The most rudimentary talent of a performer is simply to execute the movements as given by the choreographer. Many teachers are patient and slow down for the slow learner. Not so for most choreographers. There are too many good dancers out there looking for work, and there is always too much to do in too little time. This is a given in our present world.
Slow learning, uncertain learning and insecure execution of new material are ideal for losing coordination and sustaining a nasty disability. Also, spending four times as much energy simply learning dance material is pathetic when the most significant and difficult work begins precisely when you “know” how to do it. Bringing the dance phrases to life with your own personal creative contribution is what it is all about.
“I just made a MISTAKE!” Thinking this in terms of horror is NOISE in the head and interferes with learning. All good learners make mistakes. They assume that they will make mistakes in the process of learning and think nothing of it. Bad learners are aghast at their failure, giving more attention to that failure than to what they are supposed to be learning.
Assume learning involves mistakes. An error is only a sigh to ascertain quickly the correct move and to start over again, leaving horror behind. Ask what questions or demonstrations you need to understand what is being given. Above all, be certain you learn as quickly as possible what happens on count one. If you don’t know count 1, coun2 will be ridiculous.
“Oh, I’m so slow (or dumb) learning this!” Observations such as these have nothing to do with the fact that to start this particular phrase correctly, the little half air torn to the left must land on the right foot and not the left. The latter is the only proper observation. The former is NOISE.
“Jackie learns so quickly!” All observations and thinking about “Jackie” or any other quick learner will do nothing to clarify the phrase for you and will only qualify as NOISE. It is ironic that there are some extraordinarily quick learners who are not particularly good dancers. Learning is their talent and actually the extent of their interest. Simply being able to do what is given, without then drawing up out of themselves a deeper personal poem that gives the movement life, leaves them ordinary, dull dancers. Forget “Jackie,” and put your entire mind to the phrase at hand.
“Oh, that’s such a hard phrase to do!” The good learner is challenged and juiced up by difficulty. A Bad Learner becomes a Good Learner by looking for the tough dance step, hoping to be given the chance to work on something substantial that will qualify her/him as a “hotshot.”
“Everyone is watching me and notices how slow, stupid and dumb I am.” Everyone is much too preoccupied with their own problems to more that merely not, at most in a passing glance, that you are having difficulty. NOISE like this is actually extraordinarily vain.
There are high-class neurotic bad learners who are doing something so complex that no silly quote will serve. Unfortunately, they are not as rare as they should be. These are the people who feel right when they are wrong. It is only then that they feel like themselves. They’re not happy about it, but being unhappy feels natural to them. Being wrong and failing gives them the perfect excuse to go into their act—punishing and severely scolding themselves. It’s a schizoid game wherein part of them achieves as if it is more important to let themselves and the world know that they know what is right. Weird, but all too common.
Come on, how many times in class have you made an error and, while still dancing, visibly frowned and sternly shook your head as if you were scolding some stupid recalcitrant student, i.e., yourself, and incidentally letting the teacher or the choreographer know that you know? Knowing that you are wrong when you are wrong is necessary to becoming right, but bathing in it is NOISE in your head and has nothing to do with learning the dance step before you. It has more to do with unresolved problems that obviously need attention, but not in the classroom and never, ever in rehearsal. Even worse, this mannerism of self-disapproval can slip into your neuromuscular system and, horrors, you’ll do it onstage, in performance, and you won’t realize you’re doing it.
There is another class of poor learners who, unlike the guilt-ridden just described, feel utterly innocent. “Why is the choreographer giving us such terrible movement?” “What awful choreography!” “That’s old hat.” “I’m going to look terrible doing that.” “It’s all being taught so badly and in such a confused manner. How can I learn it?” As fast as you can, you had better face up to the possibility that in your career you will probably have to work with ordinary talents, or even untalented choreographers and fellow performers. Your task, your skill and your claim to being a professional is not to be a critic—but to make every move given you turn into shimmering, breathtaking beauty, Even if the choreography stinks, your performance of it should make the choreographer look like a genius. Being critical of what is being given you is NOISE in your head and will make you a slow and bad learner. If it’s intolerably bad, there’s always the door. But if you choose to be in that class or that studio rehearsing, make it all sing and learning will not be a problem.
Another unhappy learner comes to mind: The Watcher. This one is locked into the conviction that learning is impossible for her/him and the only solution is to follow. Usually the watcher focuses on a bright, quick one who knows everything immediately. Chronic following is the statement of one who accepts the designation of hopeless learner and leans on the fantasy that somehow all the sequences can be danced by picking up cues and hints out of the corner of the eye.
A whole chain of disastrous results flows from this gambit. The watcher is always behind the beat, inasmuch as nothing can be done until the smart one does it first. If the watcher ever makes it to the stage, the eye of the audience will always go to the person on or before the beat, since she/he is bringing the news first. The watcher rarely achieves what every dancer needs, personal authority, since that has tacitly been given over to the watched hotshot. Inevitably, the watcher assumes what can only be described as a sneaky expression, since she/he is really stealing someone else’s hard work by glancing surreptitiously out of the corner of the eye. The style of the watcher can be described as “Dancing out of the corner of my eye.” Finally always looming on the horizon is the dread probability that sooner or later the watcher will be watched dancing alone, with no one to follow. Ironically, they often manage but at a cost: a mild case of suppressed hysterics.
The advice is the same one would give to any addict: QUIT! Stand in the front row and start learning to learn by making your own mistakes. A mistake is not the end of the world; it is merely one step in the process of learning.
There is also the case of the premature artist. This one has a beguiling innocence, some very good dancing and bad timing, This dancer is trying to be too good, too beautiful, too soon. Give such a one a movement, and immediately it is turned into a work of art ready to be performed at full tilt. This dancer applies the correct impulse too soon. We are nothing as artists unless each of us ultimately does something to the movements given us, but we can’t do anything to a movement until we can do it. To this eager one the injunction is, “Save the poetry until you know the steps.” Good learners who are fine dance artists know enough to approach all new movement with an objective detachment until execution requires little thought. Then they pour it on.
Finally, we come to the most difficult of all slow learners. These, and some of them are good dancers, say quite calmly, “Oh, me? I’m a slow learner,” as if they were describing their Roman nose or that their cat has six toes, Not only is it a given with them, but if you listen closely there is a faint note of pride. Worse, they are saying, “This is immutable.” I will venture to say that this thought is quite possibly nonsense. If you’re human, you can change. If you lock yourself into a position, that’s where you’ll be. If you have a passion to change and you don’t stand smugly on the pedestal of your sacred self-image but concentrate on the phrase of movement that is given you, whoosh, you may master it in no time at all—and won’t you be surprised?
All the variations of NOISE are really forms of self-focus. Pamela Matt at Arizona State University calls it ego-static. She asks the slow learner to turn full attention to the static, the NOISE—the name it, know it, analyze it, even give it its due—and hopefully by that focus and understanding, its potency will be diminished. In order to learn fully, I tell my students to imagine being a clear, sensitive piece of photography paper, or a blank sheet of paper, or a white untouched canvas—to receive what is given from the outside with innocence and no preoccupation with self.
