This article was downloaded by: [Panteion University]On: 27 January 2012, At: 22:06Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: MortimerHouse, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Theatre, Dance and Performance TrainingPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rtdp20

Doing, re-doing and undoing: practice, repetitionand critical evaluation as mechanisms for learning ina dance technique class ‘laboratory’Erica Stanton

Available online: 14 Mar 2011

To cite this article: Erica Stanton (2011): Doing, re-doing and undoing: practice, repetition and critical evaluation asmechanisms for learning in a dance technique class ‘laboratory’, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 2:1, 86-98

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19443927.2011.545253

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematicreproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form toanyone is expressly forbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contentswill be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug dosesshould be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions,claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly orindirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

Doing, re-doing and undoing: practice,repetition and critical evaluation asmechanisms for learning in a dance

technique class ‘laboratory’

Erica Stanton

This article identifies ways to encourage students to realise their movement potential through

their own active participation: to repeat movement material, to make mistakes and to identify

their own strengths and weakness. A dance technique class provides a useful forum for dancers

to explore their potential, confront their limitations and start to recognise their own learning

through trial and error. In proposing that a technique class is ‘a laboratory’, where problem

solving and finding out about out how things work are emphasised, opportunities arise for

students and teachers to work productively with their abilities and their limitations, to value

movement for its own sake and to question its context and meaning. Other perspectives are

proposed for learning to dance by reflecting on the legacy of the Limon technique, examining

its impact on other dance techniques and scrutinising its core values. Effort, exertion and

perspiration are all functional aspects of the movement in this technique and become, in their

disclosure, part of a dancer’s expressive potential, as the ‘how’ of dancing becomes privileged

over its ‘what’.

Keywords: dance training, trial and error, Limon technique, problem-solving, risk

Introduction

This article reflects on learning through doing, where the doing presentssome difficulty to the participant and the result may not necessarily beachieved immediately. It draws on a range of teaching experience, butfocuses predominantly on the teaching of the Limon dance technique inconservatoire and university settings. In embarking on this approach, thepatience and tenacity required for dancer and teacher should not beunderestimated. Add to this the difficulty in the recognition of learning, orthe indirect association between learning and performance (i.e. what is made

Theatre, Dance and Performance Training,Vol. 2(1), 2011, 86–98

Theatre, Dance and Performance Training ISSN 1944-3927 print/ISSN 1944-3919 online� 2011 Taylor & Francis http://www.informaworld.com

DOI: 10.1080/19443927.2011.545253

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pant

eion

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

2:06

27

Janu

ary

2012

visible), then the assembly of a technique class becomes nothing more than arather unstable ‘alchemy’. This problem is summarised by Robert Bjork(1999, p. 436), ‘Substantial learning can take place during periods when few,if any, changes in performance are apparent; and substantial changes inperformance during training may be accompanied by little, if any, learning.’

Sherrie Barr (2009, p. 33) highlights another interesting problem regardingthe tension inherent in learning dance technique: ‘Class . . . is a precariousbalancing act betwixt art and craft. Whether intentional or not, the mergingtensions interfere with the acts of learning and dancing’. There is no doubtthat dance technique classes have not always been places for ‘selfactualisation’ (Maslow 1962, p. 31), but, these ‘merging tensions’ provide avery interesting locus for investigation and whilst they can be earthedsomewhat as dance techniques start to emphasise their function over theirform and the acknowledgement of these tensions can help to put perceiveddifficulties into perspective, they should remain overt rather than covertduring class. In the dance class as ‘laboratory’, an experimental system canbe set up, where movement structure, movement behaviour and theinterconnections between doing, observing and verbalising form themechanisms for students to learn to dance and simultaneously to identifyhow they are learning to dance.

In November 2006, the role of dance technique in higher education wasdebated at a Palatine seminar hosted by De Montfort University, UK.Practitioners were prompted to question the effectiveness of the traditionalhierarchical approach, where the teacher presents an expert model to beimitated by learners, and to identify more useful and relevant practice.In teaching dance technique as part of degree programmes in the UK, ‘theneed to establish experiential learning environments that are not teacherdependent’ (Stevens 2006, p. 1) was noted and, subsequently, student-centred approaches have become very much at the forefront of discussionsabout practice. What has yet to emerge is the full range of content that isavailable from learning a dance technique and how this can be accessed,experienced and recognised by learners. In entering this domain, I realisethat a delicate balance is in operation: in pursuing learner autonomy, careneeds to be taken not to dismiss the effectiveness of observing an expert,nor to undervalue the benefit of watching another learner learning the samematerial: ‘participants’ learning performance of a novel, complex motor taskwas facilitated after they observed another individual learning to performthat same task’ (Mattar and Gribble 2005, reported in Grafton and Cross2008, p. 63).

