In this video I explore the different ways of exploring space in movement.
In class we talked about the reaching and moving into the space as well as exploring the different planes in your own space while moving. These planes and ways of movement can actually play a part in your day to day life.
The three planes:
Transverse plane - horizontal plane of the body (table)
Saggital plane - vertical plane of front and back (wheel)
Frontal plane - passes from side to side at right angles (door)
As a popper, I tend to dance very "in with myself". My shapes and movements are not big and expressive but usually tend to be in my frontal plane and horizontal plane.
In this video I explored making my shapes big and small while varying between flowing and sudden movements. The song I chose (Yalla tnam nada by Bachar Mar-Khalife) helped with that as the song goes between heavy beats and a flowing voice.
Labans Movement Analysis is becoming more and more visible in my work to me. Looking at my videos I am starting to analyse my movements and deducting on what I can do better in my dance.
My teaching days started when I was sixteen years old, starting out assisting a ballet teacher with her tiny tots class (3 - 4 year olds). As a teenager who wasn't around younger children that much, I am proud of how much I have grown in teaching not only young kids but all ages as well.
When I started my university course, I stopped assisting at the ballet school to focus on my own studies. That was until after the COVID-19 pandemic that I was invited to take part in a teacher training course for aerial dancers. This training included how to make a plan for your class, roleplaying what to do in a situation when students don't get along/would misbehave in class, and how to speak in a way to keep the students engaged with what you are teaching.
The teachers around me in the Irish Aerial Creation Centre really helped me develop my teaching skills to this day as an aerial dance teacher. The way they incorporate creativity into the technique training is vital as it helps the students learn of their own individuality. Their styles of teaching tend to crossover many different styles, such as - practice style, inclusion style, and reciprocal style.
Now, with different age groups, the teaching styles do change. Reciprocal style is only used for older students, such as teenagers and adults as the age groups tend to be more careful when moving in the air. Whereas younger kids (especially kids between four and nine) would normally be better being taught through the other teaching styles mentioned.
The Inclusion Teaching Style is quite important in aerial dance teaching as it is very rare when everyone in a class is at the same level. So, as a teacher, I must adapt to how they progress and what they are capable of doing at this time. Normally when teaching, I would always have two versions of a move which I call "option 1" and "option 2". I would demonstrate both and encourage each student to try the harder option as they might surprise themselves.
Practice Teaching Style goes hand in hand with aerial dance technique teaching. We would start by demonstrating the moves first and then guide the students as they try the move at their own pace. This is a good teaching style as the student gets the time to explore ways that make the movements comfortable in their own bodies.
What I enjoy about including creativity in the class is that the students are given a chance to have the freedom to come up with something new.
Games I think are important in teaching. I tend to lean towards play-based learning for kids. In my teacher training, we were shown a few games and even got to create my own. I believe that games are great for getting the students to engage with the activity and, depending on the game, it gets the gears turning in the brains. Strictly, games are best for the beginning and end of class time, integrating them into warm-ups and cool-downs. According to danceedtips.com (a dance education blog):
"Your students love your creativity but they also need brain breaks and activities that aren't direction instruction from their teacher. Sometimes too much information can be overwhelming for dancers trying to grasp certain concepts and we need to switch up to regain their attention."
Have you ever gotten questions from parents about why you’re playing dance games? Maybe you’re fearful to even try them in your dance classe
I believe that we can mix creativity with gameplay. Before I finish my class, I play "The Animal Game", which the younger students love to play. After teaching the technique class, I would set a task for the students to come up with a move or a shape within their apparatus that represents an animal. Then after a few minutes of coming up with their animal, everyone would take turns presenting what they have created while the others must guess. This pulls so much creativity from them as they get excitement and fun from the game but also the freedom to make decisions. And if the students wanted to team up, I encourage it as it builds teamwork among the class.
From working with primary school students for a workshop, it was more difficult to work with them as they didn't have much of a choice to join in. So, when I was teaching I tried to make it as inclusive as possible by incorporating games for warm-ups and then allowing the students in my group to make their own movements. This sparked excitement, even among the students who didn't want to be a part of the workshop.
What I have learned from my time teaching is adaptability. Adapting to the type of students you have as no student is the same. This is an important skill to have. When it comes to game-based learning, changing up the games is what's important as sometimes the students can get overexcited, or might have a hard time focusing.
What I hope to improve in my time teaching is how to adapt to different teaching styles as in the future, I cannot guarantee what types of students I could be working with and would want to accommodate to what they need.
Aerial dance has been a future career for me since 2020 when I started studying dance as a professional career. Since I started on my first day climbing and flipping in a cocoon, I’ve been addicted to the fact of flying.
When I was a kid, I was obessed with fairies. I mean, in a crazy way. My favourite movies were the Tinker Bell franchise. I would go into the woods beside my childhood home and go searching for fairy rings. I would leave tea and oat biscuits by great chestnut trees and say the fairy spell for good luck. When I was 20 years old, for Christmas my parents got me a book about fairy folklore all around the world. To this day, I enjoy the tales and folklore of fairies in Ireland (my home country) and read up on them.
GIF by pale-grunge-dark
With this, when I first tried aerial dance, all I really felt was the pain from the apparatus. My mentor said it was something I had to get used to, which I did eventually. During my first summer after my first year in university, I attened the Irish Aerial Dance Festival. Originally it was hosted in Letterkenny, Donegal, but due to the results of covid, it was hosted in the home of Ireland’s aerial dance company Fidget Feet in the Irish Aerial Creation Centre, Co. Limerick Clare.
