-making they connect to the science and suddenly say “It matters”. Matter can be neither created or destroyed. On the last day of the teacher’s workshop at HotSchools Summer Institute we made Math dances for the essence of math, for the unsolved problem. They resonated in the air. Everyone felt it. We made things that mattered. We got to the heart of Math - not a series of numerical facts and equations, but the beauty and eloquence of mathematical language through our bodes in time and space - because invested with the creative energy of their creators, they became emotionally powerful along with the "math facts" of our source material. They were also very funny. (Humor.... one of my favorite emotions)