jurg dundee presentation

Jürg Koch

Dance Program

University of Washington, Seattle

Electronic transcripts for this presentation are available.Please, indicate your interest to the presenters.

Of Ghettos and Ivory TowersA Tale of Integrated Dance and Dance in Higher Education

It is my great pleasure to talk to you today as a part of the symposium, to stand in front of an amazing assembly of artists and educators from the field of performance and disability. Thank you to the organizers and thank you for joining us.

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Of Ghettos and Ivory Towers …

The ghetto, in my title today, is a metaphor for the practice of isolating specific groups of people and cultural practices from the rest of the population. Places of segregation and discrimination. In medieval Europe, ghettos were the walled quarters of the Jewish population. More recently we also think of ghettos as the poor, often ethnically segregated sections of large cities, like in the image on the left here with its graffiti-covered back ally. These are also spaces that invoke subcultures, like the 80’s hip-hop scene.

One question that concerns me is how integrated dance is often isolated from the mainstream as a kind of ghetto-ized, “subcultural” practice, particularly where access to professional training is concerned.

And then there is the ivory tower …

Also standing for isolation and separation, the ivory tower speaks instead of a place (or practice) born of privilege and choice. This is where intellectuals engage in elite pursuits that are disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life. A place of splendid isolation.

My other question, then, is whether professional dance training is such an ivory tower, a place steeped in arcane practice removed from current events and social issues, accessible to just the few, hand picked individuals?

For this presentation I would like to stay with the medieval roots of the image for the Ivory Tower, like in the image on the right of an illumination for a Dutch Book of Hours. In this “Garden of Eden” like setting the Ivory Tower here is a mystical place, the destination of quests. Quests where you fight dragons, find holy grails and hidden treasures.

Looking out at the who’s who of performance and disability assembled here, my title refers not just to my own quest for access in dance training, but to a collective one, a quest which we as a community have embarked on.

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Key Challenges

Considering Universal Design

Curricular and Pedagogical Changes

Responses and Questions

On the way I outline a framework for providing access to professional training for diverse student populations.

I begin by identifying some of the key challenges before turning to the principles of Universal Design as a way to make concrete curricular and pedagogical changes for creating access while pursuing shared educational and training goals.

I will conclude with an opportunity for responses and questions

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Key Challenges

Companies and individual artist in the field of dance and disability have been creating relevant work for some thirty years. This collage shows some of them including Alito Alessi / DanceAbility, Amici Dance Theater, Candoco Dance Company, Claire Cunningham, Dandelion Dance Theater, Dancing Wheels and Bill Shannon. (I apologize to anybody not included.) Integrated dance has also spread beyond Western Theater Dance to places as diverse as India, Ethiopia, Uzbekistan etc. spanning a multitude of functions, formats and forms.

This success story stands in stark contrast to the reality of access to professional training.

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Key Challenges

“On the whole, many disabled people can only gain access to informal training provision.”

Jo Verrent, 2003Disability and the Dance and Drama Awards

Jo Verrent’s 2003 study focusing on access to dance and drama training concluded: “On the whole, many disabled people can only gain access to informal training provision.”

Not withstanding recent developments, concrete challenges to equal access to formal, professional training for disabled artists remain.

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Key Challenges

Table adapted after Burgstahler and Cory Universal Design in Higher Education, 2008

Physical Spaces

InformationTechnology

Services Instruction

Theory classes

Studio classes:

ImprovisationCompositionRepertoryTechnique Class

Focusing more broadly on access to tertiary education Burgstahler and Cory’s publication Universal Design in Higher Education addresses four key areas: Physical Spaces, Information and Technology, Services and Instruction – all important considerations.

As an educator and artist I have a particular interest in instruction and within that the instruction of studio-based courses including: Improvisation, Composition, Repertory and Technique Class.

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Key ChallengesUW Courses and Projects

Over the past eight year I have offered a number of integrated dance courses and projects in the UW dance program, involving University students as well as off campus participants. The images here show participants diverse not only in terms of disability but also body-type, age, ethnicity, level and forms of previous training. Despite this, students with disabilities often still stay on the threshold, they are welcome visitors but they are still not necessarily members of the degree program.

How do I not just teach “about integrated dance”, but teach all studio practice, including my regular courses, in an accessible way.

Improvisation, composition and even repertory, are largely deemed accessible. This is evident in integrated dance practice as well as in the writing of authors like Albright, Benjamin, Kuppers and Whatley. Technique class however deserves particular attention.

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Key Challenges

Technique class, of which you see some examples here like ballet, modern, contact improvisation, Indian dance, etc., provide a systematic approach to train dance skills. It is a highly valued part of professional training with a significant amount of time dedicated to it.

While valuing theses aspects I am also convinced that technique class is the single, major challenge to access and inclusion, because of the position it holds in degree programs and because of the conventions through which it is taught.

