Teacher Identity

I fell in love with teaching ten years ago when my dance company, at the time, participated in an immersion arts program for children. Throughout my dancing career, I guest taught intensives and art exchange experiences for schools and studios. When I retired from dancing, it was a seamless transition. At the core of why I teach is rooted in my passion for the art form. Dance can provide a vessel to communicate deep-rooted emotions, stories, or record ones’ histories, through a physical outlet of expression. I find joy and deep fulfillment in my profession when I see students refine their technique; find an inner voice, or learn something about themselves in the process of choreographing. In return, in viewing classmates’ performances, students acquire universal life lessons such as empathy and respect.

As a woman of Hispanic descent and an ex-professional dancer experiencing a first-hand racial imbalance in casting, my cultural and professional experiences provided me with perspectives into how vital it is for dance educators to diversify teaching tools like repertorial videos. Or images for our emerging dance youths. Inclusions to classical balletic repertorial selection to equitably represent material has always been at the forefront of my practice. Students “use the social and physical structures [such as] schools [or art institutions alike, to] construct their …identities and control the construction of others” (Paechter & Clark, 2007, p. 319).

I cannot deny incidents in the first years transitioning as a teacher from a performing artist solidified my views on the importance of presenting lessons equitably. As Lee (2012) highlights, it is “important that teachers understand that racial experiences [and socio-economic differences] are real[; they] impact how each [of] us views and understands the world” (p.48). When students are given “lens[es]” (Lee, 2012, p.49) to provide healthy enlightenment of what they may otherwise be, accustomed to, misconceptions or “myth base representations” (Savage, 2015, p.163) can cultivate or reside within them well into adulthood. Teaching in the heart of Los Angeles, my student demographic is highly diverse. For instance, a sample of my past handful of students’ ethnicities I taught every Monday evening was Thai-American, Hispanic, Ethiopian-American, and Greek-American. As a professional dancer, my performance trajectory and education in performing arts from Saint Mary’s College and certification in Ballet Methodology from El Ballet Nacional de Cuba granted me positions to instruct technique, variations, and choreography. One incident at the beginning of my teaching career I will never forget in particular. 

I had known the variation of “Cupid” from Don Quijote, having danced it numerous times in troupes in Los Angeles and with El Ballet Nacional de Cuba. On one of my first Monday evenings, after my last intermediate Ballet class was over, I headed over to admin. I picked up an iPad my employer left with tabs of the performances marked for a group of girls to view and learn. Though asked to teach the variation, what I felt was a micro-aggression, I was not to teach students the movement from my professional performance memory or participate in the selection to view repertoire from professional dance companies. Reduced to solely polishing the girls’ steps more like a coach—they would learn from the screen. 

Taking notice of the links, each rendition of the repertoire was from a European dance company. As the end of the class approached, my Thai-American dancer, in particular, became more frustrated. Unable to piece the pique turns sequence, I asked Z (whose name I will conceal for privacy issues) to review the monitor. All I could think about that evening was the sadness and defeat in her gaze. I knew that gaze. At that moment, as my preteen stared at the sea of links of dancers zeroing in on Evgenia Obraztsova glide en pointe, I could see I was quickly losing and extinguishing Z’s spark to continue to dance. The moment took me by surprise, and a lump in my throat came over me, hearing her say, “I’m just not good enough. I’m not her.” 

“One learns early on in life to identify and differentiate an ‘us,’ and a ‘them.’ [T]here is evidence that these distinctions occur even before the onset of beliefs our mental propositions take shape” (Kraeche & Lewis, 2018, p.1). Z’s words referred to Obraztsova, but the manner her fingers flipped through the links with disconnect and bitterness reflected how the material I was making my student view reaffirmed everything she was not. Looking at my students, in that instance, I was them. It felt as if I had time-warped back to my adolescence. When I would compare myself and be distinctively aware, I did not look nor came from the background my teachers praised dancers, choreographers, or Ballet companies referenced for teaching me the Balletic Arts.  

