Wednesday 13 July 2011

Easter Gathering Feedback

I feel that the warmth and welcome, tolerance and friendship that characterizes the Easter Gathering is beautiful, heartwarming and witnesses to the spirit in which we gather. This to me is a condition for growth, in which to be stretched and inspired, rather than to get cozy in a sense of safety that then tends to resist the new - the life!
Perhaps, next year teachers could be invited to bring dances or sessions with ‘roots and renewal’ in mind - seeing as how this theme is coming up as an event next year.


Live Music
Our live music was very good in general and often excellent. I felt that the percussion could be more articulate or dynamic in the more energetic dances. Perhaps bringing a bit of focus to this might help bring it forth - or perhaps it’s simply a matter of drummers who can bring these sort of qualities out. An example was Odeno Oro. It didnt need to get faster - but did  - in my opinion - need to shift to more energetic ‘feel’ of a 6/8 - to inspire the shift into more hoppy steps that the recording inspires - and which otherwise were not supported by the music.

Teaching/enabling of the dances for live music was often poor in my opinion.

At the Gathering in general there is quite a strong culture of assuming that teaching the dance is:
1. Primarily a verbal description of steps and often without any sense of the rythmic movement or musical phrasing or energetic of the music.
2. Onerous and to be done as quickly as possible as if it is somehow boring - which of course it is when it is approached in such a way!
3. Often shared without conveying a sense of loving or honouring the dance that is being shared. As if a dance is simply steps that everyone seperately acquires and performs, with very little context, introduction or personal association.

So I would invite teachers to share and enable the dances that they love and enjoy - and are willing to communicate, rather than get live dances ticked by whoever simply ‘knows the steps’.

It is good to be succinct - especially in a live session - but not to cut off the nose to spite the face. If the musicians bring forth excellence then let it be matched with the quality of dance sharing and teaching - and our dancing.

Live sessions:
Live sessions can be difficult to hold attention and different in atmosphere from sessions using recorded music, and even if someone is supposed to be ‘holding’ or facilitating the evening, it often finds teachers shouting amidst a scatterred attention - which only invites the dancers to chatter even more.

An idea that could work until the nature of the evening gathers us to a higher focus - which it generally does - is to use an opening few bars from the musicians of the next dance as a call to attention and focus - and then stop to a gathered attention in which the teacher can then speak and be heard. I feel that dance teaching is served by a clear presence and sense of relationship.

Video

I would like more attention and focus brought to the quality and propagation of dances. Because dancing is almost continuous, there is little time to make one’s own stepnotes. I feel the organising group could communicate the expectation that  anyone teaching a dance at the gathering submit stepnotes as part of the sharing of a dance - no matter what session or workshop it is shared in. (Sooner than later). I would support the taking of video of the dances in addition to stepnotes.  Being videoed would also be part and parcel of attending so we come knowing that video will be taken. If this is seconded so as to be a working idea then further discussion could occur. It can be as simple as a camera on a tripod with someone turning it on and off for each dance. It doesn't have to be an ‘official’ video, but simply a helpful reminder.

Photos
In the nature of our event - amidst a grown trust and intimacy, I feel it would be good to create an advance expectation and invitation that the taking of photos or video of the group, during the gathering, will also be shared with the gathering. (Via something like a private flikr group perhaps).

Food
Yes, we could make sure to liase in advance and have a greater influence on the menus and ingredients. Though the vegetarian only idea is a good one, it is also true that many who do not eat meat, do eat fish and I met a few there so at least consider allowing a fish option in the menu.


Venue:
I enjoyed the venue though I’d like to be able to dance outside as well if weather is fine again next year, and would be happy to be part of running that if an occasion arose. The dance space was slightly too small for us all in one circle. I know that in some dances this matters less than others, but I would like teachers - including live session teachers - to be reminded to consider inviting an inner circle whenever it is helpful or indeed leading a spiral or many short lines etc.
Being scattered  in different parts of the building for different things does mean that spontaneous events are much less likely, but then the day is fully programmed anyway.

Sharing Dance information:
I would like teachers to be encouraged and able to share a bit about the background of the dances they share and not just steps. I would also like the active teacher to be able to invite or allow extra comments from others who feel willing to offer it - but only if such a teacher is freely willing. This could be ‘moderated’ so as not to allow derailing into ‘issues of contention’ and could actually enable a sense of the dance beyond the immediate behavioural entity of whatever happens to be shared. However, I appreciate that others may simply want to avoid potential issues and move on to the next dance and move on to the next dance etc. But I’d like to register a desire to be able to share more than we do - along with repeating that the way of our communication is the determining factor as to whether it flows or jars.

