dancing

Setting Specific And Successful Goals For The New Dance Season

September 9, 2015 by Rachel Hellwig

"Behind the Scenes" by Nazareth College. Licensed under CC Attribution 2.0 Generic. — “Behind the Scenes” by Nazareth College. Licensed under CC Attribution 2.0 Generic.

by Karen Musey

September is here! The back to school vibe is high in the air and your dance year is about to begin! It is an exciting time and now is the perfect time to figure out your goals for this dancing season.

I define a goal as something that is specific and measurable, for ex. having clean triple pirouettes on both sides in all of my disciplines; not something vague like I want to be a better turner.

Stating your goal allows you to feel empowered with your progress as a dancer. It is good to stick to one goal at a time, so you can really zero in and complete it. Having too many goals splits focus and often less is accomplished. When youʼve fully integrated a goal into your technique, then you can choose a new one to work towards.

So – where do you want to see yourself a year from now?

Look back

Before you race forward, it is helpful to remember your accomplishments and challenges from the previous year. When you take stock of what happened and how you felt about it, you can make informed choices and set realistic goals for the year.

If you had an easy season where your hard work allowed you to easily achieve your intentions, it is important to take a moment and acknowledge your success! Your future goals will build off of the confidence of your last achievements, and you will get a sense of which challenges you are ready to tackle next.

What if you had a challenging year? Maybe you were working through an injury or other obstacles came up. It is important to take a moment to honor your persistence and dedication through that difficult time. You can build great confidence from a challenging year because adversity builds character and hopefully, stronger self care habits. Many (if not most) well known professional dancers had to work through obstacles to be where they are today. Through patience and their determination to succeed, they eventually met their goals.

Your journey may follow a slightly different path than those around you, but if you can trust yourself and your coaches, you will often surprise yourself with what you can accomplish.

"Ballerinas in mid air" by Gabriel Saldana. Licensed under CC Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic. — “Ballerinas in mid air” by Gabriel Saldana. Licensed under CC Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic.

Branch out

How do you want to grow as a dancer this year? Is it mastering a new style of dancing, taking on your first solo, or joining a class as a teacherʼs assistant?

Maybe this is the year that YOU

… choose to be self reliant and remember every step without shadowing another.

… learn the french translation of the steps in your ballet class so you develop a new understanding of the material.

… memorize and accurately pick up the combination the first time it is shown to you.

… be THE cheerleader for yourself and your team – own your success, pump up a friend who feels down, and acknowledge anotherʼs triumph.

…. stand in the front during classes and workshops and really absorb the information given.

…. plan and pack healthier snacks for yourself, to have the energy to carry you through.

…. slow down each technical element to articulate each one 100% correctly, even if you think youʼve already mastered them.

AND

… see yourself as a powerful artist who has something important to offer, every time you look in the mirror.

If your goal feels a little challenging and a bit uncomfortable or scary, and you are still excited to take it on – Congratulations! Youʼve found an awesome way to grow for the year.

Move forward with clarity and confidence

Having a support system is key in accomplishing your goals! Sharing your goals with your fellow dancers and coaches will help you be accountable and stay on track.
Journaling is a popular way to keep tabs on goal progress. Many professional performers keep regular audition and class journals by marking the date and their thoughts of their experience of each performance. This way, they can review their notes and make good decisions moving forward.

For you, setting aside a quick 5 or 10 minutes to write in a short daily or weekly journal is great; just enough time has passed for you to still remember the details of the weekʼs events. Reading your notes can give you clues in how you are moving forward, or if you could approach the goal from a different angle. At the end of the semester when you reread your notes, you will feel fantastic about all of your progress.

All of these small steps will lead you forward to the new challenges you will be rocking later this year. Have an awesome September!

Contributor Karen Musey is a dynamic Canadian born, New York based performer, teacher and dance adjudicator. Her training includes study at Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet Professional Division, The Banff Centre, EDGE PAC (LA), Upright Citizen’s Brigade, The Barrow Group, Kimball Studio, Canada’s National Voice Intensive, Comic Strip Live and more.

Karen Musey judges national and regional dance competitions and festivals across the United States and Canada. She was a Director/Choreographer Observership Candidate during the 2011/12 season with Stage Directors and Choreographers Union and has served as a rehearsal director and dance captain for KOBA Family Entertainment. Karen Musey is an ABT® Certified Teacher, who has successfully completed the ABT® Teacher Training Intensive in Pre-Primary through Level 5 of the ABT® National Training Curriculum. She is a U.S. Member of the International Dance Council CID, recognized by UNESCO.

