And I'm feelin' good......

I have lots to report.  Firstly, 2 students in the last 2 days have voiced that they are aware that they imaged themselves negatively before a step in class and that it affected the outcome – totally new and very exciting.  Secondly, overheard in the college car park after a 1^st year ballet assessment were words about how the student that was speaking had used positive imagery before their assessment and that it had worked for them.  Reflecting with the students in classes after this highlighted that several of the students had used positive imagery successfully before and during their assessment.  One described it as ‘telling themselves they could’ all the way through.   I had worked on this on the lead up to assessments in the hope that the students would be able to allow themselves to do their best under assessment conditions.

Other news is the success of relaying back to the students some reading about how the lower back muscles cannot ‘pull up’ as their action is downwards, and adding this to the notion of lengthening the last inch of the spine – an old favourite of mine, then ‘pinning’ the pelvis with the top of the hamstring/bottom of the bottom.’  Student feedback has established that this is working and visually posture is better. 

Finally working on the journey of the tendu this week, along with ‘feeling’ what you are doing (Minton 2003 edition) have both been successful and have engaged the students.  The work of the inner thigh has been recognised within keeping the pelvis aligned and extending the leg muscles in the tendu, and work with proprioception and dancing with the eyes closed has raised awareness of what is actually happening within the anatomy when executing the given movements.  I feel positive, inspired and excited. 

Even injured students who have to watch class, (who I always include in my lessons), are interacting more and producing very insightful observations about what they are seeing and hearing.  One such student passed on a wonderful image about constructing the self as a dancer.  She explained that one of her old teachers used to say that becoming a dancer is like constructing a jigsaw; some days a piece goes in and never has to come back out, so it can be laminated, and on other days some pieces are in the wrong place, but eventually all the pieces slot together, on some days at least!  We got there via me using an image my cousin had put in my mind the night before.  She had related to me the details of watching a programme about how intricate carved furniture was constructed, and in contrast to her belief that such furniture was made out of one piece of wood, she learned that it was in fact made out of several or many pieces, and blended together to create the aesthetic of the finished product.  I felt that this related to the process of creating, for example, an arabesque, or indeed the finished product as a dancer.  We both described a similar image, but I loved the fact that my student wanted to share her version.  A very productive and positive week!

Task 1 - Carlos Acosta

Task 1: Carlos Acosta

http://www.carlosacosta.com/biography.php

Choosing Carlos Acosta for my subject was not difficult. He is a very prominent ballet dancer who has achieved great fame, and is very visible.  He has a lot to say to the world, not just as a performer, but also as a human being.  It became clear to me as I researched his body of work that he has much left to do and he is fearless about achieving what he wants to achieve.  I place him in a league of super-humans, for many reasons, which I hope to explain during this piece of work.

I came to my conclusion about him after watching interviews, reading his autobiography, a biography of his life, newspaper articles,  and watching his work on DVD in Tocororo, seeing him live in Premieres; in other words totally immersing myself in his world and his work.

Carlos Acosta has ambitions way beyond being the prince, although he describes on many occasions the joy that it brought to his father to see his son play the prince at the Royal Ballet for the first time, and if he achieves his goal of ‘representing the world as it is today on the stage’ (Acosta, 2013, SKY TV, Masterclass) he will have contributed to changing the world’s perception of ballet.  Although he says that he has personally never experienced racism, he says that he can only speak for himself, and ‘maybe he has been lucky’.  During the Frost Interview Acosta mentions being one of 3 (3.75%) black dancers out of 80 in the Royal Ballet Company and he feels that this has to change.  He is concerned that people’s perceptions of black ballet dancers are old perceptions that are being handed down without any substance.  This smacks to me of a positivist standpoint, supporting that there can only be one possible view of the aesthetic of ballet – that of white dancers.