In emphasising a heuristic approach to any discipline or skill, the attentionof the ‘doer’ needs to be brought to the act and fact of the doing andacknowledgement needs to be given to the purpose, hazards and rewards ofthe activity. For dancers, hazards can be perceived as the biggest block totheir learning and can manifest themselves as physical, and/or psychological.As a teacher of dance for over three decades, I would assert that my ownhazards lie in judging what interventions are appropriate for each individuallearner in my class and determining the form and function of the class to suita particular group. The relationship between risk and responsibility iscomplex and teachers have come to identify the multifaceted identity of thedance technique class, which seems distant from earlier, simpler, motivations

Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 87

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pant

eion

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

2:06

27

Janu

ary

2012

for teaching dance; for example, in Alwin Nikolais’ assertion that, ‘teachingmakes clear the reason to move and the motional identity that results fromthis experience’ (Nikolais and Louis 2005, p. 24). In accepting thatperformance in movement peaks when there is a balanced correlationbetween enjoyment and challenge (Csikszentmihalyi 1990, Jackson andRoberts 1992) and between the unknown and the familiar – ‘appetitiveversus consummatory experiences’ (Dewey 1968, cited in Schulkin 2004,p. 63), then optimal experience in the learning of technique relies on thecareful management of a number of variables. This article suggests that therole of a teacher of dance technique has become much more complex as sheattempts to find a meaningful dance curriculum that meets the needs ofdifferent groups of dancers, facilitates a conducive learning environment andexperiments with ways that the specifics of a particular dance technique canbe acquired, assimilated and proliferated.

The problem with doing

As a young pianist many decades ago, I recall the perseverance that wasrequired in acquiring some kind of piano technique. Scales, broken chordsand arpeggios had to be learned, played from memory and executed at thewhim of a teacher or an examiner. Velocity and accuracy were soughtthrough repetition and trial and error; often with weeks of error beforediscernible progress was made. I did not question any of this; it was what wasrequired in learning to play the piano. It was a means to the end of being ableto play music, which was my ‘reward’. In the many contexts that dancetechnique is offered as a medium for learning, or a mode of enquiry andwhere this is not necessarily a means to ‘become’ a dancer, then what is itfor? Furthermore, when the focus of a technique is not for a dancer tofunction within a choreographer’s repertoire, then what is the intrinsic valueof dance technique? How does learning in dance technique resonate in otherareas of a dancer’s learning? How can a teacher make this overt in the danceclass?

The relationship of dance technique to the dance practitioner’s ‘world ofwork’ was also discussed at the Palatine seminar hosted by the Dance facultyat De Montfort University in 2006. In her report from the seminar, JayneStevens (2006, p. 1) summarises, ‘The integration of technical practice withstudies such as choreography and movement analysis was seen as apotentially useful way forward.’ This proposes a holistic approach to learningthrough and about dance, but it still leaves teachers with the problem of theintrinsic value of dance technique; if it is not the means to create performers,but is a means of education, then what sort of education is it? Furtherstrategies become needed in order to clarify the ‘other’ curriculum of thedance class. In reflecting on my own practice as a technique teacher, lookingat the norms, values and ways of behaving which are prevalent in the Limontechnique class, I have been investigating how these implicit ethics canbecome informative to the student dancer. In framing the technique as a‘laboratory’ and working with principles and not codes; creating problems tosolve, rather than setting pre-ordained goals, students can be encouraged todiscover a movement experience without being shown a goal or outcome.

88 E. Stanton

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pant

eion

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

2:06

27

Janu

ary

2012

In engaging with a process where there is not a prescribed point of arrival, itbecomes possible to learn something about yourself as you learn a means todance. Where this problem-solving process also involves interaction withpeers, then social intelligence is also called into play. But I am proceedingwith some caution here, as the information that I am reliant on in thisprocess is from immediate feedback ‘in situ’ and once out of context, it isdifficult to define as reliable evidence of the process.

