SPRING/SUMMER 1994
Dear Florence,
Many greetings. I sit here today writing and reflecting on my travels and teaching experiences in Hong Kong, Taipei, and most recently Prague, for an interesting journal we have here in New York, created by Movement Research. I thought I would take a break, procrastinate, and write to you. I was asked to write about my experiences and role as an American artist abroad and it leads me to think about spending many hours with you over dim sum, discussing exactly what I should be teaching. I had such an emotional and powerful experience that I am spending the entire year making a piece based on those experiences and feelings. So far our working title is Folked Up. In fact this is a piece that I will be bringing and adapting to your company next summer. How is Hong Kong these days? Must be getting a little “Folked Up” as you move towards 1997?
Florence, as I retrace my steps, (that’s an inside joke) back to this teaching odyssey that I’ve been on since the summer of 92’ I’m amazed what an impact it has made on me. For starters I was even surprised that I would be chosen for these teaching jobs as I have a healthy distrust of the very idea of teaching “modern dance.” The methods ( if you can call then that) are esoteric even by American standards so you can imagine how nervous I was when I taught my first company class in Hong Kong. I did a lot of talking at first, explaining I wasn’t the teacher and the company member wouldn’t be imitating my movement; rather I was the guide, setting up situations and structures for them to improvise in. Little did I know I was bumping up against major cultural differences- it took you to explain to me that very rarely was a Chinese person asked to individuate themselves, to work alone without strict rules to follow. I was breaking the strict relationship between teacher and student that exists in Chinese culture. I saw so clearly from the other side of the world how much our democratic ideals are embedded in our creative process, this fierce individualism. For the first time I felt so proud to be American, to have he privilege to choose. The deeper I got into those feelings I saw the other side of our “individualism”- the lack of community values. How could I teach a Chinese student to be an individual? What does that mean? Should we (Douglas Dunn was with me) even be here? How could I draw out their personalities? How do you teach someone to pay and be comfortable?
Remember how depressed I was after the first class, thinking no one seems to get excited, or at least wasn’t showing it? You said that was entirely new to them and why don’t you teach a straight technique class. Students were able to watch how one works in unknown territory. The forms the class came up with were so different from their American counterparts. American students tend to favor sporty, highly physical, fast, large movements where you guys would allow for more still, dramatic, meditative forms to emerge.
In Prague, Florence I don’t know if I faxed you about that experience, but in a way it was more intense that Hong Kong. For starters very little English was spoken as Russian was their second language, unlike in Asia where you guys understood everything I said. Of course their was no money for a translator- the classes looked like a silent movie at first I would dance and play around with the movement and slowly that students got the bug to try the same. The imitative style of learning was so thick that even I scratched my head in an off moment the students would do the same. Well one day I taught myself Czech words such as play, precise, free, beautiful, repeat, abandon, thank-you. It was interesting for them to see a teacher struggle for a way to express herself, an American without all the answers. Eventually a student arrived named Vladka who spoke English, and we all became fast friends.
Now with some language under my belt was able to develop these “self-determining” methods of teaching. I was in Prague Konservatory teaching Russian trained ballet students ages 13 to 18 all day. Here again the individualism question arose, but under much more excruciating circumstances. These students were raised in a Communist
System, they were never asked or rewarded for innovation or individualism. They were too concerned with “ correctness,” and they though my style loose, free and sloppy. To throw one’s weight around off center, with loose torsos was funny and clownish to them. When we eventually stated to exchange these amazing folk dances that they grew up with and my Bosho dances as I call them, we were able to uncover some common roots of dancing. I taught them a little of the closing dance from Higher Ground with David Linton and Electric Owthaus music and they would tailor the movement to their bodies. By the end they wouldn’t stop the class. They loved the music and the energy and would go over and over their newly created steps after the class had stopped. The even videotaped the last class from the moment I walked into the studio to the moment I put my shoes on to leave. It brought tears to my eyes to see these students come alive; to sweat, to laugh, and to be so determined to try anything.
In a funny way I felt Prague more eastern than Hong Kong and Taipei. The dancers were literally frozen in time since the communist take over. One day the students asked me if I would teach this new technique called “ Jose Limón technique.” It was quite endearing, but I had to confess I actually didn’t know Limon technique but that those principles were somewhat similar to my dance. This just shows how much information was denied to them in 40 years. I felt so honored to have been there for the month of April. I could write pages and pages on Prague and what a post- Communist state is like. I found it hard to explain to my friends in New York how I experienced what the brand of Communism did to people. We tend to have a New York Times relationship to these issues. Nevertheless I find it so interesting that I was in such an intensely capitalistic city as Hong Kong moving towards Communism in 1997, and then in a country like Czech Republic, shaking off the effect of Communism. I see how these cultural and politically movements are so deeply ingrained in all of us, right down to our nervous systems. It informs how we relate to the “movement” of our bodies, how we create, how we learn.
So I’m creating a new large piece of my company called Folked Up or Folks Us (I’m still in the working title stage). This past summer my two male dancers Eric and Ariel worked with Cheng Chieng Yu for the first time learning the female role from traditional Chinese dance. It was absolutely gorgeous and mind-bending. We are also working with Marcin up at Juilliard who is from Warsaw and training us in traditional Slavic dance. Like my earlier piece Higher Ground, which I call a cross over piece in that it tries to break boundaries between popular dance and concert dance, Folked Up will aim to break preconceptions and make clear that “avant-garde” dance isn’t actually so new. These experiences in the Czech Republic and Asia really made me question this whole notion of avant-garde, or innovation, or progress. I know use the metaphor of language about speaking about this “teaching” process. How do we get two people who speak different (movement) language to speak to each other? How do we create new common languages while preserving our individuality? This is the great question in our country now- more officially called multi-culturalism. It is better summed up in the duality of tribalism (empowerment, self-preservation) and pluralism (the great mosaic). What is diluting an ancient form and what is energizing it? Pretty tough questions, dear Florence, but we’ll let the dance spell it out. I‘m fearing that our politically correct movements are creating even more strict categories and stereotypes, and pray that this new piece will challenge those categories and create a broader movement palette, making the old new and the new old.
Well, my dear, with those pithy thoughts I better close and get back to my grant writing. All the best, Florence. Love to CCDC dancers, see you next summer, and stay away form McDonalds!
Love, Sarah
