Fortune Cookie Choreographers

Written By Safi A. Thomas
Courtesy of Recidivism Deferred (A Hip-Hop Dance Blog)


“Just because people can’t understand what you say when you speak, don’t necessarily mean that what you be sayin’ is deep” -Talib Kweli

Dancers don’t need a fortune cookie (empty rhetoric) in class. They need solid advice that will help them facilitate a successful, empowered, economically stable career as well as kinesthetic knowledge to grow from. Empty rhetoric lacks substance and may appeal to the subjective artist side but impedes the longterm efficacy of that dancer’s career.

EXAMPLES

• “Just keep coming to class and you’ll get it.” (for how long? And get what?)
• “I can’t teach you groove. You either have it or you don’t.” (makes groove sound like an exclusive club that only certain people get into. In actuality, anyone with the proper assessment of music and understanding of different musical grooves will be able to estabish a connection with kinesthetic groove)
• “I can’t tell you how to dance it. Just feel it.” (Translation: I have no practical dance education and do not know how to explain my choreography to you, so just figure it out on your own.)
• “Just practice.” (usually the answer to the question “how can I get better?”)
• “Be fierce and bring attitude!” (for every piece)
• “Give me more energy!” (a general statement which precludes variability of emotive intent)
• “You have to be bringing it hard if you want me to see you in a class of 50 people!” (Mainly because the class has no structure and therefore the teacher/choreographer has no method of scanning the room and assessing all of the dancers. So they only focus on the sycophants in the front.)
• “Be the best that you can, not a watered down version of me.” (degrades the dancer surreptitiously by inferring that they will never be as good as the choreographer so just do what they can) This statement is ego under the guise of humility. “Work comes first, fun comes later.” (An empty statement or common idiom that sounds good but purports a separation between the hard work and fun instead of asking the dancer to redefine their idea of fun to be inclusive of challenges to their preconceptions.)
• “I’m not here to break down everything. I’ve got a class to teach.” (devolves the teacher/choreographer of accountability for the progress of the dancer)
• “Well if you go to an audition do you think they’re going to break it down for you? Just pick it up!” (using the excuse of preparation for an audition for not teaching the dancer how to assess the body both aesthetically and kinesthetically to gain clarity of movement)

If you’ll notice, these are all short one liners meant to obfuscate the choreographer’s ineptitude by sounding “deep.” Upon further examination, these lines fail to expound upon the craft or inform the dancer’s understanding of how their body moves relative to choreography. Dancers need empirical knowledge on form, line, shape, breath, dynamics, kinesthetics, music, stagecraft etc. Not empty rhetoric to make them feel like we care. I think that in order for these choreographers/teachers to gain the requisite tools, they must first be open to receiving new information. Many of these “teachers” are “dancers” who were thrust into the choreography realm sans dance pedagogy thus limiting their scope of understanding which has a deleterious impact on future dancers.

Their popularity is based on the work they’ve done and not their efficacy as a teacher of dance.

I would be more than willing to create a workshop for said teachers which goes for a whole day and covers the primary kinesthetic and aesthetic intricacies of line, form, shape, dynamic, stagecraft etc. however I’m almost certain that a majority of them (due to pride, ego and plain disinterest) wouldn’t show up. Many choreographers today are decidedly unwilling to pursue higher learning relative to their craft opting instead for their reflective observations and experiential biases to help them navigate their profession.

I sincerely hope that this is not the “new way that dance will be learned.” By engaging dancers with pithy idioms and magniloquent statements which lack empirical foundation they are destroying the clarity of the art and stunting it’s longterm growth. Showing choreography without informing the dancer how to engage said choreography creates a dichotomy within the dance world of innate dancers and kinesthetically inept ones. We need a new generation of dancers and choreographers with a care and concern for the proliferation of the art-form, celebration of diversity of techniques, a penchant for respect to dance foundation and detail as well as a desire to learn more before deciding to teach.


Safi A. Thomas
Artistic Director
The Hip-Hop Dance Conservatory

Posted in: