Interview with Sunshine Arts

It is my honor to be part of the inaugural issue of Sunshine Arts, a newsletter by Amy Mahon, of South Florida artists and events!

I was interviewed about my dance teaching at the University of Miami in the time of COVID. I focus specifically on using technology in modern and jazz dance classes.

Check it out for free here.

Power Dynamics in Dance

I am thrilled to be writing a 3-part series for DanceGeist Magazine about Power Dynamics in Dance.

The first part was released earlier this week in the February issue. Read it here. Catch part 2 about disrupting and divesting from harmful patters in March. Part 3 in April will look at consent-based practices.

The ezine is free, but does require a subscription. Get yours here.

I talk. A lot. Sometimes people let me talk on their shows.

And this is one of those times!

Jimmy Chrismon, an intimacy direction colleague, hosts ThedTalks, a theatre education podcast. He interviewed me about intimacy direction and Momentum Stage. Check it out here: https://thedtalks.com/podcast/

I have a few more podcast appearances coming up. Stay tuned!

Consent Isn't About Sex.

Consent isn’t about sex. It isn’t about touching, or feelings, or legal liability. 

Consent is about seeing the other person in the conversation with you as a full person, with boundaries, agency, opinions, and rights.

In the performing arts, saying “yes”, whether we really mean it or not, has been reinforced over and over again. Especially for those on the performing end.  We need to see “yes”, “no” and “I need more information” as equally valid answers.

Theatres are starting to incorporate consent work into scenes of an intimate nature. The work of Intimacy Directors International and Theatrical Intimacy Education has been to establish these practices. But what about other moments where consent should be requested? 

• Auditions

Theatres who hold auditions without disclosing the productions to be staged, and/or the characters available in those productions. I get that sometimes you are waiting for your rights, and you really need to have auditions. However, consistently holding auditions without telling performers what they are auditioning for is telling performers that their time, preferences, boundaries, and ability to ask questions that matter to them are of no importance to you. That you, as the producing entity, have the right to know what you are looking for, but they don’t. This continues traditional power structures and removes personal agency from your actors.  This may not be what you’ve intended, but it is what happens; and it’s dehumanizing.

• Teaching/Directing

A lot of choreographers and dance teachers especially, instruct with corrective touch. It’s a time honored tradition. However, with 1 in 6 women having been a victim of sexual assault, and approximately 60,000 children assaulted each year, touch from a stranger or authority figure may not be one of the best ways to teach groups any longer. Yoga is doing a better job with trauma-informed practice, and dance and theatre would do well to consider some of their solutions. At the very least, teachers/directors/choreographers should be asking before we touch anyone on any given day. 

Somatic movement pioneer Irmgard Barteniefff said “Tension masks sensation.” If you see a student tensing before you correct them, is your touch even going to be useful? Could your corrections actually be more applicable to more people, if given with evocative language, rather than personal touch? 

Check out this free resource about teaching with a trauma-/touch-informed lens. Purchase Touch card templates here. 

• Being an Audience

Does the audience know what they have agreed to when they enter your space? If your show is “immersive” or contains content that may offend someone, is your audience aware of that before they buy tickets? As they buy tickets? Enter your space? Or only after it has happened? And are they clear on whether or not they can interact with the performers, and the consequences of violating expectations? You may assume your audience has consented, simply by being in your space. But consent requires specific and clear information, and if that hasn’t been given, neither has consent. 

How are you (or is your organization) approaching consent in artistic work? Leave a comment!

Creating a Class or Cast Contract

I have found this practice to be incredibly useful in alleviating behavior issues within classes or casts.

Why have a class or cast contract? 

• Decentralizes Power

  • This is a big one for me, especially when it comes to dealing with young people in the arts. They are dealing with a dual power structure of director or choreographer/actor and adult/youth. Young people often feel they cannot say “no” or ask questions because of this. By creating a contract, the power shifts to the group as a whole shaping the expectations they have of each other, not just what the person in charge wants to see.

• Promotes Buy-in and Accountability

• Clarity of Expectations

  • Safety

  • Participation

  • Attitude

  • Attire

• Success is Built in

Recommendations for creating a class or cast contract:

• Use a posterboard that can hang in your room or a corner of the board that can remain dedicated to this, or post in Classroom or Group Page.

• Stay Small. 5-7 points should be sufficient. Draw connections whenever possible to an existing point. 

• Include:

  • Consequences of Contract violation

  • Chain of Communication if the director/choreographer/teacher violates the contract

  • Any Departmental or umbrella organization expectations/requirements. 

• End with “Have fun!”, “Have a good show!” or similar. This should be just as much an expectation as respect or wearing appropriate footwear. 

• If a hard copy, have every member of the class or cast sign it.

Do you have questions regarding creating or maintaining a class or cast contract? Nicole Perry has experience in using these documents with students as young as kindergarten to adult professionals. Set up your Creative Practice Consultation now. 

My 4 Least Favorite Words....

“It’s only a show.” “It’s just children’s theatre.” “It will be cute.”

As someone who has been creating theatre with and for young people for almost a decade, those sentiments, and many more like them, are not just a pet peeve of mine- they’re fighting words. Much like other adages and practices around pedagogy that I have taken issue with in the past (read: beginning dance teachers teaching beginners alone, women only being able to teach children in many churches), these make zero sense. I find them irresponsible and dangerous.