This flashpoint resurfaced my conformity to all these years, dancing my art form professionally to how the Balletic Arts typically validates performers and performances. I connected with my student (though she was unaware) on a level which “washed over [me]; halting me [to realize and reflect how seeing material made me feel like an adolescent ]” (Travis & Kraehe, 2018, p.4). As Travis and Kraehe (2018) state, “raised to an intensity that is both real and felt in the body[,] a flash signals kinesis [to] change violation or creation. [Yet] only when we take note of uneasy gnawing and nagging in the body’s memory …that we [can] locate [; re-experience and articulate the fiery sensations that mark the time and place of a flashpoint” (p.3).  

As a reflect on the earliest memory as a performer, there is one instance as Travis and Kraehe (2018) describe flashpoints, “burned onto the back of [my] retina…assaulting [,] it …halts me [every time I think of it]” (p.4). Hired to perform Swan Lake as part of a core de ballet, I remember creating close bonds with the dancers. As if I were in my early twenties once more, I remember being excited and ready to go on stage as I describe the moment. During wardrobe preparation, rubbing the white pancake makeup on my body, I recalled a senior dancer, who I admired, stopping me in my place, re-rubbing the white sponge over my body because I was dark and had to match the rest of the girls. Everyone stared back in the line watched me as the dancer’s hands with haste redid the pancake until I was as light as the rest of the core. I wanted to burst into tears. “For certain bodies, the environment might be perceived as inherently hostile; the flesh might be experienced as putrid” (Travis & Kraehe, 2018, p.6). I was made fully aware of my differences. My talent did not overshadow my dark olive skin because my flesh was not ideal and had to be covered. Though this difference had never crossed in conversation during casting or a rehearsal, all my desire to dance that night swept away; I stepped on stage without the enthusiasm as I had when I first stepped into the rehearsal space. “Through radical reflection, readers can become attuned to how bodies …gesture, sweat, and interact with one another in the plasma of the flesh” (Travis & Kraehe, 2018, p.10). My body coiled, and desire dimmed. The following year, my Korean-American friend was type-cast in “Tea” for The Nutcracker. Where I shut down, her body fumed with anger, relinquishing participation all together that year to perform as she was preassigned before auditions had ever begun. Her flesh in that Ballet had been stereotyped; her talent, reduced to a caricature.

Moments such as these two instances from my performance career are significant. For, they are moments that have impacted how I have structured my teaching practice today. When Ballet West (an American Ballet Company) announced that it would celebrate their artists’ natural tones by permitting nude colored shoes and tights within its costumery, it felt like a vindication. I would have more repertoire to choose from to include within historical renditions that spoke to my students’ experience. More significantly, slowly, this art form’s structures beginning in the 15th century, finally realized that today’s artists in the 21st, do not all resemble the casts which once dominated the stage.

As an insider, an educated woman of color with potential power in the position as an instructor, I can incorporate viewing material to address diversity disparity by acknowledging my art forms history. Seeing how racially diverse the professional dance world has become as opposed to how historically the Balletic Arts once was during its inception and earlier years, my views of presenting equitable dance lessons meant including women in positions of power. Positions of power historically European men held as artistic directors or choreographers. In addition to displaying an array of ethnicities, sexes my students can connect to and displaying roles in non-heterosexual ways that speak to the inclusivity of the 21 century. Historically, subject matter, though the art of Ballet has not typically presented, is necessary to incorporate through renditions by Contemporary ballet companies and dance artists. Specifically when mentioning repertoire and its historical roots and context.

What inspires me to get up each morning and step into the studio with my students is my dedication to finding innovative ways for students to consider movement as a language. As pioneering choreographer; creator of her style and technique, whose foundation once stemmed from Balletic training, Martha Graham once said, “the body says what words cannot...Dance is the hidden language of the soul” (Graham, 1985, para. 27 & 28). Thus, one can consider, for a choreographer, one communicates through their bodies or the bodies of dancers. To share with their audience their stories, emotions, or histories. As a dance educator, I intend to create a space where students can develop meaningful bonds with their art-making experience as Barrett (2009) asks, “what [they envision] the work[/repertoire] means to [them]...?” so they may physically transform abstract concepts like music, movement, scenery, or costumery choices to illustrate their stories through movement (p.52). To look at dancing beyond steps but what they can say within their corporal expressions. That, perhaps, may be difficult to articulate with words. This objective stems from wanting my students to know I value their stories/ themes within their choreographies. When I aid students to refine their balletic technique, it allows them to form the most transparent ways to articulate their messages through movement. So, our class can share, learn, or connect with that experience.

