Journal Entry Prompts for Dancers

In the pre-professional dance world, young dancers are encouraged to keep a journal. I especially remember hearing that advice at summer intensives, as a way of remembering all the corrections you receive in such high volumes during such a short time. But it is rarely acknowledged how a journal can also be a valuable resource for professional dancers.

When I was a student, I was always eager to write about dance. I still am, but often it seems like knocking on an empty door. What truly deserves to make it onto the page? And now that I no longer receive eighty odd tips and corrections, like I did when I was a student, the dance journal has become more of a place for worries about casting than a place for goals and inspiration.

So, the purpose of this post is to go back to the roots. To the SALTiness of it, in keeping with the theme of this blog. The theme of sweat and tears and ocean water and experience — what drives us as dancers. To set true goals. And I've never been able to truly feel I've set a goal unless I wrote it down. Here are five journal writing, goal-setting prompts to get the dance journal back to where it should be.

1. What was the most inspiring moment of this past season? 

2. If you had to focus on just one image in class, what would that image — or color, feeling, experience — would it be? 

3. What dancer do you see in your place in the next five years? What dancer will you be five years from now? 

4. Name three songs, paintings, or ballets that inspire you. Try to explain why they are unique. 

5. Write a message to your first dance teacher. What would you say? How have you grown? 

Healthy Summer Dinner Party for Three

The rain and the crashing of the waves. The clinks and laughter of a busy kitchen. This is when it truly starts to feel like the off-season.

Building balanced meals is essential to recovery and building strength during the off-season. Especially while on vacation, and especially when dealing with minor injuries, dancers tend to want to eat less.  But in order to heal, rebuild, and recharge, you actually need to eat more! 

For this dinner, my mom, aunt, and I had balance and a light summer feel in mind. 

The Menu: 

Grilled Swordfish with Horseradish Dill Sauce

Green Salad with Local Tomatoes

Quinoa Pasta with Goat and Feta Cheese

Grilled Green Pepper

The Steps: 

1. Brush the swordfish with olive oil and season with dill. 

2. Throw it on the grill with any raw veggies you might have on hand (we had a lovely fresh green pepper). It was raining outside, but we were up to the challenge of grilling in our raincoats!

3. Combine greens and chopped tomatoes in a large salad bowl. 

4. Mix half a lemon with one half cup olive oil and season with salt and pepper for salad dressing. 

5. Cook pasta according to package instructions, and coat with olive oil. Top with crumbled feta, sundried tomato, and goat cheese. 

6. Combine dill, mayo, and a touch of horseradish — this makes a delicious sauce to serve with the grilled swordfish. 

7. Once the swordfish has cooked evenly, remove it from the grill with your vegetables, and serve. 

Into the Dark Review

Bryn Cohn & Artists' striking performance of Bryn Cohn's Into the Dark June 15 at Brooklyn's Center for Performance Research combined technical contemporary dance with a haunting dialogue between darkness and light.

Three dark folding screens were placed at intervals on stage. Dancers stood behind the screens, just barely visible. They observed, motionless, as one dancer entered the space in silence. The sound of breath filled the room through the speakers, heavy and strained. It seemed to belong to the dancer onstage, to fill her lungs as she squinted ahead of her.

She was dressed all in black, her abdomen exposed, a high black ruff around her neck. She seemed to be bravely facing some invisible horror.

As the dance continued, the music grew, interspersing piano melodies with electronic beats and the eerie sound of the breath. The dancers manipulated the black screens, folding them over, trapping each other underneath them, observing each other from behind them.

The movement drew the audience out of the comfort of the slow summer evening and into a place of fear and absurdity. At times the dancers were enemies, their fast and athletic movements resembling a fight, and at other times they seemed intensely joined together. In the small performance space the audience could watch clearly as their eyes met, and were captivated by their ever-changing relationships.

The heavy-lidded, inky glances of the striking dancer Yuliya Romanskaya and Bryn Cohn's other talented performers contrasted with the lighting in the theater, a constantly evolving chorus of light and dark. The only adornment was the cluster of string lights at one corner of the stage – the rest was thoroughly and refreshingly minimalist. The shadows of the dancers moved on the white walls, and their dark silhouettes behind the black screens. It evoked a fashionable and extremely appropriate air given the mood of the piece.

