A Few Suggestions

There is an adage that approximately states, "If one constantly uses the same methods, one will always get the same results." This statement holds true in most cases when the current model of dancemaking in the academy is analyzed. The traditional "Horstian code" (named by this author after Louis Horst, composer and dance composition pioneer) while historically accepted as the primary way to make dances, has left the academy with a 75-year old curriculum and a pedagogical template from which homogenized dance is created. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that perhaps a review of the curriculum from which most dance composition is taught is overdue and that a radical shift must take place in order to revitalize the art of making dances (pardon the pun).

In light of this suggestion, it must be noted that the current system is not completely useless. The number of incredible masterpieces that have been created out of the "Horstian" model and the fact that it has remained the primary approach taught in almost all dance departments across the country is a testament to how dance and music composition are symbiotically connected and related. Additionally, it must also be stated that this model provides an excellent introduction to dance composition to undergraduate students and allows for a broad range of opportunities to explore space, time, shape and motion as they relate to the body, movement invention and conceptual constructs. Therefore it is a necessary component of a complete choreographic curriculum. However, if the future of dance is going to have its survival in the academy then the curriculum must develop and evolve to allow for a more diversified and multi-pronged approach to dance composition that the field at large demands.

Student and faculty work presented at a recent American College Dance Festival Association festival illustrated this point almost literally. When compared to work choreographed and performed at an ACDFA festival in 1991, it was difficult to determine what set of work was made in what decade because nearly all of the dances appeared to have been cast from the same mold. It was as if the same teachers had taught the same philosophies and sets of skills to the same dancers, and while the dances that were presented were pleasant enough on the whole there was nothing exceptionally new or insightful about them. So the question arises: Once a student has mastered the use of devices offered to him/her by the Horstian code and experimented with studies based on time, space, shape and motion what does the composition class have to offer?

Another set of questions follows as well: Do students develop their own creative approaches within that model or are they mimicking their teachers processes and thus making diluted versions of faculty work? Are studio practices discussed to the extent that the students are not only given the assignment and left to find their own "genius" but that the creative process is fostered and cared for right alongside the lesson or assignment they are trying to complete? Are professors guiding students through studio practices, movement invention approaches, and alternative dance making structures or are they giving the composition assignment, telling the student to find time in the studio and then leaving it at that?

Is there desire in the academy to simultaneously provide historical and traditional information while promoting progressive approaches to artmaking? Or is it too attached to its curriculum to let go of parts of it in favor of something else? The very nature of the academic machine makes it difficult to change direction or tack, but what service is being done in its name if the artmakers stop revolting and demanding change as it is needed to keep the field fertile and fecund? Is the academy providing information about how to rehearse? What to do with movement from an internal point of view? Or is it expecting the students to suddenly know how to make their own dances by following someone else’s methodology? Is it surprising that by demanding students to make dances within the Horstian model, which is intrinsically related to and dependent upon the tenets of musical composition, what they choreograph and what the academy teaches is homogenous, boring and cliched beyond being valuable? And what is a dance department specifically valuing when both its undergraduate and graduate composition syllabi list basically the same requirements and demand that the returning professional make dances by way of the Horstian devices rather than developing and following his/her own approach and research into the creative act.

Furthermore, what the educational system sometimes forgets is that students bring whatever they already know into the studio and for many young dancers that is the experience of learning and performing dances that are made in a commercial studio atmosphere. Depending on the goals and ideals of that studio the dancer will come to the composition class with varied expectations and mimicking skills. In other words, rather than automatically know how to enter into the choreographic process from a personally preferred methodology, they will most likely imitate the rehearsal processes that they have been exposed to in their high school years. Ultimately, handing them a set of devices and a creative philosophy that promotes dancing to or with music will not provide the larger picture of dance building that they need in order to make informed and educated creative choices. In the composition class, where acceptance and praise from faculty and peers are in high demand it can be assumed that rather than challenge the ideals proposed in that class, the student will accept the material presented as the right and preferred way to create dances. It may be worth a look at these traditional ideals to see if they can’t be augmented or complemented by alternative approaches so that students in the university dance departments of this country can have an earlier chance at developing their own voices as artists.

