Before the dancing
This piece will read as a journal entry following my journey with dance. Dance is just the surface level of what I am hoping to get to. There was something about modern dance and ballet that ignited a desire for internal critical thought and understanding the value of self. The transition from competitive dancer to dance as an art made me the person I am today: the MIT X SASAH -seeing-everything-in-everything person. For someone who didn't love high school, I sure talk about it a lot! Hopefully this journal will serve as a cathartic self exploration of my high school experience. The dance aspect was what I noticed being brought up most. While writing this proposal, one person came to mind - Fanny Ghorayeb. She embodies the classic story of the “strict-ballet-teacher-turned-life-mentor”. While exploring this section of my life I stored away, I now understand that she wasn't strict. We (her students) just didn't value the art as much as she did. Our lack of understanding of modern dance was where the frustration came from, I think.
This journal entry will be broken up into ‘dancing pre Cawthra Park’ (my highschool), ‘dancing in Cawthra’, ‘Grade 12 dance’, then dancing for the first time in four years. Yep! I haven’t danced since graduating from the studio and Cawthra. Did life really get that busy? Did I not have time to be physically active this way? I was a little nervous to join a studio in London, so I didnt. I missed my ‘dance girls’ for sure. We didn't go to the same school, but saw each other every. single. weeknight. for 7+ years straight. The dance community relationship is one that often gets overlooked. The studio dancemates didn't belong to any friend group – they just existed and heard all of the gossip for so many years. They saw me in my most vulnerable form. Aside from being in skin-tight leotards in front of each other, dance required a “not caring” and “being a raw” type of movement...
Alright I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start. In 2008, I joined the Mississauga School of Dance. I took jazz and acro classes because I couldn't stay still. I remember the exact moment I joined acro. During “Parents Viewing Day” in jazz, I did cartwheels in the sidelines to show off. After the class, Ms Heather pulled my dad aside to suggest I take her acro class on Saturday afternoons. For the next 8 years, I slowly added more dance classes to the schedule until I was at the studio every night for 2-4 hours a night. Like every teenage girl, I was very aware of my body. The teachers always subliminally made us hyper conscious of our bodies. “Stand up straight” was not about balancing and engaging the core, but trying to look skinny. Being able to do ‘XYZ stand’ or flip in acro was not about strength or practise, but about being light enough in the air to pull it off. Now that I am 21 and can still do a few of these flips, I know it had nothing to do with my weight.
In 2013, I joined the studio's competitive team. Nothing much changed, except now the dances were performed at the year end show, as well as competitions in the spring. Unfortunately, I don't remember the first few times competing. I didn't understand the ranking system anyway. Slowly, a competitive force took over in the studio. It made us better dancers, I thought. We observed how other teams looked when they danced, and how we could mimic them. Our jazz pieces saw many fake smiles and jaw open ‘surprise’ faces. “Do it how Lauren does it!” “Lauren, will you show the class how to…?” Then, we were all pitted against Lauren. Obviously we didn't look like her...but we had to achieve “a uniform studio look”. Dance was still about appearance, and technique to support the appearance. Nothing yet about how dance feels to expel energy creatively.
In 2014, I auditioned for Cawthra Park’s dance program. At that moment, I was only interested (and immersed!) in the fake competition style jazz and acro. The audition was a session of ballet and modern, a minute solo, and an interview. I never loved ballet growing up...it was always a sweaty class that lasted too long. As all of us auditioning came from studio backgrounds, our approach at school was very competitive. Doing exercises across the floor was not about properly achieving the technique, but who could kick their leg the highest or jump the farthest. And do you know who always encouraged us not to have a ‘high leg competition’? The ballet teachers. The ballet teachers always stressed doing the technique properly instead of compensating proper alignment to show off. The primary years of dance, since Ms Heather’s parents viewing day, were always about showing off.
In grade 10, the dance majors had a tradition to put on a Remembrance Day dance piece at our school ceremony. It was up to the dancers to choreograph this piece. We sat in a circle, and our modern teacher instructed us to research current issues that made us upset. I understand now that this exercise was to practise feeling emotion and applying it to our movement- similar to critically analyzing a text and applying it to writing in the Humanities! Students spoke about family growing up in war, dying grandparents, and homelessness in their hometowns. Brainstorming and choreographing this piece was probably the first time I understood dance as an art of expression and not a show-off contest. As I had already had years of competitive dancing ingrained in my definition of dance, I had a hard shell to break.
Grade 12 Dance
One of the big grade 12 projects was “Springfest”, where a guest choreographer directed a piece for the semester. Thinking back on it, we were so lucky to have a professional dancer, Roger Jeffrey, give us his attention for an entire semester. He, along with our grade 12 dance teacher Fanny Ghorayeb, were not expected to be in a high school environment, but a professional dance setting. They bridged Cawthra as a high school to Cawthra as a highschool for the performing arts.