Practice making permanent

Sonia Rafferty (2003, p. 15) proposes a clear assertion that, ‘Class is the mostimportant element in the training of a dancer, the repeated experience ofdaily learning can be seen as a preparation for performance and the means bywhich the capacity to perform is maintained.’ This has been the custom andpractice of our working lives as dancers and, inevitably, movements thatwe have learned during training will be performed time and time again.But, rather than repeating movement in response to visual cues, at whatpoint in their training do dancers ‘trust’ the movement and start to use amore internal cuing system stemming from kinaesthetic/proprioceptiveinformation?

Repetition is an inherent feature of learning any movement skill. In dance,however, this has to go further than mere mechanics. The aesthetic goals fordance technique are not achieved through mindless repetition. Neither is thisrepetition intended to produce an exact replication of movements; sinceindividual dancers will each be working with different ‘equipment’, the resultsof the movement are not intended to be the same. In learning newmovement, a dancer usually emphasises the process of using an externalvisual cue (demonstration by the teacher) to stimulate the body into action.Allowing the dancer time to de-emphasise this process and ‘switch’ to thereverse, where ‘a physical action sends a sentient response back to the brain’(Nikolais and Louis 2005, p. 62) creates a situation where a dancer’s ownmovement heritage (somatic experience), or their life experience can bebrought to the forefront of their dance identity. Recent studies inneuroaesthetics provide informative findings on the relationship betweenseeing and doing: they propose the idea that ‘when we watch an action, wesimulate the movement using the same brain network that we use to executeit’ (Calvo-Merino et al. 2008, p. 919) and that ‘the brain’s response to seeingan action depends not only on previous visual knowledge and experience ofseeing the action but also on previous motor experience of performing theaction’ (Calvo-Merino et al. 2006, p. 1907). It is important to note that thisactivity of seeing and doing is social – a shared experience; a dance class is acommunity of learning where there is a balance between the individual andthe group. As Jay Schulkin (2004, p. 129) notes, ‘there is no loss of theindividual’s primary sensibility in suggesting that common mechanisms areactive when I see you do something and when I do it myself, nor in the factthat my experience is something special’.

In addition to the interplay between observation and action, the process ofassimilating movement through ‘redoing’ benefits from external feedback –video analysis or peer observation – as well as from self-evaluation. Dancers

Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 89

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pant

eion

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

2:06

27

Janu

ary

2012

need to identify that they know movement kinaesthetically and that thissense of the movement can be retained. Their awareness of the repetitionalso needs to have a built in ‘monitoring device’:

. Does this feel the same as it did yesterday?

. How do I account for this difference? (Time of day? Temperature of thestudio?)

. Is the difference caused by fatigue or injury?

. Has the movement sequence shifted? (Is it bigger or smaller? Has thespeed or dynamic changed?)

In the dance class as laboratory scenario, I generally ask the question, ‘Howis your equipment working today?’ in the first few minutes of the class, inorder that the dancers are clear that the class is for and about them andthat they will need to let me know at various points in the class how theyare functioning. They will also have to apply their knowledge and awarenessof their own function to experiments, which will conclude with thediscussion of an identified movement problem with a ‘lab-partner’ or in asmall group.

Undoing

The observation, repetition and analysis of movement creates a processwhere a movement, or a sequence of movements, eventually becomeshabitual, but then a new problem emerges: this ‘habit’ may not necessarily behealthy or useful to the dancer. In creating a fixed neuromuscular pathwaywhich results in undesirable or unsafe instrumental use, a further challenge ispresented to a teacher – that of undoing the results of previous training.Claudia Gitelman notes that in her training with Alwin Nikolais, dancerswere never physically manipulated when movements were ‘incorrect’ andthat Nikolais relied on language to rectify movement problems, ‘Students’failings, he charged, were caused by conditions they placed on movementbecause of habit or psychological interference’ (Gitelman and Martin 2007,p. 33). Other practitioners advocate tactile help and, indeed, many somaticpractices rely on the sense of touch as a beneficial learning tool, and in adance form like Contact Improvisation, physical proximity and bodily contactare essential to its function. These forms also construct carefully heightenedstates of sensory awareness as the body is prepared for movement andin this process offer mechanisms for unravelling movement traits or‘comfortable’ practice.