Performing highlights – PHISH at Madison Square Garden; World Premiere of the Canadian Opera Company’s Das Rheingold (Wagner Ring Cycle); National Artist Program Gala for the 2003 Canada Winter Games; for HRH Queen Elizabeth II during the Golden Jubliee Tour; Chicago (Rainbow Stage); comedy short Foreign Exchange (72 Hour Asian American Film Shootout); music videos for The Guards and Malynda Hale; international tours and performances with The Young Americans, J.A.R. Productions and KOBA Family Entertainment; stand up and sketch comedy around New York; Bravo! documentaries, films and more. She is currently co-writing a play. www.karenmusey.com

Ballet — How Hard Should It Be?

May 9, 2013 by 4dancers

Our guest contributor for this posting is Janet Karin, OAM, currently on the faculty of the Australian Ballet School as Kinetic Educator. Janet is a former principal dancer with The Australian Ballet, and also directed a ballet school / youth dance company in Canberra, Australia. She has a distinguished career not only as a dancer, but also as a well-known dance educator, having developed dance studies courses for the Australian National University School of Music, and other educational institutions. She has worked in many dance-related capacities, such as cultural development, arts funding, safe dance practice (dance medicine) and other initiatives. She is currently Vice-President / President – Elect of IADMS (International Association for Dance Medicine and Science).

Her article “Ballet: How Hard Should It Be?”, provides some valuable perspectives for both dancers / teachers / school and company directors, and we are very pleased she has joined our Guest Contributor roster at 4dancers.org.

– Jan Dunn, MS, Dance Wellness Editor

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“You are working hard” – students usually take this as a compliment. People may think you are working hard if your face is red and you are sweating a lot. You may think you are working hard if you are breathing heavily and feeling a lot of muscle tension, possibly even trembling with effort. After years of praise for these signs of “working hard”, students can begin to feel guilty if their work isn’t accompanied by effort and muscle tension. But, is this how you want to dance in the future, possibly as a professional dancer? In fact, really good ballet dancers make dancing appear completely natural and effortless, as if their movements grow out of the music and their emotions. There is no apparent tension or “work” in good dancing.

You get better at doing what you do. If you dance with tension, you’ll get better at dancing with tension, so it makes sense to dance with as little tension as you can. Tension is energy that is not achieving what it wants, rather like water building up in a garden hose with a bend in the middle. Efficient use of energy helps you achieve your goals more easily, making your work look professional, and much more enjoyable for you and for the audience. How do you achieve this?

Firstly, you need to breathe. It sounds so obvious, but most young dancers hold their breath in difficult movements. Focus on breathing out slowly at the back of your lower ribs, especially on bends and difficult movements. You don’t have to think about breathing in – your brain will take care of that because it wants to keep you alive.

Next, imagine all your movements radiating outwards from deep inside your pelvis – energy streaming out the top of your head, your fingers and your toes, like water streaming out of a hose. Let your movements trace enormous circles in space. Feel as if you are expanding from a secure centre.

Thirdly, remember that we are never really static, because there are always small micro-movements throughout your body as it responds your breathing and small changes in weight from limb movements. Dancers are never “still”; their tiny automatic response to changing balance makes them appear to be still. Make sure you don’t “lock” your body into position, especially your spine.

So, what do teachers really want when they ask you to “work hard”? They want you to use energy, not tension. They want you to focus on making your movements as pure and harmonious as possible. They want you to develop your body’s potential without forcing your muscles or distorting your bony alignment. They want you to breathe freely and move like the music, expressing the pleasure of movement in every part of yourself. And in the end, that’s what you want too!

BIO: Guest Contributor Janet Karin OAM

After an early career as a Principal Dancer of The Australian Ballet, Janet Karin directed a ballet school and youth dance company in Canberra, Australia. She devised her own teaching system, training many highly successful dancers and teachers. She wrote and delivered dance studies courses for secondary education and for the Australian National University’s School of Music and also worked in cultural development, arts funding, safe dance and other dance-related initiatives.

Janet Karin returned to The Australian Ballet as Assistant to the Artistic Director, then moved to The Australian Ballet School as Kinetic Educator. In this role she coaches students individually, applying somatic techniques to improve their neuromotor function. She also collaborates with scientists from various universities in dance science research. In 2009 she was awarded an Australian Centre of Clinical Research Excellence Grant to investigate dynamic pelvic stability.

Janet Karin has received the Medal of the Order of Australia and several awards for artistic direction and dance teaching. She is currently Vice-President of the International Association for Dance Medicine & Science, and will become its President in October 2013.

