When no one imagined a video cam in your pocket!

 When I started my dance career... (in my head it sounds like a good opening line. LOL), almost nothing was available to watch of the repertoire dances I was learning. I was never involved with having work created on/with me until I was five years into my career, and part of our dancer-skill-set was not having a video of the day's rehearsal to review. However, I imagine that dancers today still rely more on what a movement or sequence "feels" like, over actually "seeing" what they did on a video. When I have the opportunity to see an old film/video of my early career, I am always surprised at what I looked like, as opposed to what it "felt" like to dance on stage. And I am not always kind about myself, while I might marvel at the dancers dancing next to me. LOL. 

1984 backstage in costume for the Jester in "Crystal Slipper" choreographed by Carlos Carvajal.

Self-image and daring to imagine being GOOD is essential to learning and progressing at any stage of our life. As children we rely on the support of our parents or guardians, if we are lucky enough to have suchlike adults around. And as young adults we rely on feedback from our peers and mentors to learn sooo many things! Having the privilege of getting older will always be peppered with the loss of those whom we considered mentors. And the older I get, the longer grows the list! 

A couple of posts back, I mentioned the passing of Linda Hodes. Today I will mention the passing of Carlos Carvajal, whom I first met around 1983 while I was dancing for Oakland Ballet, in California. Carlos would be one of the first choreographers with whom I would learn about creating a new dance! More terrifyingly for me, he had the dance start with me, all by myself, on stage as the curtain rose. This would be true more than a few other times in decade to come, but that was my first. In retrospect, Carlos placed a lot of faith in me to open his dance, "Synergies" with a brief solo that set the tone for the whole work. I also recognized that he saw and played to my strengths as a dancer, even when I imagined creating roles to which I was not traditionally suited, as a short muscular, ethnic-looking, man. 

I loved dancing for Carlos, and it was rewarding in very different ways, to dance in his full length "Crystal Slipper" (more commonly known as Cinderella in American literature). Each act had different roles that we might dance all within a single perfomance, and as a relatively small touring company, I may have had to do a full makeup change from one act to the next, and sometimes between scenes. So there was no time to psyche myself up for different roles. The make up change took up all the time between leaving stage in one role and appearing the next time in a different role. 

I can still remember the feeling and most of the steps for Carlos' dances, though I have rarely seen any video footage of what I actually looked like. I know that a video exists of "Synergies", but it is entirely possible that I was never filmed in a production of "Crystal Slipper", as I might not have been cast when a performance was filmed. 

For the majority of the world, most of the activities we pursue might rarely be filmed as a part of our recreational past times. Yet by the time I was training as a kayak instructor, a video assessment of my paddling skills and rescue techniques was becoming a standard practice. However, the ability to capsize and recover requires each individual to discover their own balance and motor control as they coordinate their bodies, a boat, AND a paddle in order to recover from a capsize, much less navigate one's craft on a moving surface. 

1989 as a kayak guide for Sea Trek in Sausalito, California.

My skills as a dancer definitely transferred to my skills as a kayaker. In turn, my analytic skills as a recreational sports instructor and coach improved my dance-teaching abilities. Exposure to different movement modalities and scenarios is at the heart of dancing! And seeing every student for their natural abilities as well as their inherent potential is one of the most fulfilling aspects of teaching movement. 

With kayaking, surfing, paddle boarding, there are ideals built on models of "efficiency" in using body-weight, hydro-dynamics of equipment, and reflexive reaction to ever shifting conditions of the water surface, air, and forces in the water. But you don't need to be an Olympic sportsman to enjoy and progress in the sport. 

The disciplines of dancing ballet and modern is similarly built on ideals that we observe exceptional professionals executing repeatedly on stages, in videos, and in our memories. Yet I propose that like the paddle sports I mention above, it is also possible to enjoy and progress as dancers, no matter your experience or aptitude. You just need to want to enjoy the experience of learning and practising!

2023 - setting a Paul Taylor dance for the Vienna State Ballet. Photo: Ashley Taylor