During the 2020 Covid Pandemic rise, my state of California took health-compromising precautions by closing gyms, mandating cease of group activities, and limiting face-to-face contact with those non-members of a household. Necessary, these mandates changed the way the performing arts could conduct classes for practice and performance. Descriptively, the Balletic Arts, which I teach, is typically done within confident studio space for training, typically in groups. Studios are designed explicitly for dancers; they provide all of the historically used tools one would engage with, such as barres, specialized raised flooring with Marley or Wood, and mirrors. Often, costumery or garments are too supplemented as part of tuition to cover uniforms or for performances. Ceasing to engage in my practice redirected me to work from home, remotely online. During this time in the Spring of 2020, I took Dr. Joni Boyd Acuff’s course, Multicultural Art Education 25474, through Ohio State University. Where I reflected deeper on how “we have a responsibility as leaders in the field of education to change the cultures of schools [and other institutional realms of learning like studios.] So, culturally relevant teaching is not seen as radical or impossible but simply the norm” (Hyland, 2005, p. 458). Forever, the course and the listed authors, Bonnilla-Silva (2010), Travis and Krache (2018), and Hyland (2005), challenged my previous views of what equity meant.

As globally we transitioned Online, financial constraints did not impact me as they affected some students. As an outsider to the certainties how students practice stems from years of performing, which alienated me further from certain financial realities. Descriptively, this includes, for example, studio rental since professional dancers have extended practice time at no cost in a company or through discounted pro-rates for rental. Companies typically offer as well, costly garments like slippers, tights, or pointe shoes. Or, they are too pro-rated for purchase through dance catalog or stores. As a dance professional and educator, I have the luxury to have sufficient space in my residence, portable barres, and dance garments like some of my students. On the other hand, observing some students experience a less than effortless transition to dance without the tools studios typically use to engage grounded me to acknowledge how inequitable the Balletic Arts can be—reshaping my perspective to what diversity means. In turn, captivating me  to examine how teachers conduct an equitable Ballet class, socio-economic differences are part of this conversation, and why it must be for instructors to acknowledge this. 

References: 

Barrett, T. (2009). Stories. The International Journal of Arts Education, 41-54. 

Bonilla-Silva, E. (2010). Racism without Racists. Color-blind racism & racial inequality in contemporary America. 3rd Ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Chapters 1&2

Graham, M. (1985). Martha Graham Reflects on Her Art and Life in Dance. In The New York Times On the Web. Retrieved from: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/arts/033185graham.html

Hyland, N. (2005). Being a good teacher of Black students? White teachers and unintentional racism. Curriculum Inquiry, 35 (4), 429-459.

Lee, N. (2012). Culturally responsive teaching for 21st-Century art education: Examining race in a studio art experience. Art Education: Journal of the National Art Education Association, 65 (5), p. 48-53 

Fooks, T. (2020). Ballet West Sheds Tradition, Dancers will wear Tights that Match Skin Color. KSL: News Radio. Retrieved from:https://kslnewsradio.com/1934473/ballet-west-sheds-tradition-dancers-will-wear-tights-that-match-their-skin-color/

Paechter, C. & Clark, S. (2007). Learning gender in primary school playgrounds: Findings from the Tomboy Identities Study. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 15(3), 317-331.

Savage, S. (2015). The Visual rhetoric of innocence: Lolitas in popular culture. Visual Arts Research 37_2(1), 101- 112

Travis, S., Kraehe, A. M., Hood, E.J., Lewis, T. E. (2018). Pedagogies & the Flesh: Case Studies on the Embodiment of Sociocultural Differences in Education. pp. 1-214.