I have the sense that the protection of the feelings of teachers and dancers has become one of the primary cultural determiners as to the way the gathering is structured. I would rather shift to honour the integrity and excellence of our dance. Of course we need to act with honour and tolerance and respect for each other and ourselves - but there are ways to communicate amidst difference that do not fuel of the politics of conflict.

Dance Versions
I LIKED that in previous years, different versions of a dance might occasionally be concurrently danced in live sessions and felt it opened a greater unity that was less fixed in having to all dance the same version. I think as always that the WAY in which this happens is the energetic that makes the difference. So I for one missed this. I understand that some are fearful of difference as they see it as conflict - but an enforced sameness is symptom of a deeper conflict and affects the atmosphere even if the presentation of the form of things is tidy.


Dance music
I would personally rather simply access the music as mp3s that are to be made available, via private download rather than via a posted CD - which I then have to turn BACK to mp3 and name and tag it. There are many ways of doing this that do not make them public - one of which is Dropbox or a private space in one of the hosting sites. (I would be quite willing to personally undertake this - including the making and sending of CDs for those who still want CDs).

Proposal -  we could consider allowing private access to a clipped educational version of any tracks to enable dancing one whole round of any dance that is not to be made available because of being commercially available. This would help remember and promote getting to know what otherwise can get forgot and disregarded due to the extra steps required in accessing the music.

Spirituality and Communion-ity
There is much to do with content and background to our dances - but there is also the context of our relationship - within ourselves and our experience and with each other.
The surface mind denigrates relationship as mere getting mechanism - and tends to deal in personal or private satisfactions in place of common purpose and fulfillment in a shared trust. It tends to soul-less-ness and limits life to mere forms with shifting and conflicted meanings.

A culture of inspiration must recognize and honour the unifying power or nature of love without imposing personal definitions or  presuming others’s paths or teachings . Even as dance may become reduced to steps, so spirituality may be reduced to wishful concepts and ritual observances. Though such concepts may be derived from the experiences of others, they often express a second hand spirituality - a wishful thinking that fails to embody the presence and passion that it originally rferred to.
I feel that the spiritual dimension is a significant part of what circle dance is for so many of us. Mostly though, I feel the spiritual dimension is expressed in the quality of our being together and the way in which we do whatever we do. (IE: As lived rather than as presented or talked). But presence and passion - are tangible indicators of our Spirit and correspond with a unified wholeness or peace and the free expression of joy in the absence of a coercive mentality.

Culture:
Perhaps of all the comments that I felt to feed back the primary one would be to intentionally hold and grow a culture that honours the dance - the whole dance - and move beyond limiting ourselves to merely teaching steps and regarding teachers and teaching as being about teaching steps.
I understand that some teachers may indulge their role of being teachers and stretch or drag on in overteaching - going over and over with little faith in or relationship with their students and giving little sense of the nature of the music and movement that the steps will in fact be expressed as.

To honour the listening attention that is brought to play in trust and willingness is very different from identifying with a role and getting off on it - and at times it seems as if THAT is the cake that is to be shared out fairly among attending teachers. The privilege of being a teacher is of being given such an oppportunity to learn to serve.
The quality of our teaching generally and of the context and content that dances are communicated in, is part of what creates and maintains our culture in broad terms. There’s nothing wrong with using circle dance as a form of P.E to music - but it is so much less than it - or we - can be.
Unless there is a recognition of what inspires and feeds the culture of our dancing, we tend to drift in the direction of the lowest common denominator - though of course individuals remain free to express themselves as they are inspired to do, but within a larger ‘culture of expectation’.

Feedback process
Feedback for market research is often a symptom of trying to identify market trends so as to position products. I know there’s more than this and what I have written is of my own desire to communicate. When communication occurs, something shifts because of speaking it and somthing shifts because of listening. I don't write to change the formula - but to connect and share what is alive for me - as part of the gathering, and to add my voice to include my sense of the gathering.

Its also true that I see it all (the gathering) as a process or journey of self in community amidst various levels of responsibility - and whatever the format, I undertake and enjoy the fruit of the journey - for that is the context in which I come, within which are opportunities to meet and share on many levels.
I quite like the idea of feedback as a fruits and shoots part of the whole event; to spend a while contemplating and sharing - not for any other reason than to share from my own perspective into the gathering. Discerning directions is about feeling the life rather than about data crunching - in my humble opinion. That which moves us, is where we are feeling the life.