At what point does a teacher address the possibility of ‘undoing’? Whenyou observe something unhelpful from a dancer’s prior learning or trainingand see that it interferes with their dance potential, how do you findappropriate strategies to ‘undo’ it? Dancers like to hold onto habits as theyare accustomed to them – the repetition of the habit has created amovement memory which has been fully assimilated. This aspect of ateacher’s responsibility is possibly the most difficult, since it requires her tohave an encyclopaedic knowledge of anatomy, physiology, biomechanics andpsychology, and to use this knowledge diplomatically. Feedback in dance

90 E. Stanton

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pant

eion

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

2:06

27

Janu

ary

2012

technique classes has operated under the unfortunate term ‘correction’,which resonates with negativity. In reaction to this, some teachers choosenot to use feedback at all during class – they ‘give material’ and allowparticipants to navigate the material without intervention. This devolution ofresponsibility is still unusual, since a teacher usually has a strong desire tofacilitate learning and to identify suitable interventions for the group and forindividuals within it.

In the elusive process of undoing habits, even finding a true, vertical mid-line to your stance can feel like a major ordeal – in my first ballet class as anadult, my teacher asked me to stand a little further forward on my feet: myweight was behind my mid-line and the small shift I was required to make feltenormous. After a few weeks of experimenting with a new stance, I was thengiven feedback by my Cunningham teacher that my weight was too farforward when I was in motion. As a result, for several weeks I felt ‘all overthe place’ as new movement patterns were assimilated. I still recall mydiscomfiture – not so much from the physical or kinaesthetic difficulty – butfrom the psychological one caused by feeling unusually clumsy anduncoordinated. I felt that I was a lesser dancer and it was not until a yearlater that the rewards of this healthier alignment came in to play. As aconsequence of this experience as a dancer, I recognised the importance ofbeing in the ‘right place’ relative to the force of gravity and forces caused bymy own motion. As a consequence of my response to this situation as alearner, I now try to convey information about changing familiar movementpatterns to dancers without it feeling as though it is a singular problem (‘Is itjust me that can’t do this?’). In a lab-class, we can apply ‘litmus tests’; infinding a true alignment, with a partner, we can observe her movement fromstanding on the whole foot to standing with the heels just off the floor. Whatdo we notice? Is there a similarity in our action? From here it is possible toillustrate issues concerning the centre of gravity, weight transference andweight distribution through the foot into the floor, but since it has been afeature which is noticed by the group, rather than being applied to anindividual, then accurate peer observation skills are developed at the sametime as self-awareness of stance, verticality and weight transfer. KathrynDaniels (2009, p. 9) suggests that ‘these types of movement explorations canbe integrated into technique classes or addressed in separate classesintended as laboratories for technique analysis’. My own preference is for theactivities to stay within the aesthetic domain of the technique class, but thatthe lab activities can necessitate a longer technique class (two hours insteadof the more usual hour and a half).

The procedural knowledge which results from approaching movementthrough problem solving ‘supports students’ sense of self while encouragingthem to be more active in their own learning’ (Barr 2009, p. 42). This puts aheightened importance on the constructive nature of feedback and also on thepossibility of error, trial and improvement and associating new informationwith prior learning. The process of learning is constantly in a state of flux,since a dancer is continually adapting to her movement environment andexamining her relationship between interior sensation and outer manifesta-tion of her dancing. ‘Movement as the outer form and motion as the innerexperience’ (Nikolais and Louis 2005, p. 58) and an interesting objective fora technique class is to find the consonance between these two states.

Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 91

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pant

eion

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

2:06

27

Janu

ary

2012

Multiple foci in the dance technique class

In the delivery of dance classes, teachers may have already moved away fromthe tradition of demonstration and replication. All eyes may not necessarilybe on the teacher during class, as participants observe each other, observetheir own function, or discuss and perform set material in small groups.‘When teaching, I am looking for ways to provide verbal, visual and sensorycues to assist learners to construct meaning from [students’] past andpresent kinaesthetic experience’ (Fortin et al. 2002, p.170). Activities forgroup learning can be prompted by questions constructed by the teacher orthe students: for example, to sense timing, spatial or qualitative issues asan internal dialogue:

‘How does this weight change work?’

‘How does this transition feel?’

‘How do I transmit that feeling?’

‘What do I wish to be attentive to in this movement?’

‘When you look at this, what do you see?’ Or, perhaps more importantly,

‘When you look at this, how do you feel?’

