I’ve been going to graduate school (for teaching) and performing as Von Rothbart in Swan Lake. This has kept me pretty busy. One of my professors suggested I write a short response to a book that we read, “Releasing The Imagination” by Maxine Greene. She suggested that I relate my experience rehearsing for and performing Swan Lake, as well as my experience learning dance, to the book. I thought I would post the short response here for anyone who might be interested.

Before I started to study ballet, I imagined myself as a successful dancer. I imagined being complemented on the part I played. I imagined responding “Thank you, I worked very hard” and I imagined I would be proud. That vague image that I had a little over 3 years ago is now a reality. It took a lot of imagination to go from an untrained dancer who was working on cargo ships and had only seen a ballet once, in a society where men aren’t normally seen as ballet dancers, to a dancer who was successful and proud, and could express something to a large audience.

Learning to dance and taking part in Swan Lake could not be done without imagination. Imagination helps us to grow, to connect, and to experience. In my experiences, dance is closely tied with imagination.

Imagination helps us to grow as people. It provides the vision that is needed to bring together many ideas. Similar to how imagination can help many ideas come together to create a better society, many ideas had to come together to make Swan Lake happen. Imagination also helps us grow as individuals.

Dance and imagination work together to help me do more. I use dance to express things that I can’t easily express with words, and imagination is something that can’t easily be expressed in words. Becoming a dancer requires imagination. I need to be able to imagine the dancer that I could become. Growing is a process fed by imagination. Even just becoming a dancer requires imagination. As Maxine Greene (1995) said:

A young person trying to become a ballet dancers is affected in her or his conception of a life in dance by the way those immediately around her or him in childhood talked about such a choice as worthy or impractical, as romantic or somehow suspect. (p. 20)

I had to use my imagination to overcome the limited perceptions I learned from people around me. I remember watching television shows that laughed at males as they tried to learn dance. I remember taking my girlfriend to see The Nutcracker when I was 16. Her father ostracized me and told me I was gay because I went to the ballet. I needed imagination to see beyond the limited views around me.

Imagination and dance create connections. These connections are created with the characters we play, with other dancers, and with the audience we perform for. To learn Swan Lake, I had to become a character. I had to believe I was the character. Through imagination I had to connect my emotions with the characters. Without my use of imagination, the audience’s imagination would not have been accessed.

Maxine Green (1995) stated that “of all our cognitive capacities, imagination is the one that permits us to give credence to alternative realities” (p. 3). We move beyond the assumed and limited views, to something more. By providing “occasions for significant encounters with works of art, we have to combat… ‘thoughtlessness’” (p. 125). Watching dance produces imagination. The audience connects with the dancers to imagine alternative realities. I am struck by how strongly both adults and children respond to watching Swan Lake. Parents comment to me how engaged their children were, and I think that we all begin to reminisce what it must be like to imagine so deeply. Children should be exposed to dance and art in order to provide experiences to engage their imagination.

According to Maxine Greene (1995), “the arts provide new perspectives on the lived world” (p. 4). Art and dance promote imagination which promotes a disconnection with our limited views on the world, as well as a connection to others in this world. This connection develops empathy and compassion for others. It took a lot of hard work for me to become a dancer, but it took even more imagination.

More greatness to come at a more regular schedule. I am looking forward to summer!

Be sure to also check out some other great blogs:

4dancers

Tights and Tiaras

I’m working on an essay (just for fun) about becoming a better dancer. It gets very philosophical, but also has some grounding in developmental theory. It is becoming quite dense, so rather than post the whole thing, I’m going to include parts of it as I work on it.

Everyone would like to become a better dancer. There is not a dancer in the world who doesn’t have something to work on. Everyone has room to make progress. Practicing a lot will help, but having the right mindset, being able to recognize progress, and understanding how you develop, will help you facilitate that progress.

The Mindset

Having the right mindset as a dancer can help you get through the times you may feel like you aren’t getting any better. The right mindset comes form the way you interpret progress, failure, and even in the way you compare yourself to other dancers. A negative mindset can quickly frustrate and discourage new dancers. Experienced dancers can get frustrated as well, but they have devoted enough time, effort, and emotion over the years that they think twice before giving up. Newer dancers may have high expectations for their progress. The difficulty and skill involved in dance may seem overwhelming. The right mindset can help experienced and new dancers work through frustrations.

It helps to view progress as a continuous process. Understand that it is not something you will ever complete. There is no end, no point you will reach where you will feel you have completed dance… unless you give up. You may feel that you are content with where you are in dance, and that is a good thing to feel, but you will never reach a point where you could not get better.

Thinking about improving as a process requires us to change the way we assess our progress. When you assess yourself, do not look back to the day or the week before. Everyone has good days and bad days, and recognizing progress in dance requires us to look much further back. Instead of thinking “I am no better than I was yesterday” or “I still can’t do what I couldn’t do last week” try asking “how much better am I since I started?” or “what did I struggle with last week that seems easier now?” Looking at the process of change and progress on a longer timeline will let you see just how much progress you have made. Making progress is amazing, and it would be too bad to not recognize it. Thinking about progress as a long-term, never-ending journey, will give you a better chance to be engaged in this process. Being engaged in your dance progression will give you a sense of control as you advance.

This post was about interpreting progress. In the next part I will talk about interpreting failure and comparing yourself to others.