Artistry Vs Technique

  Hello everyone, I would like to apologize for the delay in posting, but I was facing a health problem in the previous week. Hopefully, I'm ok now, and I have entirely returned to my responsibilities in my MA programme and also in my job. 

 Today I would like to discuss the monthly skype group meeting on Sunday. Barbara brought up a topic for discussion that had made me think a lot in the past. Why students in dance classes prefer choreographies and feel uncomfortable with theory sessions? It is something that as dance teachers we tackle it every day independent the age group of teams, almost in all dance styles, isn't it?

 The first two years of teaching I had spent lots of hours to question myself if this is something that happens generally or if I do something wrong as a teacher. As I have already said in previous discussions, my pedagogy technique based on interactive learning and interaction that students have with each other through sharing thoughts, that is why I decided to discuss with them. I did a short inquiry using three age groups 4-6, 9-11 and above 16 years old. I asked the teams similar type of questions having a criterion their ages. They told me the same things in a different way, and that was incredibly shocking.

 The main reason was that they don't want to feel that will be judged. Students fell insecure with technique part because they know that is something strict without stretched fields and is something that they have to do it correctly as the teacher shows. The things are a little bit different when the new technique comes throughout the choreography. Students have the opportunity to express themselves and focus on the movement without having the stress of criticism.

Secure of Performance ( How ethic is to ''use'' our dancers? )

  After approximately a week I'm back to work in my MA projects. I was in another city in Greece for a seminar of the International Cheerleading Union. There were a lot of people who are coaching and dancing in cheerleading teams in my country. We learn about the basic styles in cheer free pom, jazz kick, cheer hip-hop and freestyle performance. We also notice all things that judges and coaches must know about regulations in process and rating. Now I am a member of ICU, and I am so proud of myself!
  The topic that I will discuss today is based on secure of performance, which is a critical issue in this kind of competition and also in every type of stage action. Sometimes choreographers create a dangerous combination of movements just to impress. The question is: Is it ethical to use our dancers as ''products'' without taking into account the safety of body, the protection of teamwork, the age of dancers and their qualifications of a human body? And if our human resources have skills that could put them at risk, should we use this skills? Or should we prevent them to do that? The ICU gives lots of attention in this part so do I. The teams that use dangerous movement combinations lost marks, and sometimes their participation is canceled as well as the coach of them. In my opinion, it is forbidden to exhibit your dancers in danger and of course is not ethic to use them as products, is it?

I would like to write a comment if you wish to discuss this topic because it makes me think a lot about the development of dance and the procedure that choreographers in our days have. 

Broadening Questions Ethically-Brainstorming (How to analyze a problem which I face everyday as choreographer and dance teacher of young ages)

I decided to do a brainstorming about the issue that makes me think a lot this week. Why can children not get out their feeling through a contemporary dance choreography? The truth is that some of them they can but I see that it is more copy of the choreographer's expression. Contemporary dance is a style of dance that allows feeling free to use your body and bring out your soul without having restricted techniques that's why I focus on this kind of dance.So I discover why this happens through the ethical question of what is perfection and what we consider as perfection.  How can I minimize this problem? Is this a problem? I'm still on research.

Why can children not get out their feeling through a choreography?
1) Feel that they need to copy the choreographer's expressions.
       -> In which way can they free themselves from choreographers style?

2) Feel still uncomfortable with steps.
       ->Is the improvisation the solution?

3) They haven't yet life experiences to identify with it.
       ->Have children the ability to perform a role which isn't matches in their age?

4) Is it a talent to show in your face what you feel? Can it be learned? Must it be worked?
      ->If it can be learned (In which way?)
      ->If it can be worked (How?)

The point is the ethical question behind all these questions. What is actually perfection? Exists perfection? Who and how can we criticize the result? Exists criticises in art? According to Aristotle the idea through the experience generates the art. From the other side, the art is focused on pleasure and reflection of feeling. If we agree that the art can be criticized, we have to focus on working a technique which can give the better results, but exists the pleasure and the reflection of feelings through a perfectly controlled process?

Trying to piece together all of these questions I feel I already start to investigate the theme profoundly and I can't stop thinking further and further.

Kolb's experiential learning cycle

  Today I will discuss Kolb's experiential learning cycle and how people allow to themselves absorb knowledge through this procedure. When I was started to read about this technique immediately I felt that is fascinating, isn't it? Imagine that we use it every day without having the sense of knowledge of it. I tried to think out of myself and put myself as an object of observation. I saw that finally, I use all the ways of understanding the learning, starting from a different stage every time, depending on the situation. For example, when I want to learn a new choreography I have to do the movements step by step, so I use the stage of Concrete Experience. Finally, after many times of practicing can reflect my experience to my students. The magic is that through this procedure both sides (Teacher and Students ) learn better through Concrete Experience and Reflective Observation respectively.
 What follows? There is an expression said:" what follows is what you allow ", so feel free to look the things out of the box. Abstract Conceptualisation the most challenging stage. I was thinking that if you have the base of an idea, you can quickly rise it into new ideas. Brainstorm is a good choice. Finishing this stage, you are almost done! You have the experience of an idea as well as the reflection of it! Now you ready to set your mind free to think about new things around this idea (Active Experimentation stage) and do your own experiment to see what results. I really like to do experiments.
 I love to see how people act in different situations. So, I did one. I decided to test the reaction of my students in Rhythmic Gymnastics class yesterday afternoon. I gave them a piece of paper and pencils, and I asked each of them to choose a technical exercise (example: back flick flack, grand jete, fouette turns). I gave them some time to process and write the theory of each movement technique. Then I asked for a role game, in other words, each of the student to be a teacher for the particular exercise, explaining it with their own examples.
 After this game, we turn back to our programme, but the magic was that after the game I saw a significant difference in their technique they completely understand the movement because they passed throughout the four stages of Kolb's cycle.
 I think it works very well. Inside the week I will try to use this technique again adding a different kind of music to see how music affects the brain. Everybody knows that classical music helps to concentrate, but what about Jazz or Pop music? What do you believe? Is it a good technique? Helps music in this procedure on not at all?