The skills that can be learned in the ‘lab’ are heightened by the process ofobservation: ‘learning to dance by effective observation is closely relatedto learning by physical practice’ (Gazzaniga 2008, p. vi). Since observationinvolves communicating feedback with language, words must be carefullychosen. I have been spending some time trying to develop an awareness oflanguage and meaning in Limon technique classes, in order to see if thespecificity of words can inform the qualitative outcome of movement. Forexample, if I explain that the purpose of a given movement sequence is tosense ‘rising and falling’ (which is a journey with an implication of continuity,of ebb and flow), then performing the movement as ‘up and down’ does notsatisfy the identity of the movement. It should not feel like ‘up and down’, asits function is not to convey ‘up and down’. The goal for this would not besuccessful ‘rising and falling’, but to find out the possibilities of rising andfalling in a variety of ways, of understanding the interplay between potentialand kinetic energy. Asking students to consider meaning actively whilstmoving is an attempt to find what Alwin Nikolais would have described as‘sentient perception’ (Nikolais and Louis 2007, p. 25 ) or what Gill Clarke(2007, p. 3) might allude to as the ‘engaged state of undivided attention’. Theimmediacy of doing something, then talking about it, observing someone elsedoing the same thing and then doing it again oneself, creates a cycle oflearning possibilities. These are not reliant on the teacher, who then hasan opportunity to stand back from the work in progress and reflect on whatthe students are doing, construct follow-up activities and devise group orindividual feedback.

This cycle, where there are other interventions apart from those made bythe teacher, has other benefits, as observation training, self-efficacy and self-reliance are all attainable as part of a process which creates a dancer’sautonomy. I would also suggest that there is an additional ‘undoing’ processat work here, as learners begin to view the role of the teacher differently.‘Healthy’ movement discourse between teacher and learners needs some

92 E. Stanton

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pant

eion

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

2:06

27

Janu

ary

2012

fallibility of the expert model. Teachers can make mistakes and these shouldbe encouraged.

Somatic practice and the particularities of Limon technique

Limon technique emphasises the potential and kinetic energy of the movingbody using an awareness of the body’s mass and volume in relationship togravity. It is musical, uses a wide range of dynamics and is inherently ‘human’,

I danced with Jose Limon not because it was a job and I was a dancer, but

because he brought me to a way of dancing that was as close to a spiritual

experience as I ever had. . . . Some of the most important concepts stemmed

from his respect for the human body and his ability to use it to its fullest

capacity without abusing or distorting it. (Lewis 1984, p. 35)

As a dance technique which uses the premise that movement is defined bya dancer’s relationship with gravity, Limon technique encourages a dancer toallow herself to be propelled by an immutable external force and in doing so,a basis for movement exploration and a reason for doing it are created.Dancers disclose their frailty when yielding to gravity, but in their strivingto overcome it, the indomitable nature of the human spirit is also revealed.Jose Limon explains this eloquently as he describes his intent to work ‘withman’s basic tragedy and the grandeur of his spirit’ (Lewis 1984, p. 152). In theproliferation of falling and using the body to recognise natural forces –particularly that of gravity – painful errors can occur, and in the functionalityof a technique with the laws of physics in operation, Limon’s assertion that,a dancer’s medium is sweat (Lewis 1984, p. 57) is very much in evidence.

The valuable contribution to dance training made by somatic approachesand improvisation-based techniques has promoted deeper learning andafforded approaches which are tailored to individual dancers. Thesedevelopments have allowed older dance forms to be considered in a newlight and I perceive the Limon heritage to have found a way of continuing todevelop in this respect. As a technique that has never been codified, it hasbeen constantly open to external influences; for example, ‘Ruth Currier’sextensive musical training and Betty Jones’ image work derived from LuluSweigard’ (Danielson 2008), and, more recently, the integration of Alexandertechnique, Bartenieff Fundamentals and Laban Movement Analysis (JenniferScanlon, Laura Glenn and Nina Watt respectively) (Danielson 2008).

In establishing a different environment for learning dance technique as aprocess of ‘doing, redoing and undoing’ in a laboratory setting, the issues oflearning and teaching become less concerned with the roles of thoseinvolved (who is doing what to whom?) and can focus more on the questionsand concepts which arise out of seeing how movement works. Withoutmaking the procedure too reductive, in the case of Limon technique, theprinciples to be investigated in the laboratory are the consideration of thebody’s mass and volume, the influence of gravity and the potential to harnessthe interaction of the two. This built-in science of movement can beinvestigated through practice and allows the technique to evolve and toadapt to the different needs of dancers. At the Limon Institute in New York,

Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pant

eion

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

2:06

27

Janu

ary

2012

workshops are dedicated to ‘Principles of Limon’. These are taught by anumber of different teachers, to reflect the possibility that dancers can havedifferent points of view. These workshops take a particular focus, forexample, breathing, using weight, opposition, fall and rebound.