Our Springfest piece was 12 minutes long and we added the music last. Once again, a deeper understanding of dance as an art, and the arts in general, took form. While training for the choreography, we practiced exercises that connected us to each other and the floor. I remember one sequence where we had to stand on the ball of our foot while slowly lifting our leg without falling over. Imagine doing this over and over for an hour in front of your class. If we did it wrong or lost balance, Roger made us practice in front of all of the class until we got it right. This practise ended in tears whether we balanced or not. We couldn't get this right because we were concerned about what the rest of the class was thinking. I wonder if I had done this now, I would be able to do it because I understand it's not about what you look like but how it feels. All of our ballet training of proper alignment and core engagement came together in this moment to properly lift our leg without falling over. And I know exactly what Roger was trying to do – initiate this connection to our body so we knew what it felt like for the rest of the 12 minutes. And that was mentally exhausting! There was another moment where we had to lift one of the smallest dancers with only our hand. Like in acro, this had nothing to do with the strength of our arms, but how the equal pressure of six hands against her core lifted her off the ground. Roger was sure we would not add another person to help lift – he knew that between the six of us, we would be able to use a force (that isn't strength) to lift her.
And then we added the music last.
Adding music last differed from the creation process in the studio as in the studio, our bodies responded to the music. The Springfest piece was mainly about the class dancing with each other for the last time, while concentrating and connecting with our own muscles and body.
There was nothing that Fanny ever said to me but how she ran the class that stuck with me these past four years. She always encouraged us not to waste our time. What was the point of raising your arms for choreography if there was no purpose behind the movement? Just because raising your arms looked good didn't mean it was what the body felt or what the space called for. What was the point of showing up if you weren't going to put your hundred percent in? You were there anyway, so might as well try because you can't get the time back. Giving my 100% to not waste time or cheat myself has stuck with me to this day.
On the night of our Springfest celebration, I felt an incredible sadness as I was only just beginning to understand how dance should feel and not care what it looked like. At my graduation, I wanted to thank Fanny for encouraging us to do our best in dance. A few months later at graduation, I couldn't find the words to say to her. My sister went through the same program and graduated with Fanny two years later. Same thing, the night of her graduation I wanted to acknowledge Fanny but, she wasn't at the graduation. Having closure with Fanny became this moment that I would just have to accept on my own.
I signed up for a ballet class in my third year of University. This was extremely outside of my comfort zone because I signed up alone with a teacher and a studio that was very unfamiliar to me. For someone who didn't like ballet growing up, I really valued those classes on Wednesday night. It was one hour during the week where I could focus on my body. Each exercise was no longer about how it looked, but how it felt. All of the words from the past 12 years were making sense!
“use the floor”
“ melt in your knees”
“use up all of the music”
To be specific, doing a plié (bending and straightening your knees outwardly and graciously) wasn't only about bending the knees, but also focusing the body weight at the balls of the feet without lifting the heels, moving during all beats in the musical bar, and taking an equal amount of time and concentration to straighten them. I became obsessed with ballet because it just felt so good and mentally refreshed after the class. I don't know what changed! I went from grade 12 to third year without dancing, and then all of a sudden needing to go to this ballet class. I acknowledge today the concentration and finding the “deeper meaning” behind movements needed in ballet made me who I am today. Navigating myself in space with others is reflected in critical thinking in MIT and SASAH. Fanny, modern dance and ballet taught me how unique my body was, and how one adjustment (as small as a breath) would change how the rest of the bodies in the space felt. I was important in both equal and different ways in the dance space. Just because I didn't have a perfect split in the air didn't mean that my presence in the space wasn't as important as the dancer who could. Even if we all have different motivations, like the Remembrance Day dance, we all brought to the space something individual. Whether a desire to learn, or feel our bodies in the space, we worked well together in the choreograph piece. Similarly in the Arts, everybody's lived experience and feeling will inevitably impact how the other bodies in the space feel. In the Arts, however, there are more politics involved!
And that's “the-seeing-everything-in-everything.” Isn't that the exact definition of sympathy? Being able to feel or understand someone else's emotions?
After Dancing
All right so I just danced and I'm sweating. Starting felt terribly awkward, especially because I had the camera in front of me. Do I need more space? Do I need to just keep on practicing? When I reached a good part in a song, I wanted to explode out of my body, in a good way. I wonder how this piece will look when I put different music in front of it.
So when I said we are ‘vulnerable’, I guess I meant to say ‘different’? Or, ‘not the expectation of dance from competitions and the media’?
