As we kiss British Summer time goodbye!!!

This is my Thursday / Friday blog a bit late this week! I attended the Re:Generations Conference at the Place and it was really interesting. But first a quick reminder as we wave good bye to half term – Module Ones should have a list of potential RoL areas to be working on, and have chosen one to start writing that can act as a kind of vehicle for learning the writing process for the rest. Module Twos should have an area / interest / questions that they see and the general direction they are going to be taking for their project inquiry and start to be looking at ethical positions within this area as well as models for research and how they resonate with this field of interest – in other words starting to create a philosophical framework from which to hang their research.

The Re:Generations conference late week was much more inspiring than I had anticipated, largely because I heard speak and met a number of artists that were pioneering a technique (these were neo-classical African Dance and Afro- contemporary particularly the key Notes Germaine Acogny & Dr. Kariamu Welsh-Asante). Although they had had different journeys to reach the techniques they were teaching, I was really impressed by the fact they insisted on more than just a physical approach to movement; they had expectations of how students should engage with the movement work and themselves. They saw this as respect for the legacy of the movement as well as the students own respect for self development.  There was also something about the nurturing of the relationship between ‘Master’ and student.

I had met a teacher over the summer who taught Graham and similarly insisted on a kind of rhetoric throughout the class that went beyond just setting and doing the movement. I am beginning to think more and more about how I present my teaching not just the content of the exercise. Recently I have felt there is never enough time to really ‘get through’ to students since the habits of the body out way the 1.5 hours a week I might see someone. But I am starting to think that in building a really, really strong culture (attitude to doing the movement) within the class, one can impress on the student at a deeper level. Having experienced a strict ballet culture and the freedom of community based contemporary dance as a child I have avoided the hieratical structure that ballet imposes on the member of a dance class but I think I may have been too sweeping in my rejection of the rhetoric of a student / teacher relationship. 

How’s it going? What do you think?

Adesola