Category: Dancers

Return visit of the long-lost dancer

7/16/2014

Sharon C. is a wonderful, loving woman. She was a dancer in my folk dance class every semester since I first started teaching. Sharon was also an avid contra dancer in our community. Then she took a job on the east coast and left the area.
But after a three year absence, this week she came back to town for a visit and stopped into class. What a thrill for me to dance with her again! I couldn't stop smiling.
Sharon said she hasn't danced since she left. I noticed two things dancing with her: When we dance with other people, our hearts open and we create a bond with them. And even though Sharon stopped dancing for three years, she was RIGHT back in step as though she was dancing yesterday. Folk dancing gets into our soul - or at least into our muscle memory.

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Chatting while kerplunking

5/27/2014

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What a difference a few weeks can make.
It was just a regular class tonight. We reviewed some dances -- Nabrala Je, Miserlou, La Plongeuse de l'Ouest, Ya Da Kalinushku Lomala... we learned a couple of new ones -- Arap, schottische... and then reviewed some more.

Someone asked if we could do Jarnana, an Albanian line dance that we had learned earlier in the spring. We reviewed it, and I put on the music. By this time in the session (week 8), I like when other people lead the lines. So Toresa lead the dance, and I joined the end of the line where Cathy was dancing.

After I took Cathy's hand, she turned and commented to me, saying that she had enjoyed the Irish session that she dropped in on last week in the pub. Now, Cathy is relatively new to folk dancing, and when I say relatively new - I mean that she hasn't been dancing for longer than a year. For her to turn and start a conversation was, to me, a demonstration of how comfortable she is feeling with her dancing. For her to be able to keep her feet doing Jarnana while talking about the Irish session was SO impressive.

I like chatty dancers. I love watching dancers in my class when they are being social --- while they're dancing (better to be chatty while they're dancing than while I'm teaching). It's one of the reasons people love dancing - to spend leisure time with other people from their village, to connect with other people.

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Call yourself a dancer - just do it!

5/16/2014

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I've been reading blogs and articles for beginning runners. It seems that the running tribe encourages people who engage in running to call themselves runners as soon as they start running. If you are running, you are a runner!
When I started teaching folk dance, I clung to every word that my teaching mentor shared with me. We had a conversation about terminology. I remember learning from her that a dance student is a student until they start to dance. She said, "People who come to my classes are students until they begin to dance. Then they are dancers. Some people are students for months, even years. Some are dancers after ten minutes."
I'm re-evaluating this now. Sure - there's a lot of difference between running (left, right, then repeat) and dancing. But I don't know when that subjective line is drawn between student and dancer. Is it when their kerplunk step in Jarnana no longer resembles almost tripping - to me, as their instructor? If I'm the one who gets to decide when someone can start calling themselves a dancer, I don't know if I want to do this job.
I love watching the dancers in my class. They are all attempting to do the same thing, but they have different expressions of the dance. Does their level of fluidity make them more or less of a dancer? Why comparisons?
I am a dancer. Not because I've been doing this for over 30 years. Not because I love it SO much and do it SO much that it has become part of my identity. Not because I want to do this until I can't physically do it any longer. All of these things are true.
I am a dancer just because I dance.
Oh, and I'm a runner, too, now!

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Return visit of the long-lost dancer

Chatting while kerplunking

Call yourself a dancer - just do it!

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