DANCE ITHACA E - MAGAZINE

FEATURE REPORT:

The Unknown Culture
By: Ithaca Dance Master Roger M. Christian

She stepped into her dancing shoes, her long auburn hair sloped down over her shoulders, she bent over to insert the straps of her Capezios into the buckles. An air of nervous expectations and deep thought came over her as she stepped onto the brown dance stage in Silver Springs, Maryland.

She came to a place of focus to prepared herself for her upcoming performance, In the distance the needle of the stereo arm touched the LP rendition of Camelot, the soundtract, and the first measures of music filled the teather. The ten year old girl burst out with her inmpromptu choreography revealing her enthusiasm of a better life for someone with Down's Syndrome. The ghost of performers that had gone before awakened. The audiance looked on with amazement as they saw the vision she sought in her every move. Her personal dance interpretation caught the imaginations of those who witnessed this courageously determined little girl. The year was 1970.

I never forgot the standing ovations, nor the tears of the audience. I'll remember the stance of pride she took as she reacted to the unexpected wealth of acceptance and acclaim she achieved. A gentle smile on her face revealed her satisfaction of character and humility. And I saw for the first time the vision. At the time, I was a volunteer, teaching dance to area children with Down's.

Much later, as a Member of the Community Action Corps, State University of New York at Buffalo, I voluntered for Dance Incorporated of Erie County, New York. Here I saw the same vision and struggle for greater expectations by children under tweleve with Down's. Here and subsequent, I also made a dsicovery. There exists an unknown culture within the persona of this population.

What was significant about this discovery? It is that this population is aware of their conditon as being different and that any hint of public alienation far more impacts their psychological development when compared to their mainstream peers.

If their expectations are not met with personal success then their efforts to form an independent personality before the ages 12 to 14 is jeopardized. Additionally the impact of physical development of puberty during adolescence may turn upon them to form dangerous dependent personalities and self-destructive behaviors.

I discovered that when the child becomes a 'client', it creats a healthy liberation from the dynamics of traditional therapies. It is then that the client's physical expressions ( dance ) of their feelings can emerge. The initial recognition of the of the client's artistic 'value' gives proof of their individual importance. The more complex and abstract the dance is then the more cognitive coherence of the environment and creating further basis for improved cognitive learning skills.

The client's dance is very unique. when comparing these 'cultures' or populations an onlooker can percieve a distinct difference.
It can be likened to the following:

The present perception of dance performance
by mainstream society assumes a more
Rembrandt quality of interpolation to
music, while those with Down's assume a
Picasso interpolation.

The issues of discrimination associated with the words 'wrong behavior' and 'proper artistic responces' then dissipates within the public's perception towards the Down's population and you have liberation by artisitic performance. The action of dance performance then establishes the beginnings of personal liberation.

A brand new 'dance' is formed and along with it go economic benefits and leaderhship opportunities. Most importantly the aggressive cognitive behaviors that are achieved through internal development of an organized behavior personality creates opportunity for the Down's population to interact politically with mainstream
society. As a result society comes to equally interact with the population.

This was published in The Ithaca Child, Vol XIII, No 6, Spring 2003, and is a condense version of larger more technical article.
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EDITORIAL

The Dance Student Clients' Right to Self-Determination
By: Roger M. Christian

There is a time in which every one us needs that one magical moment in which we are both appreciated, loved, and had achieved something significant and important. Moreover, the personal strings which exist in establishing social connections is where we, at first, are most vulnerable. All this is based upon the human need condition of acceptance finding.

The dance client who comes to us does so for many personal reasons, and our task is to empower those reasons. Empower means facilitation, and that by our professional facilitation is the means by which the client achieves the personal and private ends in taking dance lessons. Thus what we are doing is assisting the client in the ongoing development of further modifiying their social personalities based upon their rights to self - determination. This is the stage in which they are, also, vulnerable to exploitation ( for example, one of the catch words for exploitive motives, " they need reasurances").

What impell us, the dance teachers, to do this service is that our dance experience is significant enough as to invest our lives in others by teaching dance. Most of us who are Dance Masters realizes the vulnerable emotional component within our clients efforts at either self improvement, or developing social strings of communications-modified acceptance finding. We all at one time have " been there ", and what the facilitator realizes is that he or she has significantly " done that ", and have successfully established a dance personality, and professional performance experience as a result.

We can not, therefore, interfere with our clients' efforts to self develop, especially to explore on their own the social dance world-along with making errors too. To do so is exploitation. Nor should we ever develop social dependency by the client on our services. We are in the empowering business, and within dance, how we properly influence the sociocultural environment is to produce popular dancers by interactive ( which supports the exogenous social dance characteristic ), not proactive ( which supports the edogenous social dance characteristic ) teaching techniques. Proactive means taking charge of how the client, after the class or private dance hour settings, develops personal social connections by creating " a emotional dependent bond "which needs to be countinually reassured. Thus we do not dominate the local social dance floor nor it's social scene. Nor really dance locally.

It is in the professional expression of empowement by which our clients evolve those social strings as their means to organize their own social dances. We do not assume ownership of social dances, but in the facilitation of our clients goals of self - empowerment which according to USABDA actually influences the creation of healthy social dance ( exogenous ) environments.

What has confounded most dance groups, and especailly the Ithaca Swing Dance Network ( whose social dances phases periodically in and out being edogenous centered) is that when dance teachers ( who are vulnerable to income anxieties ), and social dances are separated, then more popular dancing ( exogenous ) becomes. Social dances, then, no longer are promotions for soliciting dance lessons-thus the tension ( the fears of exploitation ) is removed. It is, moreover, the act of humility by the dance teacher to empower clients as excellent dancers, where the clients dance social behavior is modified ( the radical exogenous ) to support others in their own quest to become popular dancers; for they do not need reasurances by the dance teacher, nor are they looking over their shoulders for our approval. It is this spirit which has histoically and socioculturally empowered dance as a successful component in our civilization, and it is based upon the clients right to self - determination. Thus the dance teacher must not interfere in the development of the client to form an independent social dance persona, nor do we interfere with its ends.

The circle relationship between the dance teacher and the dancer teacher producing social dances is nothing more than exploitive ( endogenous ) marketing controls-to, according to observations by USABDA, arrest teacher income anxieties. By transferance ( check your book on psychology ) many clients, as a results, are greatly influenced by this, and have become in several
instances 'dance cults'. What has happened is the greater the" clients' " dance dependent persona, the more likely is it's territorial social related neurosis; this is also a screen behind which dishonesty in credentials are maintained.

It was social dances which came first, then in their development, and more complex their behaviorism, and techniques, the need for instructors increased, and then came the money. It is for this reason alone why The United States Amateur Ballroom Dance Association is quite correct in allowing only those who are not money connected to dancing to its membership-dance teachers are kept at a respectable distance.

It is in a teacher's pride to a student who becomes successful, and it is dance teachers special pride to see their clients become successul in establishing their own dances. The one act of humility is to give other people that one time of their lives to experience a social success.

IN NEXT ISSUES:

Feature: The evolution of the Mambo.

Commentary: Lindy Hop ownership lost " racism ? "

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