teaching dance

Performance At Its Best

May 21, 2013 by 4dancers

By Janet Neidhardt

It’s that time of year again–time for the end of the year performance for dancers in schools and studios. My students just performed their dance concert and I’m pleased to say they did a wonderful job! A lot goes into teaching students to give their best performance and I often seek out new ideas on how to pull out their strengths in the art of performance.

But how do you get your students to really perform movement fully and to the best of their ability? I find performance is a quality that can be difficult to teach and is sometimes difficult to articulate with words. My students are required to see professional dance concerts during the school year and then they write a critique on the show that specifically describes a performer that catches their eye. In anticipation of their upcoming performances, I asked my students”What does it look like when someone is performing movement well?” Some of the responses I got were:

They look confident
Moving from their center and into their limbs and finger and toes
Their focus in the face is clear
They have purpose in their movement

These are all important elements of crafting a strong performance. I think that being able to articulate this information helped my students to find that performance within them. Things I do as a teacher to help my students perform to their fullest are: talk about performance with all movement executed in class (like during warm-ups), videotape their dancing and have them critique themselves, have them watch each other and discuss what they are doing really well, and of course ask them to articulate what performance looks like.

I find that when I build performance into the craft of choreographing a dance my students have more time to work on the movement and its projection. Instead of teaching movement first and then talking about focus and performance later, I try to talk about meaning and stylization right from the start so the dancers will know what is expected from them and their movement.

Students also perform more strongly when they have ownership over the movement they are dancing. I have my students choreograph movement for their pieces all of the time so that they are more invested in the work and deeply a part of the process. The emotional connection to the work can be another catalyst to a great performance.

Needless to say, teaching students to perform to their fullest can be challenging. At the end of the day, if I know my students felt good about the show they performed and they had fun while doing it–then they have succeeded greatly.

dancer posing upside down — Janet Neidhardt

Contributor Janet Neidhardt has been a dance educator for 10 years. She has taught modern, ballet, and jazz at various studios and schools on Chicago’s North Shore. She received her MA in Dance with an emphasis in Choreography from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro and her BA in Communications with a Dance Minor from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Throughout her time in graduate school, Janet performed with Sidelong Dance Company based in Winston-Salem, NC.

Currently, Janet teaches dance at Loyola Academy High School in Wilmette, IL. She is the Director of Loyola Academy Dance Company B and the Brother Small Arts Guild, and choreographs for the Spring Dance Concert and school musical each year. Janet is very active within the Loyola Academy community leading student retreats and summer service trips. She regularly seeks out professional development opportunities to continue her own artistic growth. Recently, Janet performed with Keigwin and Company in the Chicago Dancing Festival 2012 and attended the Bates Dance Festival.

When she isn’t dancing, Janet enjoys teaching Pilates, practicing yoga, and running races around the city of Chicago

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…]

Creating A Community In The Dance Studio

January 22, 2013 by 4dancers

by Janet Neidhardt

Building a sense of community is one of the first things I do when I get a new class at the beginning of the school year. Throughout my time teaching dance I have discovered that my students feel they can be themselves most freely in class when they have trust in their peers to be accepting of them. I am constantly pushing my students to take risks in class, fall down or be goofy with movement, but they are hesitant when they feel insecure about what others will think of them. [Read more…]

On Leaving…

July 30, 2012 by 4dancers

by Lucy Vurusic Riner

I have been teaching dance at a high school right outside of Chicago’s city limits for 15 years. As in any other job, I have developed my role here and have become part of the fabric that is this institution. And as in many other teaching jobs, I have seen my share of students come and go. As a creature of habit my assumption was that I would build a dance program that I could live in for all of my career.

In reality, the average person changes jobs at least three times in a lifetime….and I had already left my first teaching job 15 years ago. Teaching philosophies change, students have different needs and administrations come and go. Being a creature of habit in a school system is not always easy. And so I decided to explore change.

Change is good right? It pushes us, especially as artists, to stretch ourselves and our abilities.

For me leaving was hard for several reasons. I love my colleagues and the people I had grown to know as my second family. Let’s be honest, I spent more time in that building than the one I still have a huge mortgage on. As a teacher, this family helps you live out your philosophies, develop and redirect your curriculums, and when you teach in the right school or studio your department can really make or break whether you want to get up for work each day. [Read more…]

Teaching First Time Movers at Any Age

May 25, 2011 by 4dancers

Dance can be a very intimidating art form for adults who have never danced before or who do not have an awareness or appreciation of their bodies. People have an image of a dancer and if they don’t fit the mold then they think they can’t dance. I felt this way as a young dancer. I wanted to look like and dance like every dancer I admired. What I discovered is that I had to listen to my own body, my own creative spirit and turn away from the mirror and turn off the judgment in my head. And that is exactly what I asked of a group of pre-teens and parents who took part in a Fit For Kids program I taught at a local hospital where I live.

The focus of the Fit For Kids program is to introduce different ways of exercising to kids and parents who have sedentary lifestyles. If you have the opportunity to teach dance to adults or a mixed age group who are either not used to moving, reluctant about moving or first time movers, it can be quite a challenge. My program started as it usually does when I work with nervous kids and adults: most of the kids were chatting with each other and the parents were trying to disappear into the back wall.

Here are a list of ideas, activities, and tools that I find helpful when teaching a class to people who are hesitant to participate:

1. It is important to engage the adults right away and encourage a positive social interaction between parent and child. Don’t ask if the adults would like to join in. Instead ask them to help by participating. They are more likely to participate if they feel they are being helpful instead of being put on the spot.

2. Adults are used to giving directions and children are taught to follow. Switch this idea around. Have the children lead an exercise and teach a movement to the adults. Also, create an activity where the children and adults have to be partners. In this situation the adults can feel safe by not having to lead something in which they are not comfortable. You are empowering the children to be in charge of their bodies and are giving them some control as well. [Read more…]

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