After almost three decades of teaching Limon dance technique, I am awarethat finding ways to keep it fresh and relevant and at the same time truthfulto its founding principles is challenging. The accumulation of my teachingexperience fits inversely with the decline in my physical capabilities, andnow I am required to become more ingenious in the way that material ispresented as ‘technique’. For some time now, technique classes have nolonger needed to be designed to fulfil a choreographer’s vision and duringthis time, release techniques have proliferated, with teachers being able todevelop their work from functional anatomical principles and mind/bodyphilosophies using sensitive and inclusive styles of presenting movement.

In this environment, Limon technique has found itself superseded byrelease techniques and, in some cases, mistaken for it. Release classesemphasise ease of motion, efficiency and fluidity, but this prompts somereservations and indeed, some questions. Where is the risk? Where is theexhilaration that comes from achieving a movement that you had perceivedas difficult? If ease is seen as the goal, then what is the point of the journey?Helen Kindred (2007, p. 4) observes: ‘the risk is that a technique which is byits nature inwardly focused on one’s own body, breaking down and re-forming patterns of moving, has a tendency to become an interesting internalprocess but results in a very ‘‘closed’’ product’. Dance classes still need to beperceived as having purpose beyond the health and safety of the dancer andwhilst dance can ‘feel good’, this does not give it intrinsic value. Dancerslearn to perform and to express themselves through performing andthrough having the materials to create their own dances. The mastery of a‘neurologically and kinetically endowed body in which the purpose, meaningor value of that motion is inherent in the motion itself’ (Nikolais and Louis2007, p. 6) needs a collusion between art and science, where the dancersare made aware of the aesthetic framework they are using whilst they aredeploying the functional aspects of moving.

Recognising difference

When dancers repeat/redo movement out of its original context, this canlead to interesting speculation about the provenance of movement. A simpleexample of this is ‘undercurves’, which are a distinctive feature in theNikolais technique:

The undercurve is conceived as the lower half of a sphere, it is a continuous

half-circle. The locomotion of an undercurve involves the triple action of the

leg: plie – transfer of weight – lift. (Nikolais and Louis 2005, p. 150)

In departing from the functional analysis of the relationship between thedancer and the floor, the successional interplay between feet, ankles, kneesand hips during the execution of undercurves, may be recalled by a dancer ashaving been executed firstly in a sporting context as an effective method of

94 E. Stanton

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pant

eion

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

2:06

27

Janu

ary

2012

weight transference with a quick change of direction. In various dancetechniques, undercurves may be recalled as having served a spatial premise,a preparation for falling or lifting another dancer, a simple method fortransferring the weight at lower level, or a method of gathering momentum.Encouraging dancers to recognise movement in a variety of contexts canlocate the ‘then and now’ of dance too: an examination of undercurves canencompass a breadth of movement ideas from Mary Wigman to ballet.

The recognition of differences between dancers in class and between thefunction of movement, the terminology used to describe it and its aestheticcontext, can help to locate strategies to give dancers responsibility for theirlearning. Some examination of their prior learning is helpful and someingenuity on the part of a teacher may be required in order to find ways touse this productively. A first class with any new group of dancers is alwaysa diagnostic one – who are these dancers? What are their strengths? Whatwould they like to improve? What goals can be defined through sharednegotiation? This is equally true of the teacher’s heritage and their reasonsfor teaching the way they do. In my own case, my early background in sportmakes me susceptible to emphasising that dance should exert your bodyphysiologically. Overcoming inertia is crucial to the physical state of danceand our challenge is to find ‘kinetic quality’ (Nikolais and Louis 2005, p. 12)and avoid our ‘attraction toward the easy life – [our] tendency to fall back onpattern’ (Nikolais and Louis 2005, p. 8). I have to guard against disfavouringdancing which values the concealment of its physiological ‘cost’ and acceptthat some dancers are used to the illusory qualities which are encouragedby some ballet training. I am also aware that having been taught Laban’smovement principles from the age of 11 (in the context of ModernEducational Dance, Modern Education Gymnastics and sport), I expectdancers to be able to analyse dance from this framework and be able to seethese basic principles at work in the movement. Furthermore, since I wasnot exposed to a dance technique class until I was 19, I have a particularempathy with learners who are late starters. And so, given my own heritage,however professional I might wish to be in the context of my teaching, I willbe partial. But, this partiality is overt rather than hidden so that ‘difference’can be put into useful practice. Dancers can begin to see their teachers ashuman – as equal and imperfect – and also begin to understand that theconcept of the idealised body is outmoded. Differences in opinion aboutwhat is happening in a dance class are important loci for learning (and notjust about dance). These differences can be extrapolated by problem solvingand observation tasks where in all probability there will be more than oneanswer.

