Name:

Tahni Holt

Subject:

Dance

Date:

25 Jun 2006

Time:

04:50:25 PM -0400

Blog

For the past two days at the Dance USA conference I have been dividing my time between the dance education track and the choreographer’s / artistic directors track, not unlike the way I divide up my time in my everyday life. Some really interesting conversations arose and I am happy to report some of the more interesting one’s back to you. Joan Finkelstein, the director of dance Programs for the New York City Department of Education, was leading the educators’ track. She is a powerhouse of dance education. Along with many others she created a blue print for teaching and learning in the arts, specifically dance, for Pre k-12 grade. I am usually suspect of things that tell me what I have to teach in Dance. I have found them to be rigid which is completely contrary to my beliefs about dance and at the very least very style specific. I must insert here that through working under the direction of Linda Johnson at Oregon Ballet Theater in their outreach program, I have become more open to other influences and therefore more transparent in my teaching practices (she is one of those forever change your thinking around dance education people). Back to Joan: This ‘Blueprint’ is easy to digest, interesting to read, tries to be as non style specific as possible, and creates a cohesive, realistic approach to dance and all it’s multiple levels of information that is being taught simultaneously. I think any and all K-12th grade dance teachers and education administrators should have this on hand as a reference. This is good stuff. The best part for me is that it is inviting and easy to access. It does not feel like the stuffy Hilton Hotel but rather a natural sunlit open space, dance studio. (I must note that in reference to my last blog I was able to relax into the atmosphere of the Hilton once I decided it was a personal art project to do so). Go to this website: nycenet.edu/projectarts Get this information. It is good. Another subject that was more applicable to me was how do dance administrators make the intersection more meaningful for the teaching artists. I like this way of thinking. I feel that my personal strength as a teacher is that I am teaching a subject that is most dear to my heart and way of living. If I am allowed to shape my class or workshop into something that is artistically relevant to my work, when I am using all my resources, I am passionately a teacher as well as an artist. I am my best when these are aligned and not separated. Where there is alignment there is velocity. We touched on what is happening on the university level as well, again something that is close to my heart. It is not enough to teach technique, nor really ever has been, but somehow has become an only ‘standard’ in many dance departments. From where I am dancing (standing) this needs to be completely blown apart. We talked about how we need to be making strategic alliances with other departments and with other communities outside the schools. We talked about the difference of teaching for the job market and teaching for educating a person of the world. This has as much to do with pre-university dance education as it does with University level dance education. There is a higher expectation from the students when they have been given a well rounded dance education (look at the blue print). We need this. The model of getting into a dance company after college no longer exists. The model of sustainable dance company is not the norm but the exception these days; our education needs to reflect this. We need to teach fluidity in our field for our students. We need just to look at our own lives as examples of how to do this.

Name:

Tahni Holt

Subject:

USA Dance roundtable discussion

Date:

23 Jun 2006

Time:

12:13:02 PM -0400

Blog

Today in Eric Booth’s opening talk about National trends he said something that has stuck with me all day: “…expanding the sense of impossible.” I like this thought. I like to think that that is exactly what most of us as dance artists do-we expand our impossibles. We are the everything, wearing 100 hats. We are our own business partners, our own strategists, our own predictor of trends. We are all these things along with being the art shakers and bakers and candlestick makers. And yet there I was in a crowded Banquet room full of fellow artistic directors, managing directors, executive directors, dance critics, dance educators, dance research groups and every other person one could imagine attached to the distribution of creating and viewing and doing any/many types of dance-all understanding that to make this sustainable we do not do enough-or at the very least are not thinking enough. I also do not mind this thought-that we are not thinking enough. It is a good thing to be in a room with 300 others who passionately believe in dance-this is also a rare thing. I am struck with how fragile this seems and am struck with how funny it seems that this exists in the banquet room of a Hilton hotel. I am excited to be here and am glad to hear from others that work in this field. I am a little put off by how corporate it feels but am channeling my creativity into thinking of ways to participate. Another theme that was addressed today was the scarcity of active participation in our culture. The most interesting performance work that I have experienced as of late have all had audience participatory elements in them. This interests me. As our society creates more possibilities in personal space, we need and want more community space. This seems simple and it really is. Maybe it is not about thinking more but just thinking differently. With that said, to get rid of my personal bias to big rooms with rose colored carpet and a wedding reception atmosphere, I am believing that this Dance USA roundtable discourse is one big art project. It is my job to help create it. It is also my job this week to teach the outreach class at Oregon Ballet Theater. -Tahni Holt Monster Squad