Here, I tried counterweight harness, when the dancer is linked by two wires hooking into either side of their harness. You are brought up and down in the air by a rigger who is your counterweight. When the rigger climbs down the ladder, you fly up. This was the first magical flying feeling I felt from my aerial experience.
Being so high in the air felt magical and a surreal experience. Even though it was only about 11 meters, it was amazing. Flipping and spinning in the air was an experience I wanted to live forever.
You Cannot Eat Money - Choreographed and Created by http://www.youtube.com/@hannahemory
This experience was a great addition to our BA course. The module was Choreography and the task we had was to pick 2 or more dancers from our class and make a choreography for them.
Hannah Emory is one of my classmates, who picked me and another girl, Alice, from our class. Her theme for her choreography was the battle of climate change and thought that Alice and I's dance styles would fit perfectly. Alice came from a background in ballet, she was particularly light on her feet when she danced and had floaty-like movements. I, on the other hand, came from a street dance and hip-hop background, which made my movements quite powerful and full of energy. In the piece, Emory had cast Alice as our Mother Nature and myself as The Human.
The story of the piece follows the relationship of Mother Nature and the Human. How we were given so much from the world and so on began to take more and more from Mother Nature, as all she could do was watch idly as the Humans destroyed her creation. This event led to the end of the world.
The ending of the piece showed that no matter what the Human had done, Mother Nature still cared for them and was there to help pick up the pieces of what had happened to her earth.
The piece to me was an emotional rollercoaster. I still think about it now even a year later and I believe that this piece deserves to be shared. Emory is on to research her final year project about how can we use dance to help us deal with climate change.
What I Have Learned as a Dance Artist Growing Into Professionalism
As I am just finishing my first semester in my last year of university, here are a few things about my journey and what I have learned.
First off, a little about myself:
I am a student at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, studying for my BA in Contemporary Dance. I work part-time as an aerial dance teacher locally as well. For the last three years, I have lived in the local city, growing as a dancer and performer. I have performed quite a few times and through this winding journey, here is what I have learned:
Everybody has their strengths and weaknesses.
There have been countless times when I have felt so bad because I could not do the same things others could do. I did not come from a background in contemporary dance or ballet training, so my first 2 years were a massive struggle. I wasn't as flexible as the others or as physically strong. However, I realised that my own street dance background made my dance unique and it actually impressed the other students as well. Even though they all grew up with lyrical and ballet dance, they did not have experience in street dance or hip hop. It was then I realised that everybody is good at something. We have subjects that we struggle with and subjects that we find easier than others.
2. Give yourself time.
Something I always struggled with was resting. Finding time to rest. Using free time to rest, because so much of my free time was used to finish assignments or practice/train more. I used to stay in the studio after hours in my first year of study just to practice everything that I had done in class that day and would keep practicing until it was perfect. Sooner or later, I would be beaten. I would end up missing classes because I'd be so exhausted. This leads to my next point.
3. It doesn't have to be perfect.
Read that again, please. Over and over. As performers, we are perfectionists from the very beginning. We're used to being told by our mentors growing up that we had done something wrong or off-beat or that we did not deserve this or that. I am here to say now that it is okay if things are not perfectly done. I look back on my old training videos and think "Oh jeez, that is horrible", "I didn't point my toes on that jump", and "I thought I was going full out why do I look lazy?"
I'm telling you now; it's okay. You're doing great. We are all works in progress. I have teachers who are professionals and have performed and taught for 20+ years, and THEY are still learning and correcting.
We are artists. Performers. Creators. Crazy animals. The only perfection is acceptance.
And on that note. Those are the main 3 things I have learned from my journey so far. I hope this has been beneficial to others and yourselves.
xx
A clumsy dancer here to share her experience as an emerging performing artist.
Today I got to use the big aerial spiral in open training! I was very excited because it has been over a year since I've danced on it. And it felt very different this time than it did last time.
The first time using spiral I was over excited but my expectations were very high. I was not aware of the hollow metal and how it is basically like a giant spring, very shaky and sensitive.
Here's a clip transitioning from my first time on spiral to yesterday's session on spiral:
It was a surprise for myself that I felt more comfortable the spiral a year later.
What I really enjoyed was exploring the space with the spiral. The movement I automatically do is slow and sustained. If it was sudden and quick that would effect the spin in a bad way and likely cause the dancer to lose balance within the apparatus. I seeing how far I can reach within the apparatus, it helps me find bigger shapes to make. Because of the spiral shapes of circles I find myself using all three planes of Laban's studies (frontal, saggital and horizontal) as it is compulsory to have a place to grab for safety.
Spiral is an apparatus I'd like to explore more, and even some day make a choreography on. There's no certain or proper way to move on the spiral as it is still a newly invented apparatus.
I've been taking my time in open training to explore the space in spiral and hope to create a piece based on the creative chaos of the apparatus.
Lyrical Contemporary Choreography by my Cunningham technique teacher, Noi.
This choreography is a little different from what I am used to, but that does not mean I love this way of movement.
In Cunningham, dancers focus on moving into the space and gathering the personal space around them. When first learning about Merce Cunningham's way of movement I wasn't too fond of watching the dance style. But now that I've danced Cunningham, I very much enjoy it and have been analysing the way of movement as well as body parts that activate the movements.
There will be more posts about this style of dance soon.