What should be equally emphasised, however, is that the process ofdancing in a Limon class, where the mass and volume and motion of one’sown body is pitted against the inescapable force of gravity, needs a complicityon the part of all participants in order to recognise that there is also a sharedexperience which is a Limon class. (How do I know I’m in a Limon class?How do I recognise that the dancers around me understand and can executethis way of moving?) The network of communication that is set up duringthe ‘lab class’ reinforces the idea that class is a shared social situation. Theparticular technique being studied creates a community where outcomes aredetermined both by the identity of the movement material and the ways in

Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 95

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pant

eion

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

2:06

27

Janu

ary

2012

which this is recognised by individuals and sub-groups within the ‘lab-class’. Inorder to provide a purposeful framework for learning in this context, thetechnique being studied has to reveal both its distinctiveness and itscommonality.

Re-branding – the future potential of a dance technique class?

What might we see as the objectives of dance technique classes in thefuture? Are they tools to produce ‘a responsive dancing body, one thatengages with and challenges static representations of gender, race, sexualityand physical ability’ (Cooper Albright 1997, p. xiii)? Or are they also alocation for enquiry? It would be interesting to see if the acquisition of dancetechnique can also be a means to enable dancers to differentiate betweenresponding and interpreting. Could dancers be aware of their ability toaddress several activities simultaneously as they are dancing:

‘What is this movement?’

‘How do I do it?’

‘How do I know I am doing it?’

and perhaps more elaborately, ‘Why am I doing it?’

The possibility of ‘re-branding’ the dance technique class could create fruitfulavenues of inquiry. With the proliferation of somatic practices and theirintegration into the contemporary dance class (Fortin et al. 2002), theapplication of scientific research such as Albert Bandura’s (1997) theory ofself-efficacy to dance, and the emergence of Dance Science as an area ofstudy in the vocational and university sectors, teachers of dance who areattentive to the changes in the learning styles, and/or capabilities of students,are looking to find ways to push the boundaries of their practice. KathrynDaniels (2009, p. 8) proposes a model for ‘Dance Technique Education forthe 21st Century’, encouraging a ‘move from training, which encourages skillacquisition, to education which addresses development of the whole person’.In my own technical discipline, the preservation of a legacy has come intoplay, as the latent past of movement studied in class can be brought to thefore (or not) during practice. It may be that some technique teachers willfocus their energies on animating a technique which has not enjoyed themainstream focus of, say, Graham technique, over the past 50 years. Ourpractice might be informed by a resurgence of the Jooss–Leeder technique,for example, which would seem ideal given its inbuilt pedagogic sensibility.Sigurd Leeder had, ‘great sensitivity in his use of imagery, an endearing senseof humor, and an ingenious choreographic ability’ and in class, ‘sequenceswere devised to instruct, to stretch the understanding and to be enjoyedby the performer; emphasis was not on an image to be portrayed to anaudience’ (Hutchinson Guest 2006, p. 163).

In examining fresh possibilities for dance technique, those approacheswhich do not rely on choreographic repertoire will need to identify theintrinsic value of their form – teachers need to have good reasons for theirclasses! The safe and effective use of the dancing body needs to be balancedwith the exploration of individuals’ expressive potential and this involves risk.

96 E. Stanton

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pant

eion

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

2:06

27

Janu

ary

2012

If a technique class is refocused onto training the potential for communicat-ing, then some aspect of this class would need to identify what it is that isbeing communicated.

The processes at work in a dance technique class and their impact on thelearning and teaching of dance can be identified and examined fairly easily incontext. The reflective mechanisms that encourage the discovery ofexperiential evidence of a ‘laboratory’ dance class are more illusive, butthey are crucial in the definition, delivery and maintenance of the phalanx ofdance work and are conducted as (and with) action rather than words. It willbe interesting to speculate how disciplines across the arts are perpetuatedthrough the acceptance of repetition as an essential practice. Knowing that itfeels right, learning to pay attention and finding clearer relationships betweenour sensory modalities can provoke a broader educational perspective inwhich:

More importance is placed on exploration than on discovery, more value is

assigned to surprise than to control, more attention is devoted to what

is distinctive than to what is standard, more interest is related to what is

metaphorical than to what is literal. (Eisner 2004, p. 10)

References

Bandura, A., 1997. Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: W.H. Freeman.

