Teaching & Summer Work

Teaching

During my time at Wilkes, I became engaged with the Wilkes Conservatory and the Degnan Ballet Center. I began as a dancer, but with Kristin's encouragement, I began to serve as a demonstrator for the Summer Intensive and the Pre-Pointe class. As I progressed with my training, she thought it would be wise for me to take the class on myself, and I did. I taught the Pre-Pointe through their transition into Beginner Pointe and helped to coach their first performance on pointe in The Little Mermaid. During my senior year, I was moved around and scheduled to teach levels C & D - about 8-11 year olds, which was yet another experience, much different from some of my more dedicated older girls. I really had to work hard for those girls, to get their focus and their work, but I also learned how to "let go" in some classes. Again, that give-and-take in a creative space is so important, especially with younger kids. I've taught all the way up to the oldest high schoolers and assisted all the way down with the pre-ballet kiddos. I'm very happy that Kristin encouraged me and trusted me to teach. When I arrived at Wilkes, I had done some teaching, but I preferred not to do it - I always felt that I never had enough experience or skill to teach others and correct them. As I worked and learned more during my time at Wilkes, I began to trust myself more as a teacher and a dancer, and I think that shows in my teaching. In speaking to other dance teachers both at home and at Wilkes, I agree with the idea that teaching changes how you dance. I think I'm a wiser dancer for it, and I work smarter in my classes, and I have stronger rapport and understanding with my own teachers. I understand the goals of a dance class better, both as a teacher and as a dancer. It truly is a miracle if we get through everything that was on the lesson plan!

I've also been asked to teach at my home studio every time I return on break, which has been another confidence-building experience. I've guest-taught for ballet and modern as well as watching and critiquing performances and rehearsing my own work for the dancers to watch.

(add lesson plans!)

Summer Intensives

Over my time at Wilkes, I've attended four summer intensives outside of the school:
- Paul Taylor Modern American Dance Summer Intensive (Baltimore, 2018)
- Limón Summer Workshop (NYC, 2019)
- Parsons Master Choreography Workshop (NYC, 2019)
- Paul Taylor Modern American Dance Summer Intensive (Baltimore, 2019)

I was privileged enough to have all four of these sponsored by my grant through the Wilkes Honors Program. During my time at each of these, I was able to hone my skills in modern dance as well as make professional connections with teachers and peers. I've even developed relationships with my teachers - some of the teachers I worked with in Baltimore two years in a row, and they remembered me from year to year, which was incredibly validating to me as a young dancer!

At the Paul Taylor workshops, I took classes in ballet and modern dance in the style of Paul Taylor. My Taylor technique classes were taken from former or current dancers in the company, from as far back as the 1990s. I love the Taylor classes because the exercises are based on choreography from his dances, so like the structure of ballet, we were able to practice the combinations before putting them into a dance. Lunch was followed by a film screening of one of Mr. Taylor's dances, which was an amazing experience. I was able to watch firsthand performances of modern dance, something I thought (especially in 2018) that I would never get to see in my life. In the afternoons, we would work on repertory and conditioning, and each day would end with a lecture, with topics ranging from finances to injury prevention to mental health to professionalism. I loved my Taylor intensives, and I think they were some of the most thorough dance training I've ever experienced. They were always a grueling two weeks - Taylor repertory is not easy - but it was a bonding experience for both the students and the teachers. The thing I most admire about the Taylor company is that the dancers seem to be one big family - they are connected across generations and share experiences through their performance of his work. During my Taylor intensives, I was able to study repertory from:
- Counterswarm
- Company B
- The Word
- Musical Offering
- Cascade

The Limón workshop was structured similarly to the Taylor one - we would start the morning with a modern dance warmup, but instead of ballet we would work on dance composition, which was interesting. I took dance composition at Wilkes, but the dance composition class I took from Colin Connor was leagues different. We began by constructing a phrase and molding it with different energies and descriptions, trying to find in what ways it spoke best as a piece of movement. We also learned a duet piece and applied the same practices to our performance of that piece. In the afternoons, we worked with Logan Frances Kruger, the current Limón rehearsal director, to learn a group piece from Psalms as well as the male solo, both of which were also performed at the end of the week. I enjoyed this experience - I think Limón acts as more of a technique than the Taylor style, so I was able to work more on my modern dance technique, specifically exploring the transition and movement of weight and balance. (See below for the reel video I was able to get!)

The Parsons Choreography Workshop was a one-week experience that was very much like my dance composition class. In the mornings we would take a class from company member Joan Rodriguez, and in the afternoons we would have a lecture from David Parsons himself, after which we split off into pairs and created a dance. It was a nice space to simply work and get into the meat of creating choreography, but it was also a lot of empty time - we were given whole afternoons to work, and because I was lucky to get a hardworking and efficient partner, we would finish our work pretty quickly. It was also a good opportunity to learn communication and, at least for me, work on the back-and-forth of co-creation, learning when to give and take, how to interact with someone, all of those good and practical creative things. We did also get to perform a group piece based on the warmups we did in class. I was able to work as a dancer in a workshopped piece - Joan would teach us combinations, and then organize us and have us flip the combinations backward, or face a different direction, or change two eight-counts at the end. We were also put into groups and, using his combinations, came up with a few eight-counts of modified movement as a group of four. It was a very creative experience, that's for sure, and was very structured in the way it showed me how to take a movement or a phrase and twist it and bend it into different refrains.