One might ask what these alternative models may look like or what they will provide that the existing systems do not. To this inquiry there are a couple of answers or suggestions that this paper will attempt to offer. Of course, this whole discussion is an effort to find ways to rejuvenate dance’s role in society at large. One can investigate funding structures or lack thereof, society’s reluctance to venture away from their home entertainment systems to see live dance, or a conservative government as reasons for dance’s demise over the past decade. These certainly contribute to the feeling of crisis that many choreographers feel and they definitely need to be addressed. However, it seems logical to also rethink the way that composition and artmaking are dealt with within universities to see if change on that front can help stimulate new interest in the beleaguered artform.

One way that composition classes can offer more thorough and inspiring educational material to the student is to experiment with the popular "create a phrase and manipulate it" model. This model is proven to teach the craft of making dances but is it really challenging the artistry or creative power of the mind and body? To suggest a topic, concept or object around which a dance is to be made and then to give a list of different possible approaches to be used is a very simple way to think about this idea. An example could be as follows: Make a three to five minute dance about this couch, or about the time it takes to boil an egg, or the space in which money is housed in an ATM, or love or the heat of the sun (or any other object or metaphor or concept). The method the student uses is entirely up to him/her and can range from traditional employment of devices to pantomime to a combination of realistic vs. dramatic engagement of the body. The outcome of this approach can not be predicted but to imagine that it would be much different than repurposed ballet vocabulary to soundtrack music does not seem that difficult.

Another way to get the choreography student to recognize the creative powers they are generating and put them to use in the composition process is to require practice hours as a part of the class structure. In small groups the students would meet in the studio and practice their movement in front of each other while simultaneously speaking and explaining what they are doing to their peers. This act of witnessing and being witnessed is a profound way to connect with one’s own imagination and perceptions and to reveal that information to others is an untapped source of peer to peer education. It helps build a language within which constructive criticism and analysis of movement can evolve. It also forces the choreographer to verbalize in the moment of creation rather than trying to recapture his/her motivations and influences at a later time when that information may seem inaccessible or too esoteric to explain.

Repetition in this example allows the student to experience movement choices for longer periods of time thus giving him/her more physical information with which to conceptualize and craft.

Lastly, for the purposes of this paper, dance theatre offers a deep and broad well of information that is lost in the academic curriculum. It challenges the role of the choreographer and teaches communication and crafting skills that can not be experienced by simply making a phrase, manipulating it and manufacturing a dance with bodies in space. The dance theatre model asks the student to give up ownership of material and to attempt to fulfill a conceptual idea by setting up tasks and problems for dancers to solve. For a student of choreography, this model offers a different perspective than that of the authoritarian dancemaker and provides lessons around democratic processes and teamwork; two things that the Horstian model leaves out by emphasizing the choreographer as the sole decision maker and manipulator.

These ideas may seem simple and rather unimaginative at first, but to implement them and deal with the work that they may help to produce would require a fair amount of tinkering with the current critiquing sessions, grading systems, class structures and aesthetic values of many dance departments. Dances with beginnings, middles and ends may cease to exist as the basis for receiving an "A" in a composition class. "Successfully" choreographing to music scores or making a "well-crafted" dance may not be the only source of positive evaluation of work in the future. If this were to be the case, the academy would have to rethink, reconstruct and redefine its value systems, its mission statements and its faculty engagement policies. All of a sudden, these seemingly simplistic changes appear rather radical and they may well be revolutionary. But in an age where students can communicate 24-hours a day in virtual rooms full of people across the globe, maybe the place where they make art should be able to accommodate new and radical ideas. At the very least, innovation in the university dance department would reflect a closer image of the constant change that is happening outside the walls of academe.