Barr, S., 2009. Examining the Technique Class: Re-examining Feedback. Research in Dance

Education, 10 (1), 33–45.

Bjork, R.A., 1999. Assessing Our Own Competence: Heuristics and Illusions. Attention and

Performance, XV11, 435–459.

Calvo-Merino, B., et al., 2008. Towards a Sensori-Motor Aesthetics of Performing Art.

Consciousness and Cognition, 17 (3), 911–922 Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.

com/science/journal/10538100 [Accessed 14 September 2009].

Calvo-Merino, B., et al., 2006. Seeing or Doing? Influence of Visual and Motor Familiarity

in Action Observation. Current Biology, 16, 1905–1910. Available from: http://

www.sciencedirect.com/ [Accessed 14 September 2009].

Clarke, G., 2007. Mind is as in Motion. Animated (Spring).

Cooper Albright, A., 1997. Choreographing Difference. The Body and Identity in Contemporary

Dance. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

Csikszentmihalyi, M., 1990. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper

and Row.

Danielson, A., 2008. Teaching Limon: Influences and Principles. Unpublished CORD

conference proposal.

Daniels, K., 2009. Teaching to the Whole Dancer. Synthesizing Pedagogy, Anatomy and

Psychology. The IADMS Bulletin for Teachers, 1 (1) [online]. Available from: http://

www.iadms.org/displaycommon.cfm?an¼1&subarticlenbr¼243 [Accessed 4 October

2009].

Day, R.S., date unknown. Basic Cognition. Available from: http://www.duke.edu/*ruthday/

basiccog.html [Accessed 6 April 2009].

Dewey, J., 1968. Art as Experience. New York: Putnam.

Eisner, E.W., 2004. What can Education Learn from the Arts about the Practice of

Education? International Journal of Education and the Arts, 5 (4). Available from: http://

ijea.asu.edu/v5n4/ [Accessed 4 May 2010].

Enghauser, R., 2007. Developing Listening Bodies in the Dance Technique Class. The

Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 78 (6), 33–54.

Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 97

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pant

eion

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

2:06

27

Janu

ary

2012

Fortin, S., Long, W. and Lord, M., 2002. Three Voices: Researching how Somatic Education

Informs Contemporary Dance Technique Classes. Research in Dance Education, 3 (2),

155–179.

Gazzaniga, M., 2008. Arts and Cognition: Findings Hint at Relationships. The Dana

Consortium Report on Arts and Cognition. Available from: http://www.dana.org/news/

publications/detail.aspx?id¼10744 [Accessed 24 October 2009].

Gitelman, C. and Martin, R., eds., 2007. The Returns of Alwin Nikolais. Middletown, CT:

Wesleyan University Press.

Grafton, S. and Cross, E., 2008. Dance and the Brain. Learning, Arts and the Brain: The Dana

Consortium Report on Arts and Cognition. Available from: http://www.dana.org/news/

publications/detail.aspx?id¼10744 [Accessed 24 October 2009].

Hutchinson Guest, A., 2006. The Jooss–Leeder School at Dartington Hall. Dance

Chronicle, 29, 161–194.

Jackson, S.A. and Roberts, G.C., 1992. Positive performance states of athletes: Toward

a conceptual understanding of peak performance. The Sport Psychologist, 6 (2),

156–171.

Kindred, H., 2007. Unpublished MFA essay on dance technique. Roehampton University.

Lewis, D., 1984. The Illustrated Dance Technique of Jose Limon. New York: Harper and Row.

Maslow, A.H., 1962. Toward a Psychology of Being. Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand.

Nikolais, A. and Louis, M., 2005. The Nikolais/Louis Dance Technique: A Philosophy and

Method of Modern Dance. New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis.

Rafferty, S., 2003. Leadership Behaviour in Dance: An Application of the Leadership Scale for

Sports to the Dance Teaching and Training Context. Thesis (MSc). Trinity Laban.

Schulkin, J., 2004. Bodily Sensibility: Intelligent Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Stevens, J., 2006. Re-thinking Dance Technique in Higher Education. Palatine Dance Drama

and Music. The Higher Education Academy. Available from: http://www.palatine.ac.uk/

events/viewreport/309/ [Accessed 17 September 2009].

98 E. Stanton

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pant

eion

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

2:06

27

Janu

ary

2012