I don't want to be noticed!

First of all to my fellow MAPPers please accept my apologies in advance for Sunday as unfortunately I will not be at the Skype meeting. I will be attending a course all day. THis course came up which I really wanted to do but at the same time wanted to engage with you via dialogue and sharing. This morning when I dropped off my little ones at school I got chatting to one of the parents about usual stuff as you do. She knew that I teach part contemporary dance part-time and proceeded to tell me about a friend of her's whose daughter dances contemporary in an after school club setting locally - it turned out to be one of my students. Apparently this student is a lovely dancer who loves to move and wants to dance but there is a conunndrum she faces because she is very academic and as a result is being steered into choosing academic subjects for the start of her GCSE studies next year. Nevertheless she loves to dance and as a solution attends dance classes after school which is great as I feel that dance can only add and enhance more to her studies and will make good use of her mind in movement and the complexities and creative challenges dance will bring enhancing her studies. This reminds me of a friend of mine who did ballet all her life from a young age and never gave it up despite doing all academic subjects at school and at university where she studied chemistry and pharmacology and in her spare moments did class both in the local town where she found a class and when she came back home during holidays to London went to all of the usual places to keep up her ballet classes. Upon finishing and graduating from University went on to dance with a degree in her hand !! It was heartening hearing from my parent friend that this student really loves dance - however one of the things I noticed with her along with others in my class is that along with her colleagues they all sometimes appeared closed off and shy when in class and it was hard to read body language at times especially when during exercises and tasks when I ask for feedback. The reaction sometimes is the folding of the arms indicating that they are guarding and protecting their bodies, being afraid of some of the material which was out of their comfort zone - but in some of the movement tasks they lit up. Another time when I showed them a DVD clip of a Horton Technique warm-up series there was stunned silence and a ripple of nervous laughter covering their faces with their hands to shield their embarrassment. I had thought "Oh my... I've really put them off now!.." My friend commented that she like her own teenage daughter does that in order not to be noticed and is at that stage where they feel so uncomfortable about their bodies- which struck me because I got a sense from some of the students in my class despite the myriad of challenges and excuses even getting them to class is that they love to dance because it makes them feel... So.... my reflective question is that despite not wanting to be noticed and stick out from the crowd as different and blend into the status quo of other teenagers at school does the space I hold for them in the studio and during my session allow for them to 'feel' and in so doing not be noticed? or different? Does the space allow for that to happen? Does what I teach them despite being quite strange and new allow for them to explore movement that is different inviting them to be themselves or find themselves or their own language and interpretation in the movement? I find myself saying quite often that it is okay to get the movement wrong, that is how you learn and the space is safe for them not to feel the pressure of getting it right. For me the studio is a space where a process happens whatever the outcome and not worry about being watched, judged or seen to be different or noticed differently. I suppose for this student and for others not wishing to be seen in their initial response in class is a mask to their real desire to feel and my job therefore is to hold that space solely for them to feel and embody themselves through movement. It was strange but then I suppose I went through a similar phase of not wishing to be noticed but then I managed to get myself noticed on stage because it was there that I begun to 'feel'.....! Have a great Skype meeting everyone. Hopal

Pressing the re-set button

Apologies to for all not being able to Skype with you all last Sunday. I had to attend some training that fits around my freelance teaching work, and therefore it was necessary to go. There was some really useful stuff to learn and also things to notice as a tutor which I attribute to where I am placed at this stage of my learning and research project. Its interesting to see how much my noticing called upon the styles and practices especially around engaging young people and their learning practice through the medium of dance. My research in a nutshell is going to look at how a modern dance training and practice that I had experience as a young person and dancer (which became the catalyst for my subsequent career in dance to date) is relevant to the life choices, experiences and aspirations of young people today. Is what I teach young people fit for purpose? It was good to experience and absorb the type of learning on offer as it flagged up some questions about my own practice as a teacher and how I engage with my students when teaching. Whilst in the training session my thoughts turned towards fellow MAPPers pondering and reflecting on their journeys so far and how you all including myself begin to approach and start the next phase of our modules after concluding the previous ones with some much needed time to breath. For me I had to hit the re-start button. My journey stalled during the third module and I had to live with the impact of a decision to pause which, on reflection was a good move to refocus and galvanise, re-assess, re-read and in some cases not read at all to allow the flow of my thoughts to guide me to where I needed to be. It was a choppy and uncomfortable process admittedly and for a long while wondered whether I had the confidence and strength to re-boot and resume from the place where I stalled and overcome the notion of being left behind. I begun to question my learning and revisit some areas of my AOLs back in Module 1 plus vulnerable moments that triggered old fears and patterns . Pausing was in hindsight a great idea. I noticed that my reading had changed too and that what I had planned in my critical review to support my research project no longer had currency and didn't feel right for what it is I want to find out. As is my pattern in most things when the going gets tough I have to walk away and come back to it with a new, different and open perspective. This happened recently with one piece of critical review which looked at my research from an Africanist standpoint especially around the area of philosophy particularly reflecting on the writings of the late Esiaba Irobi (2006)where he talked about the " philosophy of the body as a site of transendant discourses, and used to regulate thought and feeling and ideas of identity within their cultures.." Cultures in this context Irobi reffered to include cultures that traversed from the diaspora of Africa across to Brazil, Latin America, the caribbean, the USA and United Kingdom. Attending and being present at the oral presentations in January of my cohort was a great way for me to re-set my thinking and feeling about my research project. It was a great opportunity for me to get to know and experience my fellow Mappers research and learn how they arrived at and tease out what it is they discovered. It was fascinating as links and references which they highlighted connected with me and gave me the much needed courage to re-set and revive. I finish this post with a quote yet again from Esiaba Irobi which encapsulates my thoughts, feelings about my philosophical stance and much needed pause to refresh my thinking as I embark on Module 3: "...I will highlight how the body itself, in African and African diasporic cultures, functions as a somatogenic instrument as well as a site of multiple discourses which absorbs and replays, like music recorded on vinyl, epistemologies of faith and power grooved into it by history. An Igbo proverb states that when we dance we express who we were, who we are, and who want to be. Time is compressed and telescoped telelogically to contain and express the past, the present and the future in one fluid kinaesthetic moment." Irobi, Esiaba (2006) Philosophy of the Sea