Why did we have mirrors in the dance studio? I bet I would have gotten confident much quicker if there were no mirrors. Mirrors were probably another subliminal-hyper-conscientious-of-the-body element as we checked our alignment and always looked at how we were dancing. There were no mirrors in the grade 12 piece! If we needed the mirror, it was for spacing. Otherwise, we choreographed right on the stage, looking into a black empty auditorium. Dancers had to feel other presences on stage instead of relying on mirrors to avoid collisions.
24 hours later
After sitting with this experience for about 24 hours, one word comes to mind: authenticity. There is something authentic about dancing, being vulnerable, and not caring about how you look in order to feel good while doing it. To dance properly, we must achieve technique. From my understanding, technique is proper alignment and balance. However, achieving proper technique doesn't just come from seeing the body being aligned in the mirror. I've now learned that part of the technique is the feeling of the body clicking into place. The mind needs to concentrate on the muscles and its overall value in the space to achieve proper technique.
Working on this project, I had to think about what music I was going to put on top of the movement. Although I mentioned that music could be of lesser importance to the movement, it also changes the performance. As much as this is an internal project of self evaluation and reflection, it still is a piece that will be performed and needs to be attractive to an audience. I could use the actual songs I dance to… or, I could take it one step further and start exploring other forms of art and it’s authenticity. With music, tracks are recorded to be put on records and be sold. Or at least, this is how an audience views music. I was never a great musician myself, so I always played piano to please my parents and piano teacher, instead of thinking about how it feels. Because I’ve experienced this authenticity of feeling with dance, I am sure that the same goes for music. Heck, I can hear it with certain artists who sing, cry, share their heartbreaks, struggles, and joy in their performances. From my understanding, based on Professor Keightley’s ‘Intro to Popular Music Studies’, all music produced before the 60s simply produced to be sold from a record. On one of their most popular albums, “All Summer Long”, the Beach Boys released a song called “Our Favourite Record Sessions” that is the recording of a practice session. There is no traditional “music” on this track, but a humorous discussion produced for the album. For the first time, the audience heard a transparent view of the process and feeling of producing music, rather than the final product that was made for selling.
Two Days After Dancing
Now, I am stuck between balancing this project as a performance and a cathartic piece. The first footage wasn’t visually amazing and was the first time I danced with free movement in years.. Not that 24 hours would’ve changed anything, but I gave it another shot with my friend. We filmed together doing improvisation and yoga. The improv was similar to the improv done at the studio… feeling all the places on our bodies our elbows could touch, writing our names with our noses, pretending we have no bones, etc. This practice has nothing to do with visual performance but how to engage and understand the body's movements. From a production standpoint, we ended up having to film many clips to find the perfect mini pieces we’d like. As a result, we danced all day! She did not have a dance background so we went through a couple yoga flows to experience other forms of movement that connect mind and body.
What is the difference between yoga and dance? Maybe, dance tells more of a story while yoga focuses more on connecting the mind and body (even though Instagram ‘yogis’ make it a performance by posting their yoga videos). I found a balance flow progression that starts in a standing straddle that flows into a headstand. Once in a headstand, you’re supposed to tuck your legs into the crease of your armpits. I practiced this all afternoon. Something about being upside down made the balance more difficult. It had been a while since I could focus on nothing and everything at the same time. Being upside down, with all the blood rushing down there, made nothing else in the world matter except for breathing. Even breathing, something we do every single day seemed to be such a difficult task but I had to remind myself to do. Consciously breathing is the connection between mind and body. With modern dance, the focus is on connecting your breath with yourself and with the other breathes in the space.
Now that I'm starting to put the video together, I am delving deeper into the exploration of the Arts and the difference between performance and production. I found a lot of rap artists introducing their songs with monologues and interludes. Specifically “!!!!!!”! by Billie Eilish is a 13 second audio clip of her putting in her retainer and laughing. In a very MIT reading of this, this recording would not have been possible without the development of the microphone. The microphone had completely changed music as it allowed for more intimacy. In my headphones, I heard the process of production of the Beach Boys and Billie Eilish playing with plastic right inside of her mouth. Before the microphone, singing was more for performance and artists had to belt their sound to reach all their audience. The microphone gives space for crooning and more authentic, intimate work. The Beach Boys, Billie Eilish, Jay Cole, and Mac Miller’s production crew took it one step further to make the audience feel like they are inside the production Studio.
There is yet to be a technology that shares the same intimacy for dancing. I wonder how an audience can get an intimate experience of the concentration and feeling of dance... The only way I understood it was practicing it for four years until it made me view dancing differently. This project has changed the way I view the Arts and music. I'm looking forward to exploring ‘record consciousness’ as Professor Keightley would call it.
Day after the performance
I am blown away at how nice everyone in the class is! Eek! Their responses made me so happy. The dancers and students all saw the piece differently, and that is the exact intention of the piece: we all saw the same piece, but approached the understanding in different ways, based on our own lived experiences. I didn't have to intentionally make it “deep” or “complex”, the audience explored it themselves!
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