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Key Challenges

“Execute sustained movement sequences consolidating strength, balance, co-ordination, flexibility and control with accuracy, safety and technical fluency.”

Trinity College LondonNational Diploma in Professional Dance, Assessment

Criteria

A professional performer is amongst others expected to:

“Execute sustained movement sequences consolidating strength, balance, co-ordination, flexibility and control with accuracy, safety and technical fluency.”

This example of assessment objective for technique classes is provided by the Trinity College London for the National Diploma in Professional Dance. It states generic and open teaching goals applicable to a number of different forms of technique. Time and time again have I seen disabled performers demonstrate these very skills.

Open and generic teaching goals (there are other ones I won’t go into for now) don’t prescribe how a student demonstrates these skills. The essence is that the student demonstrates the ability to retain her (not a uniform) set phrase with accuracy and perform it with appropriate control and detail.

The challenge is not to replace these skills. The challenge is how to train them in an accessible way - it is a question of teaching methodology.

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Key Challenges

Bringing up the images of the artists and companies I mentioned earlier - All of them have developed methodologies successful in their training and the development of their work. However like many other professional companies these artists do not necessarily use formal technique classes but a more fluid workshop process to train and to generate their work. Amongst those that use more traditional forms of technical training there are two main approaches:

There are disability and style specific approaches, like Kitty Lunn’s ballet for wheelchair users. And there is working with adaptations, where dancers and teachers develop multiple versions of the same exercise. Why not apply them in degree courses?

A disability specific approach in higher education is discriminatory. It selects participants on grounds of their disability while potentially rejecting others. Offering ballet for wheelchair users is not going to work in higher education.

Applying adaptations in the context of higher education often either slows down the teaching, when you instruct multiple versions of the same material or it turns into a “Just do your own thing.” – approach, leaving the disabled dancers to fend for themselves.

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Key Challenges

How to train the required skills with a diverse student population?

How can students demonstrate these skills through their movement range?

How to give feedback and assess these performances?

In the absence of a transferrable “integrated dance technique” meeting the training goals for professional performers, the main challenges are:

How to train the required skills with a diverse student population?How can students demonstrate these skills through their movement range?How to give feedback and assess these performances?

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“Universal design is the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.”

Ron Mace, The Center for Universal Design

I found that the principles of Universal Design provide a helpful, yet challenging framework through which to consider these questions.

“Universal design is the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.”Initially considered for the design of products like houses, parks or tools, its founder, Ron Mace, stipulated seven principles.

Burgstahler and Cory adjusted and expanded these original principles for teaching and instruction. For my research I also use a selection of these principles. They include:

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Considering Universal DesignEquitable use

Flexibility of use

Simple and Intuitive

Tolerance of Error

Adjustable Effort

Equitable useFlexibility of useSimple and IntuitiveTolerance of ErrorAdjustable Effort

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Feedback and Assessment

Physical Environments, Delivery Method and Perceivable Information

Class Climate and Interaction

Feedback and AssessmentClass Climate and InteractionPhysical Environment, Delivery Method and Perceivable Information

Unable to address all of them today, +

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Equitable use

Flexibility of use

I will focus on equitable use and flexibility of use.

Before doing this, let’s first consider a more radical approach and talk about technique as a degree requirement

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Curricular Changes

Complete Technical Requirements:

Through off-campus courses in a technique relevant to a student.

Through independent studies

Students are required to successfully complete a number of courses, to get their degree. Ballet and contemporary typically make up the bulk of these technique class requirements. There are other technical forms that are not represented in this canon, forms that are potentially more accessible such as Contact Improvisation, Butoh, Ballroom dancing etc.

Considering UD I am keen to introduce the following possibilities for every student to complete all or a portion of a degree’s technical requirements.+If not already offered as part of the curriculum, students study techniques relevant to their artistic interests outside the degree program.+Students explore and practice their technical range through independent studies, developing idiosyncratic training processes, material and compositional structures.

In both cases supervising faculty provide quality assurance and accreditation, while other subjects are studied within the program.

This proposal, would not only allow for increased diversity in the student body, but also an increased diversity in dance forms studied on a par with ballet and modern.

That is some dragon we are wrestling with on our quest

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Pedagogical ChangesEquitable useProvide the same means of use for all users: identical whenever possible; equivalent where not.

Avoid segregating or stigmatization.

Make the design appealing to all users.

Let’s now consider UD with regards to the actual teaching of technique class. The principle of equitable use with its demand for “providing the same means of use”, “avoiding segregation and stigmatization” as well as “making the process appealing to all users,” challenged my understanding of adaptations in particular.

Non-disabled students in my classes, well versed in technical training, really struggled when asked to adapt material. They felt singled out, while independently developing, remembering and performing their variations in the context of the otherwise unified class. I ask, why would we expect a disabled student to “just get on with it”?

