I know it’s MY job as the teacher to captivate and drive, but I’m just always taken aback that the tables turn almost daily, and I find myself in awe of my dancers’ beauty- inside and out.
This week I had a fun exercise for my advanced class… to have them each choreograph a combo for the ballet barre ( I taught center) and experiment with that feeling of educating and guiding your peers. They did very well, some better than others, but I had a few students who were there that day and not the day before when I assigned the combinations. I gave one of the previously absent students the responsibility of determining Reverence (the final exercise in a class) at the beginning of class, so as to ensure she had time to think on it, while still focusing on the combinations at hand. When the time finally came for her to share whatever it was she had planned, last minute, her chosen concept shook me in the best of ways…
A circle, in which we would pass love from one to another through movement, all while listening to “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” from The Lion King. Quite Epic. She didn’t stop there though- she wanted to finish with all the dancers giving their love to me, personally. I cried (managed to keep the tears hidden though) and I shared with them, after the exercise, some very important advice about loving one another outside of the studio, seeking out other dancers who appear to be falling to the wayside, and why it is SO IMPORTANT to be yourself in AND out of the studio. We can be so eccentric within the walls of our comfort zone, but Martha Graham was right when she said we needed to take heed each time the slightest wind blows, and to never let the genius which we are all born with slip away just because our eccentricities may appear abnormal to some. She was nuts, and the world has her to thank for the revolution of Modern dance as we now know it.
These young dancers have more to offer the world than they could ever dream… and it has been my supreme pleasure to make sure they know it. I love to teach, perform, create… for me, dance is all of these things because I am filled with a need to share every side of myself with the world. May you also choose to represent yourself fully- whether the world accepts you, or not.
The featured image was taken by one of my dearest students, Rachel Olsen, one wild and woodsy day together 🙂 Thank you, Rachel!
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