Yet, these are things I get told when I hold my students (and other children’s theatre productions, I’ll be honest, I’m judgey) to professional standards. Not in terms of performances, although there are some VERY talented children out there. I mean in respect to color-conscious casting and culturally appropriate show selection. Actually, I hold them to a higher-than-most-professionals standard, because there are some theatres and theatre professionals who do a TERRIBLE job of this. I hold them to a formational, educational standard.

In children’s theatre, we are encountering these young humans while they are still learning. Heck, I work in a school.  My job is literally to be an educator. As such, I want my students to learn as they are involved in theatre. And, not just theatrical skills. Rather, I want them to learn the traits theatre and the arts are so uniquely suited to develop: perspective, empathy, collaboration, ensemble attitude. Unfortunately, when we tell stories that are not ours to tell, what we teach is that other cultures are here for our entertainment; cultural appropriation is okay, as long as it’s cute; and/or that the performing arts are exempt from the standards we hold for culturally responsive teaching and pedagogy in our classrooms.

As theatre teachers, it’s really time to do better. Because, the arts are underfunded, under-appreciated, and usually just seen as outlets for self-absorbed humans.. When one of us does something that is irresponsible, questionable, harmful, or just unprofessional, you put all of us under that label with you. For the sake of our own field, we have to do better. For the sake of our students, we have to do better. As Tonia Sina told us in our IDI training, “when you know better, you do better”.

This mentality, this lack of ethical art, in the name of kids just having fun, is harming all of us- as educators and artists, and our communities. Can we please find a way to have integrity AND be creative? I really don’t think it’s impossible. I do think it will take some work. Some diligent planning of rehearsal time to be sure to include dramaturgy on the culture, time period, social issues of a given show. Some hard choices being made when a show will pigeon-hole certain actors into caricatures of their race/orientation/gender. Some long discussions with students on why we can’t, in our population do certain shows. Based on this past weekend’s Twitter explosion of a high school performing Alien, a discussion on copyright and creative ownership is needed as well….

When I allow “it’s just a [children’s] show” or the entertainment factor to be my driving force for selecting a show, I ignore my responsibilities as an educator AND as an artist. Now, I don’t think any children’s theatre director (particularly one in a school) sets out to explicitly teach children these things. Nor are they explicitly taught. However, our choices set these examples for our children and their families, and will help them develop their own approach to the consumption of art, as participant or spectator. We also inform their approach to Others who are different from them. We can teach them openness, inquiry, and to find common ground while enjoying differences, as art is a common expression of humanity searching for and expressing meaning. Or, we can give them Other as Spectacle, as entertainment or caricature.

When we, as the as experts in children’s theatre or theatre education, make irresponsible choices we undercut the power we purport theatre to possess. When we make a choice based purely on cast size or title recognition, we make it all the harder for arts educators in every discipline (not just ourselves in theatre) to be taken seriously. We fulfill the outside world’s stereotype of “Oh, you teach theatre? That must be fun…”. We denigrate our ability to do our actual job of shaping the minds and lives of young people.

Responsible, ethical choices are not always easy to make. It is probably easier to do the show-in-a-box. It is probably easier to do a show you’ve done before, the way you’ve always done it. But easy isn’t always right. Easy doesn’t always carry the integrity we know we are capable of.

This world needs truth-telling theatre. This world needs audiences who recognize the power of the theatre, and artists capable of wielding it. We don’t need “just a kids’ show”.

Announcing: Momentum Stage!

Momentum Stage is a professional development and education company supporting theatre teachers, dance educators, directors, choreographers, actors, and dancers, at all stages of their careers.

Art Education: Process v. Product. Originally published 5.2012

April was full of events. Actually, most of them occurred all in 1 week! My high school students presented A Midsummer Night’s Dream and their semester dance performance. My students at Hedgerow performed for a fundraiser. Through it all, I was coaching, correcting, writing program notes, performing as well, and just generally hoping for the best. 

Weeks like that are the best and the worst. We celebrate as all of our hard work, scolds, suggestions and teaching become a beautiful final product. And, we worry that it won’t. Somehow, it always seems to “come together”. Yet, I’m concerned that miracle of adrenaline is something we take for granted. Do we, as teachers and directors, just trust it will “come together”, and then not instill in our students the importance of discipline, rehearsing as you would perform, and taking pride in one’s work, as much in the process as the product? 

If we do not encourage our students to be disciplined- prepared, on time, respectful of the process, their peers and their authorities- we miss a chance to prepare them for college and jobs, where they will not have us there to remind them. 

If we do not have them rehearse as they perform, we do not teach them that the arts, and most things in life, are group efforts. That the actions (or lack thereof) of one person has a ripple affect on the group, with consequences s/he may not foresee when focused on him/herself.

If we do not encourage our students to take as much pride in the process as in the finished product, we do not actually encourage learning. We are telling them that the end is all that matters. We do not take mistakes and failures as learning opportunities, rather we just focus on the happy ending (see chapter 1 of Jonah Lehrer’s Imagine). And in that, we don’t encourage creativity. If we cannot teach our students to try, to fail, to try again, to seek ways to improve we are not educating them. We are not creating a generation of resilient, innovative thinkers and doers, who operate with perspective and insight. We are simply teaching them to get to the end. By whatever means necessary. 

The arts in education should not be about just getting to the end- the performance, the final piece, the presentation. The arts in education should be a time to teach the value of exploration, to embrace learning and process as just as important as the finished product. If you never start, you can never finish. If you do not learn as you go, you will not end up in any place different than where you started.