More than just feeling this, he is doing something about it.  He intends to renovate the deserted and dejected product of the Cuban Revolution – a well-intended yet unfinished City of the Arts, started in 1961. It was the vision of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara which was left to rot and ruin when funds dried up due to a new regime in Cuba.  Carlos Acosta is a visionary, who, despite a background of poverty and poor education, (Acosta, 2007) can see what his status, talent and passion can bring to his homeland, and his world of dance.  If the state will not take on the challenge, Carlos Acosta will.  He is able to see that there is more than one way to achieve a goal, and is determined to find the solution, via whatever circuitous route is needed.

However, this project is not plain sailing and there have been objections to the potential ‘privatisation’ of the building, which is a site of National Heritage.  There are objectors in Cuba who would prefer to leave the building to ruin, and for Acosta to build somewhere else in the country.  Carlos Acosta will make it happen, either in Cuba, or elsewhere in the world and has been clear that he will have no qualms at redirecting his plans to another country as long as his dream is achieved.  (Rowan Moore, The Observer, Sunday 25 November 2012.) 

This potential child criminal, whose future could so easily have become that of an uneducated delinquent, (Acosta, 2007 & Willis 2010) has demonstrated to the world that he has the intelligence to see a problem and fix it; he has been to the Minister of Culture in Cuba to suggest that the City of Arts can be a functioning, creative reality.  When the Minister voiced that it would cost so much to achieve this dream, Carlos replied ‘So what, let’s do something about it’ (Acosta, 2013, SKY TV, Masterclass) More than this, he has created the Carlos Acosta Foundation in order to raise funds to do just that.  There is no doubt in my mind that he will achieve this goal and create a great future, not just for the arts in Cuba, but within the arts all over the world.  By demonstrating that one individual, a minority within an elitist art form, can take huge steps to raise the profile of black ballet dancers, Carlos Acosta shows us that there is more than one way to approach change.  He has not relied on Governments, the law, or the performing arts field to come around to a broader was of thinking, he has stepped up and spoken out, using high profile public arenas to great effect.

I have deliberated long and hard about how Carlos Acosta has achieved what he has achieved and how he has the guts to take on this project.  I can only relate to something which keeps rearing its head at this time. It is the ‘Law of Attraction’, feted and utilised by Rhonda Byrne; The Secret, 2006.  As I work on my teaching and research the uses of imagery, I keep coming to ‘positive imagery’ and the power of the mind.  Having brought this up with my students, they were very keen to discuss their belief in ‘The Secret’ and how this can affect them and their futures.  Whilst researching Carlos Acosta, ‘The Secret’ kept entering my mind.  I have had the fortune to work with several people recently who seem to know how to make it all work – they have harnessed the Law of Attraction and their lives are in harmony.  Unwittingly, over the last 14 months I have changed my life from a negative, downward spiral to a more successful and happier trajectory and put positivity at the forefront of all I do.  This seems to me to be how Carlos Acosta functions.  Rather than letting a serious injury affect his career, he went to his homeland to recover and spend valuable time with his family.  On returning to dance in Cuba when able to dance again, he accepted a low status within the company and learned much from other dancers with a higher position than him.  (Acosta, 2007; Willis 2011). Rather than allowing these events to destroy him, Carlos Acosta used potentially destructive events to a positive effect.

When interviewed, his poverty as a child is always raised, (The Frost Interview, 2012; SKY TV, Masterclass, 2013) yet he mentions that Communism at least ensured that they all had something to eat – even if it was only white rice and beans.  He told Michael Parkinson that ‘poverty was the best thing that happened to him’ and that because of being poor ‘he does not take things for granted.’ (Acosta, 2013, SKY TV, Masterclass)  He turns a potentially set ‘poor me’ scenario into a gift.  There is more than one way to view his past and Carlos Acosta has chosen to focus on the positive rather than the struggle.  This demonstrates a non-positivist standpoint.  He demonstrates great humanity and vision via his words and positive stance.  I am led to consider how, if he was negative and stuck within a positivist, fixed stance how his life may have played out.  I fear it could have been very different.