“Older Dancers”

May 7, 2013 by 4dancers

We are pleased to welcome back guest contributor Gigi Berardi, dance author and critic, who has written over 150 articles and reviews that have appeared in Dance Magazine, Dance International, The Los Angeles Times, among others. She is also a natural and social scientist currently on the faculty of Western Washington University.

Her academic and background and performing experiences allow her to combine her passion for both dance and science. Her fifth book, “Finding Balance: Fitness and Training for a Lifetime in Dance” is in it’s second printing, and is one I highly recommend especially for younger dancers. Gigi’s master degree thesis in dance, from UCLA, focused on older dancers who were able to continue dancing and performing well past the age when most have to retire because of injuries – i.e, what were they doing differently that kept them actively performing into their 50’s, 60’s,70’s? Her current book project is called “A Cultivated Life” — look for it soon!

– Jan Dunn, MS, Dance Wellness Editor

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by Gigi Berardi, MA

To be honest, I don’t like using the term, “older dancer” to describe dancers over 30 or 40 or 50. I’m not exactly sure why (it connotes “less than,” not as compelling?) – although I used it mightily in my Masters thesis at UCLA, developing “Case Studies of Older-aged Dancers and the Factors that Contribute to the Longevity of Their Performing Careers” (UCLA, 1989). But, the “older-aged” part now, for me, is about psychological and emotional staying power in dance, as I describe in “Bill Evans: “Changing the Body and the Geography of Modern Dance” (Dance Magazine, pages 38 – 43, October, 2003) and elsewhere, see: http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/gberardi/performing_articles.shtml.

It seems to me that for most dancers in their 40s and older, the important questions for them are, “do they feel like they can still do what they want to do in a particular role?” and “do they want to?”

Few dancers are being taken off the stage, fighting and kicking, and screaming “Nooooooo…” I think that what happens, over time, is more subtle (and, if you will, nefarious). They begin to have fewer opportunities for lead roles (for whatever reason, but I must say that audience demand for younger, thinner, and those more capable of dizzying pyrotechnics may comprise a sensibility that artistic director are particularly aware of). Further, past injuries may be catching up with them, other conditions in the work place may be undesirable (re: physical space, etc.), and they may have other personal constraints (wanting to raise a family, spending more time with their children) or financial ones (wanting to be financially solvent at the advanced age of 45, say).

From my perspective as a dance critic and using a lens of physicality, as a career progresses, it is nimbleness and stamina that seem to be on the wane. Strength and flexibility, emotional prowess, commitment to conditioning (for me right now, as a “mature” dancer, Thai kick boxing is my passion) and a diet high in good fats and low in sugar – all seem to characterize dancers with staying power. Nimbleness and stamina are the more illusive traits.

What to do, then, for a “lifetime in dance” (the subtitle of both editions of my Finding Balance book)?

feed that mind with good cholesterol and saturated fat (for more, see my forthcoming book, A Cultivated Life, 2014) that coat the myelin sheaths in and around and of all the parts of the central nervous system,
get some sun, which helps in all of the above,
find your passion in conditioning – martial arts or Franklin Method ©, or Pilates, or step aerobics, and above all,
keep dancing, which is the best way to build character and flexibility and strength and stamina in all that dancers do.

Or, dancers might want to look for a job in Europe where all (above) seems easier. See: “From Dance to Danse: Why so many American Dancers are Heading to Europe” (Dance Magazine, 2009, at website mentioned in this article).

Gigi Berardi holds a MA in dance from UCLA. Her academic background and performing experience allow her to combine her interests in the natural and social sciences with her passion for dance, as both critic and writer. Over 150 articles and reviews by Ms. Berardi have appeared in Dance Magazine, Dance International, the Los Angeles Times, the Anchorage Daily News, The Olympian, The Bellingham Herald, and scientific journals such as BioScience, Human Organization, and Ethics, Place, and Environment. Her total work numbers over 400 print and media pieces. Her public radio features (for KSKA, Anchorage) have been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Dance Critics Association, and is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, as well as Book Review editor for The Journal of Dance Medicine & Science. A professor at Western Washington University, she received the university’s Diversity Achievement Award in 2004. Her fifth book, Finding Balance: Fitness and Training for a Lifetime in Dance, is in its second printing. Her current book project is titled A Cultivated Life.

