Saturday, January 21, 2012

Guest dancer

Joshua is from the United States of America visiting Restless Dance Theatre as part of a 12-month scholarship to study community dance practices around the world. Originating from Chicago, he studied neuroscience and theatre. Joshua shares some of his knowledge and reflects on his time with Restless.

What is neuroscience?
Neuroscience is the study of the nervous system, which consists of the brain, the spinal cord, and neurons that regulate sensory experiences, emotions, memories, and thought. There are also other aspects of neuroscience, like biology, psychology, and chemistry that play a part in the study of the nervous system and how the world around us may influence it.

Can you share some of your past experiences of studying dance from around the world?
While I was in India, I was studying traditional Indian folk dance [called bharathanatyam] with a professional dancer [also a dentist] who taught to visually challenged students. The company this program was associated with, Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled, was absolutely fantastic and welcoming to a complete stranger like me. The teacher, Raksha, had actually taken me in as a family member, and had given me a two-month crash course in Indian culture. As for the dance style itself, I've never had more trouble tapping into my emotions as I did with this one; bharathanatyam is all about telling stories about heroes, heroines, gods, goddesses, and demons. While performing these complicated [and painful] foot stomping patterns, you have to keep specific body postures, hand gestures, and facial expressions. Sometimes you have to look like an egotistical lord, sometimes you have to look like a sleeping god, and sometimes you have to look like a starving homeless person, all while keeping your technique. Watching the visually challenged students learn and perform all of this was an incredibly inspiring experience.

In Uganda, I actually studied two styles of dance: breakdance and traditional Ugandan folk dance, both of which were taught as an after-school program to anyone who wanted to come and learn. What I really liked about the breakdance group was that everyone believed that 'anyone is a student, and anyone is a teacher.' No matter how much you did or did not know about breakdance, and no matter how long you've been breakdancing, there was always something new to learn from someone else. For me, the breakdancers loved learning about America. And that didn't even include dancing. As for the traditional Ugandan dance group, the group leader had taken me in as a little brother. Not only did he invite me to all of the group's official performances at hotels, he took me to his home village to meet his mother and the village he had grown up with. It was amazing to see the sense of family that the dance group emphasized, and it was an even more amazing to become a part of that sense.

How did it come about that you were interested to work with the Restless Dance Theatre?
The first time I had heard about Restless was during my senior year at university, when a dance professor of mine was giving a lecture about dance films she had really appreciated from around the world. She had shown a clip from Necessary Games called Moths, and I remember actually feeling my jaw slowly open. When I received the fellowship a few months later, I asked my professor for more information on that video. While I was in Uganda, I was contemplating where I would go to next, and Restless just seemed like the next logical place to go. I had already had a small taste of how dance and disabilities were fused together, and I was interested in learning more.

You've been a part of several different projects since you've been in Adelaide. What have you learned about the Company?
As of yet, I've had the pleasure of being a part of the Ranter's Theatre Artist in Residency, a weekend residency at Murwillumbah High School with a new group called Heartbeat Dance, and a week-long intensive with Zoe Barry for the fall production of Howling Like a Wolf. It's hard putting into words about what I've learned about Restless; you hear some dancers with learning disabilities say incredible things, and you see them do simply beautiful things. Since I've arrived, I've felt like I've been welcomed as an actual member of the Company, and all of the dancers have treated me the same way they would each other when we work together. They don't hold anything back, and I really appreciate that. I guess you could say that the Company doesn't have a filter, and that's what makes it incredibly unique. There's no selection process, there's no sense of being a favorite or being hated, and of course the other dancers will open themselves to you as long as you're willing.

Being aware of these things in the Company also leads you to realize a lot more about yourself. There was one time at the Adelaide College of the Arts that Ausdance SA was hosting a Dance Teacher's Day. I remember taking a contemporary class with Lisa Heaven, and in all honesty, I was absolutely terrible in it. I couldn't point my feet, the choreography did not stay in my head, and there was a point in which I couldn't tell my left from my right. Any passersby would have claimed that I had no spatial awareness of my body. Although my body felt terrible, I couldn't help but realize that I wanted this, that I wanted to be able to do it, that this was what I wanted to do. I knew it would require years of commitment [especially to pick up the choreography after the teacher showed it once], but it was comforting to know that didn't matter; if this was really what I wanted, I would keep doing it.

How is your knowledge of neuroscience (if at all) contributing to the creative processes being driven in Howling Like a Wolf?
Sometimes it feels like my background in neuroscience isn't actually contributing to the creative processes; I think about how I move, how others are moving, the space, our interactions, and I almost immediately want to say that neuroscience has nothing to do with it. Then I remember that before we start moving, we spend a good amount talking about emotions, facial expressions, and recognition, and I realize that there's a good amount of time in which I'm suddenly remembering old studies I've read, paper's I've written, and presentations I've given during university. When it seems appropriate, I'll toss in the occasional factoid about a certain brain part, or of a study in which scientists learned something about human emotions. I can only assume this contributes to someone else's greater understanding of emotions and facial expression, which is what Howling Like a Wolf is all about. You learn as much as you can about something, and use that information to your advantage when you're moving around a space, when you're interacting with someone else.

How do you think this experience is impacting on you personally and how does it shape your ideas about what Community Dance is?
This experience is helping me learn a lot about the way I interact with people, which is funny because I thought community dance was about... Well, the community. I see that the group working as a whole is a beautiful thing; if one day a dancer isn't there, the work that is created is just missing something that dancer would have contributed. And that's what I've understood about Community Dance: it takes a group to make an interesting work, but less people don't make it less interesting. More people, however, make it more interesting. And it's been fantastic seeing people join without hesitation and contributing something they're really good at. But while all of this is happening, while you're dancing with familiar faces or new people, you're suddenly aware of who you did what with. And then you wonder why. Why you didn't do something with someone else, and you begin to wonder how that reflects on your life outside of the dance space. It's been super helpful at the end of the day reflecting with yourself, with your friends, taking note of what they saw and what you saw and drawing parallels between that and how you actually interact with people throughout the day.

What has been your top three highlights of being in Australia so far?
First Highlight: Meeting and dancing with most of the dancers from Necessary Games. I mean, you're meeting 'celebrities'. Their videos are being shown all over the world, and they win a ton of awards. But then you get the chance to dance with them, and create something with them. Maybe that's it. You get to be a part of their creative process, which is an absolute honor.

Second Highlight: Hitch hiking [or, more accurately, attempting to hitch hike] from Mullumbimby to Byron Bay and back. Not only did another Restless dancer and I not get all the rides we needed, but we ended up walking for 10 kilometers or so at night. Regardless, it was a funny experience, there was a lot of bonding, and we even got a chance to sit at an old-fashioned diner and have really good apple pie and homemade ginger juice.

Third Highlight: Meeting the families of the people involved with Restless. I figure you get a good idea of who a person is when you work with them for so many days in a week for a long time, but having the chance to actually meet the families of the dancers and directors has added another layer to the identities of these great people. I've had just a glimpse of where they come from, and its incredible, endearing, and just plain hilarious to hear about their lives outside of the dance world.

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