When the perceived cruelty of his father is mentioned, he states ‘That's the beauty of my life ... How can a truck driver have this will to get his son to become a ballet dancer when most fathers would like their son to become something else?’ (Acosta, 2012, The Frost Interview).  Pedro Acosta is Carlos’s hero, although he could not see this when a young boy.  He praises his father’s determination.  Carlos was going to be a ballet dancer – and between them they made it so.  It is clear that ballet has offered Carlos a life he would have never experienced, and in turn, Carlos has educated himself to use his experiences to benefit others.

Romona De Saa - founder of The Cuban National Ballet School was a great influence on Carlos and says of his father, Pedro ‘It is probable he would never had made it to where he has had it not been for his father.’  (De Saa, 2012, The Frost Interview) Pedro Acosta was incredibly strict with his youngest son and they clashed terribly at times.  Hindsight, maturity and reflection have enabled Carlos Acosta to realise what his father did for him although it was painful at times.  It is obvious that he is passionate about family, and speaks of questioning the point of dancing when he could not see or relate to his family as he developed as a rising star, experiencing life in a way that his impoverished family would never be able to understand.  Once again, he has taken a positive stance, built a home in Cuba and intends not only to go back to his homeland, but to take with him his knowledge, his passion, his skills, and share them not just with Cuba but with the world. 

You could look at Carlos Acosta’s life as a life of fortunate coincidences – his father illicitly sneaking into an ‘all white’ cinema and witnessing ballet, his associations with teachers and mentors who shaped, and saved his life, being seen by the right people at the right time etc.  However I see it differently.  I see a spirit that has had to encounter hardship, trauma, pain, but who has always used his experiences to develop, to learn and to progress to another level.  Carlos Acosta is a problem solver; he started to develop other strands to his ballet career by choreographing, writing and acting in preparation for retirement from ballet.  He acknowledged his longing for his homeland and his family, so he built a home in Cuba and intends to develop a wonderful facility there.   

He nourished his love for his homeland by creating Tocororo – aptly named after the National Bird of Cuba, (‘Air Acosta’ being a nickname attached to this great dancer with the gift of elevation!).  Tocororo is a loosely autobiographical dance piece, charting the progress of a young man in Cuba as he becomes a ballet dancer.  You can see from the integration of movements that Carlos Acosta created that he is entrenched in his culture – the Latin-American dances such as the Salsa, his childhood – the competitive breakdancing inspired by Michael Jackson, and the classical repertoire that he has mastered and performed all over the world.  You can also see the spirit of Cuba – the red Chevrolet on the stage was borrowed from a man on the street (Willis 73%) and although it caused havoc due to its weight and size, a way was found for the car to be hoisted onto the stage.

Carlos Acosta has also challenged himself to explore other dance forms such as contemporary dance.  Ballet, to him, ‘can feel square, steeped in tradition and you cannot get outside it, whereas contemporary dance is free.’  (Acosta, 2013, SKY TV, Masterclass) Watching Premieres at the London Coliseum in 2010 made me aware that Carlos Acosta has imagination and courage.  Many of the audience may have naively expected to see ‘Air Acosta’ performing virtuosic leaps and turns, yet this show, short and succinct was not about that.  It was an exploration of what else there was – using modern music, street clothes and everyday life and times as a stimulus for expressive contemporary dance, with a loose theme of a love affair.  I was captured by the bravery of this, and have a lasting image imprinted in my mind of the final position of the pas de deux with partner Zenaida Yanowsky whereby she was sitting on Acosta’s table top back, undulating gently.  Whilst Premiere received mixed reviews, I left the theatre admiring the courage of a world famous ballet dancer who was not afraid to risk take and buck tradition.

It is of interest to note that I document little of Carlos Acosta’s prolific classical career in this task.  His classical career has been well documented, and many are aware of his soaring solos and virtuosic turns.  I felt that his journey from boy to man, and the powerful crusader he has become since gaining the kudos and status needed in order to be heard were even more inspiring than his Don Quixote or Apollo performances.