Email: Gigi.Berardi@wwu.ed<mailto:Gigi.Berardi@wwu.edu>u

Website: http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/~gberardi and http://www.gigiberardi.com/

Blogs: http://blog.gigiberardi.com/ and http://resilientfarmsnourishingfoods.blogspot.com/

Teaching Choreography

April 2, 2013 by 4dancers

by Lauren Warnecke, MS

A choreographer does not a teacher make, and vice-versa. There seems to be a divide between the teachers and the dancemakers (perhaps as there should be), but at the end of the day, the dance teacher needs to be able to choreograph and the dance maker needs to be able to teach. At the student level, this logic makes total sense, because learning choreography is part of the student dancer’s training, and, most often, her teacher rather than a professional choreographer is teaching the dance.

At the pre-professional/professional level, the expectation to pick up quickly, and without much guidance, is astronomically higher. Studio space is expensive, and it’s the dancers’ jobs to learn movement regardless of the choreographer’s ability to teach. Picking up quickly is, in some sense, also a way to weed out dancers from the hundreds that are gunning for the one spot you have open in your company.

Look, I get it.

But I would also argue that utilizing solid teaching methods in the studio could make for a more efficient, less frustrating rehearsal process. Plus, you’re more apt to get what you really want out of the dancers.

There are three ways in which people learn: visual, auditory, and tactile cues. Some people learn through watching a demonstration, others by listening, and still others by doing. This is, in part, why traditional schoolrooms (trying to learn math by listening to a teacher talk and then writing out standardized tests) don’t work that well… but I digress. [Read more…]

Student Spotlight: Lucy Panush

March 26, 2013 by 4dancers

Today we are running another student spotlight–Lucy, from The School at Steps…

LucyPanush2_byE.Patino — Lucy Panush, Photo by E. Patino

1. Can you tell readers how you became involved with dance?

I first became involved with dance at age 2 in “Mommy and me” classes, and my earliest dance training was in ballet and tap programs at various studios in Manhattan. I decided five years ago to audition for The School at Steps’ Pre-Professional program, where I have found my “home,” and am currently a student. It is there that I have been able to broaden my dance education, incorporating other varieties of dance — Horton, hip-hop, jazz, contemporary, theatre dance and ballet– into my dance vocabulary.

2. What do you find you like best about dance class?

What I love about dance class is the atmosphere and the people that come with it. Dancers have this amazing work ethic, which adds to the energy in the room. Now that I have gotten to the advanced level it has become even more enjoyable to watch all the incredible dancers around me. In particular, I find it intriguing to see what choices they make because I am able to enhance my own dancing by learning from them.

I also love the dance studio because it is a place I can practice my performance skills. The feeling of dancing a ballet variation is very different than that of performing a hip-hop piece. I hone these performance skills in dance class.

3. What is the hardest part about dance for you?

The hardest part about dance for me is having the confidence and mindset to tackle a new and challenging step. If I am too afraid to mess up, or fall flat on my face, I realize I am never going to succeed in accomplishing something difficult. I remind myself constantly to be confident within myself, because 60% of the time it’s actually “in my head.” If I believe I can execute the step, I find I most likely do!

LucyPanush1_by Panush — **Lucy Panush, Photo by Keith Fremon**

4. What advice would you give to other dancers?

I would offer other dancers the mantra: “dance is to express and not to impress.” If you are dancing because you love it, and not doing it for someone else, whether it be a teacher or a parent, then that is all that matters. Dance is also such a great outlet to build confidence. It is important to take the confidence that is gained in class and apply it to performances and other areas of life. But mostly, rather than compare yourself to others, focus on your own improvement.

5. How has dance changed your life?

Dance has changed my life in so many positive ways.

It has taught me time management, which certainly helps with juggling classes and schoolwork;
It has given me the ability to focus better, putting all my personal issues aside for a period of time to just be in the moment and the movement.
It has given me performance skills to apply on stage;
And it has taught me, plain and simple, that your life is much more enjoyable when you have a passion!

In the studio I am my own person; I have the ability to express myself freely. Nothing beats the feeling that accompanies finishing an amazing class; I always leave with endless energy and a huge smile on my face. I know I will remain committed to this art form, as it is such an integral part of my life.

The School at Steps is a training ground for students, ages 2-18, who are interested in exploring various dance styles, as well as for those students already focused on a particular discipline. The school offers an Academic Year and Summer Programs, with classes in ballet, modern, tap, jazz, theater dance, hip hop, and Pilates. Students at the school are also given performance opportunities, and workshops on dance and career-related topics. Beginning with the Young Dancers Program and continuing through the most advanced pre-professional classes, The School at Steps provides children with an opportunity to explore the world of dance, to learn and experiment with technique, and to enrich their appreciation for the various forms of the art.

Here’s a video of Lucy dancing:

Look back

Branch out

Move forward with clarity and confidence

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