The Power of Scarves

Of my collection, I am down to seven pastel colored scarves. I had seven dancers in class tonight - that worked out perfect.  I used the theme of color to tie the class together and explored levels in movement and dance. The one who started off a tough nut exhibited no-outsiderness today. She volunteered to lead the group in the "shake down" and stayed with the group the entire time she was in class tonight. I am so proud of her. Again she was picked-up before finishing the class, but I think this was the best class yet. No attitude from anyone towards me or the other girls and full participation by everyone who attended. We also had a new student tonight and her expressions throughout class conveyed joy. It is a rather indescribable feeling when you witness and experience someone's joy in response to something you have created for them. Although I have been doing this for about ten years, I am still always a little surprised, like "you really like this?" And then I feel like I did something right. I feel like I did my job. I feel like what I do is meaningful and worth doing.

Sometimes its just a smile from a nine-year-old who joined your class that one time that keeps you motivated, and its enough.

After the warm-up, I placed the scarves in the dance space. I invited each dancer one at a time to choose a scarf and sit in that spot. I put on some Tchaikovsky and we explored our personal dance space, "bubbles," by painting the interior with the scarf. We started low level, reaching and stretching our arms and legs in different ways while "painting" with the scarf, then to medium, then to high. Then we traveled. We danced in a circle dancing with our scarves, each dancer in their own bubble and aware of the other bubbles around them.We had a blast.

 I design my classes with the idea that everyone will be present until the end, although I know this isn't true ever. Girls get picked-up when they get picked-up, sometimes its during my class. I have learned to deal with this and have - overtime- been able to adjust to this and adapt to the environment I am working in - which is just what any teacher would have to do. ADAPT.OVERCOME. IMPROVISE. Wise words passed down to me from my Dad (and also a Clint Eastwood movie). And its true.

The performance score was very simple and amazing. I feel it is so unfair to the world, that most of the time, I alone get to witness their creations. They are often surprisingly sophisticated.Writing about it won't nearly do it justice. When I hit the bell (an earth bell), change levels and keep moving as long as the bell rings out, legato movement. And same with the drum, staccato movement. Of course we used scarves - they loved the scarves and the scarves invited new ways for them to move. It was so cool. They had so much fun keeping up with the bell and the drum, and it looked cool and they found so many shapes in their own bodies. It was great to see them get to that point where by the end of class they were exploring movements that were not their typical movements. They were starting to really get creative and challenge themselves. I could also see them starting to become more aware of each other.

There is something magical about scarves.

There were three dancers left for the last ten minutes; I ended class with free dancing with scarves, but I sort of treated it like a performance score. As they danced, I called out things we had been exploring in the classes that I saw in their free dance, like, "I see axial movement. There's  locomotor movement. Nice levels!" and so on. I think everyone had a good time tonight.