I cannot possibly know for sure what philosophical stance drives Carlos Acosta to do what he does; I can only explore what his actions describe to me.  He appears to be a problem solver who can work out how to get around or under the wall if he cannot get over it.  As long as the end result is the same, he will find a way, which would describe a non-positivist stance.  He does not discuss religion; all I know is that his father was a follower of the Yoruban ‘Santiera’ faith, offering up scarce food as sacrifices to ensure that good would happen.

A proud man – who is ‘not here to make a fool of himself’, (Acosta, 2013, SKY TV, Masterclass), Acosta realises that the time will come when he must make way for emerging talent and relinquish being the prince.  What better way forward than ‘building bridges’ for his homeland to cross?

Bibliography

Books:

Acosta, C: No Way Home, Harper Press, 2007

Willis, M: The Reluctant Dancer, Arcadia Books, 2010 [2011 Kindle edition]

Television:

Masterclass, Parkinson Productions, Sky Arts, BskyB 2012

DVD:

Acosta, C: Tocororo – A Cuban Tale, Time Life Studio, October 2004

Online Interviews and Promotional Videos:

The Frost Interview - Carlos Acosta: From pauper to prince: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWmmH_I9XsI, Released on 15^th Dec 2012, viewed 2^nd March 2013

Carlos Acosta on creativity in Britain:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq-isXFFSnU&NR=1&feature=endscreen, Published on 3rd October 2011, viewed 2nd March 2013

Tocororo – A Cuban Tale 2004: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flk_Af4TFSg – promotional video, viewed 2^nd March 2013

Newspaper Articles:

Monahan, M: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/dance/8668458/Carlos-Acosta-London-Coliseum.html, July 2011, accessed 1^st March 2013

Nicoll, R: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/aug/01/carlos-acosta-premieres-coliseum-review, August 2010, accessed 1^st March 2013

Moore, R: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/nov/25/havana-ballet-school-carlos-acosta, November 2012, accessed 28^th February 2013

Online Articles:

Martínez, J, P: Carlos Acosta at the Dressing Room,

http://www.tempcubanow.cult.cu/pages/print.php?item=9098, accessed 2^nd March 2013

‘Delite, M’: missdelite.blogspot.com/2009/11/carlos-acosta.htm, accessed 2^nd March 2013

http://www.eno.org/see-whats-on/productions/production-page.php?itemid=2340, accessed 28th February 2013

Savage, M: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21010241, accessed 28th February 2013

http://carlosacostafoundation.org, accessed 28th February 2013

http://thesecret.tv/past-greats.html, accessed 3^rd March 2013

An ethical dilemma

I write with my Course Leader’s head on, with thoughts inspired by reading and responding to Alison’s posting about ethics.

I am mid-ethical dilemma as we speak.  I am aware of a student who is not coping very well at the moment.  He has had a very poor education, and considers himself less equipped for the profession than his peers because of this, although he is very naturally talented within performing arts.  He has been attention-seeking recently at the start of my ballet classes, and, as I know him well, have let it pass and he has settled down.  I was of course concerned that he did not seem to be in a good place, even though he achieved 6 pirouettes in my class once he was settled.

He is required to prepare a monologue for a forthcoming assessment, and a song.  I was made aware by another student in his group of the difficulty he has had finding a monologue, and that he has real reading problems.  This student felt that the young man in question had not been given enough learning support whilst at the college.  She also felt that the acting teacher responsible for the assessment should have given this student help with finding a monologue as he lacks the required knowledge and literacy skills to be independent at the moment.

I spoke to him today as I was made aware by a colleague that he had had a meltdown on Friday and it was quite likely that he would not attend his singing and acting assessments.  We had a chat, and he explained that he had tried to read the play from which his monologue (that in the end another teacher had given him, and he had learned) had come, but he had really struggled with it.  I am aware that it is very likely that the teacher/assessor will ask about the play, and when we discussed this he said that he would probably answer that he had not read the play.  I have the play on video, so offered to lend it to him so that he had a visual and aural understanding of the play, but also suggested that he should give reading the play his best shot.  I also suggested that perhaps rather than saying he had not watched it, he could reply that he had tried to read the play, but, as he had struggled with the reading, he had found another way to research the work so that he was more aware of the plot.

I am really aware that my colleague may well accuse me of undermining her, but I have thought long and hard about this and feel that actually my responsibility in this instance is to the student, and that it is not about my colleague.  She has taken the stance that he is lazy and unorganised, and whilst this may partly be the case, I am more concerned by the fact that emotionally he is overwrought and feeling (as he articulated today) like a social outcast due to his lack of knowledge.  I have tried to give him a coping strategy for this and suggested that he starts to look at musicals and plays on television and youtube, as it is there for the taking, rather than punishing himself for not being able to read a play.  I will have to ‘defend’ myself with my colleague should this arise, but I feel quite strongly that I had to support the student in this case.  I also understand how my (quite fragile) colleague might feel, but can only hope that she can see the bigger picture and realise it is not about her.

What are your thoughts about this?

When is a ballet class not a ballet class and how to get the balance right.....

Reading Eric Franklin's 'Dance Imagery for Technique and Performance' has widened my thinking about imagery, its scope and its uses.  I have started to take the book into my classes, and am trying to encourage my students to think differently in the approach to their work, all of which is going well.  I have been doing this kind of work ever since I discovered Valerie Grieg's 'Inside Ballet Technique' which supported what I already thought, so all good.

However, last night I started to read Drid Williams' 'Teaching Dancing with Ideokinetic Principles' and I felt like my brain might pop....

I refer to Page 2 of Chapter 1, which quotes Jean George Noverre (1760) as cited by Derek Lynham in 1950 (138):  'There may be only one right principle to be taught, but is there only one way of demonstrating it and of imparting it to the students one undertakes to teach, and must one not of necessity lead them to the same end by different ways?'

For me this sums up the teaching of dance, both within concepts that are way bigger than teaching and within how I feel about and approach teaching.  The thought that there was this level of awareness within approaching teaching dance (and this quote also discusses the fact that each physique is different and therefore will appropriate technique according to physiognomy) as early as 1760 was incredible to me, especially as I witness teaching today that does not seem to account for either statement.  Within the communities within which I teach, I have always felt that my teaching is different – and I have been told this is the case by my students.  Now I am reading book after book that confirms that this practice is out there and I feel inspired, yet a small fish in a large pond.  Although this is reassuring and inspiring, I have a slight anxiety which I want to put out there….

Reading about Williams’s utilisation of Lulu Sweigard's 'principles regarding imagery in dance technique classes' (Chapter 1, page 12) and how Williams approaches teaching: ensuring that the dancer in the class is thinking about what anatomical processes are taking place, (the ‘how to’ that I have discussed since the start of this study process,) was inspiring and I related well to the structure that the lesson may take, which included taking time to explain and identify areas of the anatomy which are responsible for certain actions such as turning out.  In my classes I often state that I would prefer quality to quantity, and often commence a class, or take time within it to stop, to refer to text or visual images, or use verbal descriptions to work on a step, line, position, or sequence rather than running through a set amount of work in a set format, following one exercise with another.  

I was cautioned however by the comment further down page 12 that ‘Not everyone responds positively to the kind of teaching I advocate…’ I now feel that part of my research should include a survey of the balance between who feels they benefit from my teaching methods and who does not.  I guess it is an advance on ascertaining the benefits and uses of the imagery I use.  I feel a little vulnerable, and need to remind myself of the positive feedback I receive, but nonetheless I need to put myself through this to ensure that I am giving the students what they need.