Adapting involves analyzing, translating, composing, remembering and independent performance. Really challenging compared to the usual copying process. But these are actually really great skills. So rather than ditching adaptations, because it is inequitable, make it relevant to the whole class – let's all adapt.

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Pedagogical Changes

Working with Individualized MaterialWorking with Adaptations

Describe – Explore – ImproviseSet - Repeat

Working with adaptations in the class collective involves moving from describing a task, to exploration, to improvisation, followed by varying degrees of setting and repeating.

At this point it also seems appropriate to change the terminology, from “Working with Adaptations” + to “Working with Individualized Material”.

I would like to illustrate this with a couple of examples I use in my technique class.

Like any warm up preparing the class for the material that will follow I start with basic movement principles.

--Demo: 1. Up and down. Moving on the vertical axis of the body, involving reaching, extending, folding and bending,2. Exploration pelvis/tail, active/manipulations.3. Shifting/Travel forward and backward4. Add level changes.--end demo

Using descriptions I ask the students to explore a movement task in open time frames.I call out when to change to the next task. I demonstrate and suggest various possibilities and the participants, rather than copying me, explore the principle according to their facilities. Body parts used, space and tempo range, amount of repetitions etc. vary.

In this short demonstration I’ve established four distinct tasks in a repeatable, sequential order under the shared aim of warming up.

This structure can now be developed further, moving from the sequential improvisation to different degrees of setting:Set the material that is most effective for you.Work with a set time frame of say 8 counts (ok, how about 5?)While specifying these parameters other aspects like number of repetitions,

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Pedagogical ChangesFlexibility in use:

The design accommodates a wide range of individual preferences and abilities.

Provides choice in the method of use.

Facilitates the user’s accuracy, precision and pace.

Developing individualized material already accommodates a wide range of preferences and abilities and can also adapt to the user’s pace meeting some of requirements for Flexibility in use.

Having practiced the approach in the class collective we can now provide a choice in the method of use. At the UW students eventually independently vary anything from a single, specific movement to an entire phrase in my own as well as in the classes of my colleagues.

The principle of flexibility also applies to my own teaching. Depending on the group I work exclusively with individualized material. In other situations I may use the methodology once in a class. What is important, that I have these and other methodologies at my disposal and that the students are familiar with them.

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I started with a somewhat grand title leading us on a quest, pursuing great ideals. What have we discovered treasure or fools gold? It may feel that rather than discovering some magic solution it all sounds somewhat familiar. You have done stuff like this before, what is the big deal! Or you may think, well this is not a technique class.

Technique in its root means “skill”. Individualized material allows a greater diversity of dancers to access and demonstrate the skills stipulated in our dance curricula through their movement range.

I readily acknowledge other people use improvisation and experiential material in their classes. Of course I borrow, some of this is your stuff, if anything I am collecting best practices in individualized teaching and I am more than happy to reveal my sources and inspirations if you have questions there. +Shifting this medieval image into a more contemporary frame - I really like this photo of a New Jersey, Motor Inn. Both ambitiously and somewhat ironically called Ivory Tower, the image depicts a stylized white pyramid shaped tower, looking like a theatrical prop made up of plywood, next to a rather tiny and not so glamorous sign for the actual road side stop. This new image suggests maybe more of a road-trip than the glamorous idea of a medieval quest - something more pragmatic, applied. Far from suggesting I’ve arrived at the final destination this is the route I suggest we take:

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Access Existing Teaching Goals

Implement Universal Design of Instruction

Curricular and Pedagogical Solutions

Make it relevant

Shift from disability to diversity

Access Existing Teaching GoalsWork with existing teaching goals for professional performers and examine how they are met by a diverse student body.

Curricular and Pedagogical Solutions At the level of the curriculum and of teaching methodology – consider multiple ways in which course requirements can be met and in technique classes in particular use individualized teaching material.

Implement Universal Design of InstructionI discussed two principles I mainly work with so far, there is more to do.

Make it relevant. Introduce and work with these approaches regardless of the make up of the group. In other words, do not wait till disabled students apply to your courses, do it anyway.

Shift from disability to diversityShift the discussion from isolating disabled participants as a separate group to be taught -to teaching diversity. The approaches discussed extend well beyond the initial idea of adaptations as a disability accommodation. They are relevant in terms of a broad range of identity and diversity, including differences in body-type, age, level or type of previous training, current physical form, individual learning goals, etc

It is in this way that disability and disabled students become a part of the full spectrum of diversity in our dance studios, rather than being isolated from the mainstream in a kind of ghetto-ized, “subcultural” practice.

Is it cliché to say that like in other situations the journey is the most important bit. What matters is that we embark on it, that we cross the boundaries between artistic practice and artistic training.

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Responsesand

Questions

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jurg dundee presentation

Documents

field of dance

professional dance training

higher educationof ghettos

professional training

training goals

higher educationit

arcane practice

subcultural practice