As a young choreographer, it seems that Bryn Cohn is off to a promising start. The piece was dynamic, striking, and to use the term her audiences would, most definitely "fierce". But at times, the fierceness of the piece seemed forced and inorganic. Ms. Cohn was perhaps hesitant to let it escape from the "fierceness" she wanted to achieve, and thus manipulated and forced the process of creating an authenticity in certain sections of the piece.

The end of the piece, however, was as authentic and striking as the beginning. The lights and music rose to a profound and heroic place as one dancer was lifted above all the rest, standing on their backs. His gaze rose slowly and he looked into the light. And the piece ended abruptly. As the dancers took their bows, I was still in awe, transfixed at the beauty of that final climb and at the effectiveness of the sudden ending.

For such a young choreographer, Ms. Cohn reached a remarkable level of sophistication through the production of Into the Dark – her work, and her dancers, are truly "fierce" in the way the dance community understands the term.

Why Every Dancer Should SUP

Through the glare of the sunlight on the waves, I couldn't quite tell what I was seeing. Was it just a buoy? A bird resting on the water? Or was it — and suddenly it moved, turning its large black head toward me. It gazed at me curiously over thick whiskers and the movement of the water. A seal was staring at me. Lying flat on my board, my paddle tucked beneath me, I stared right back.

They followed us the whole time. They watched us as we explored the bay and as we headed back to shore. At times they came closer, coming up out of the water to get a good look at us. There were at least six of them.

When we returned to shore and I had carried the massive board up the stairs, heaving it up against my side, I realized something: I had forgotten to worry about dance. And I had seen six wild seals — almost played a game with them as they followed us in the water.

At the end of the season, it can be easy to get caught up in the melodrama - how exhausted you are. What the critics said or did not say. How you'll have to go through it all over again next season. The challenge is to focus on your training, to recharge, strengthen, and improve. This involves training outside of dance, challenging your mind and body in new ways.

This week, as I am out of the city, I got the chance to try stand up paddle-boarding (SUP.)

I believe that SUP has a unique appeal to dancers' cross-training personalities. Here are the reasons why:

* Time outdoors: After many months in the studio, paddle-boarding gives you the chance to move and train outside. Recent studies have shown that getting time outdoors is extremely beneficial for mental health and well-being.

* Strength Building: SUP challenges your balance. You have to adjust to the constantly changing movement of the water. This helps enormously in improving stability.

* Sightseeing: Traveling on rivers, lakes or even the ocean (my favorite place to paddle) is a beautiful and peaceful atmosphere you get to explore while also challenging your body.

* Getting out of your comfort zone: It can be nerve-wracking to stand up on that board. You start to feel it moving underneath you, and at the very last possible second you catch yourself. But then you stand up. An enormously gratifying – and terrifying – feeling.

* Safety: Dancers usually shy away from intense outdoor sports, like skiing, for fear of injury. Paddle-boarding is remarkably safe. If you fall, you fall in the water. Also, dancers have a particularly keen sense of balance and rarely fall to begin with. Always go out with a guide if you're new to the sport, and never go out alone unless you have an inflatable PFD (personal flotation device.)

* Personal Journey: In many ways, SUP is about you. It's about the individual staying balanced atop that board. I think this can be an incredibly powerful experience, and inspiring for the dance artist in particular, because of the way dance combines physicality and mental clarity.

If you get a chance, you should try it.

Emotional Wellness During the Season

My breath is shaking. I force myself to steady my gaze, and as the last notes of Miserere Nobis come through the theater, I release my hands from their places on my shoulders and bow my head. The lights fade. 

Applause begins. I wait, my breath still uneven. And then I hear the dancers beside me standing up, and hastily I stand with them, clasp each of their hands in the dark. The lights come back on. We bow our heads twice, as Miserere calls for a somber bow, and exit the stage. 

It is over. Backstage, I walk down the brightly lit, narrow hallway. Around us, other dancers and stage hands murmur, "beautiful" and "good job, guys!" 

I am still trying to steady my breath, adjust to the light. To the fact that the season is finally over.

When I was young, one professional dancer I knew gave me some incredible advice. We had just finished a grueling Nutcracker season, and I was feeling completely drained. 

She explained to me that during a show, the performer's brain releases bursts of adrenaline at a rate that is much higher than normal. So after several weeks of shows, you've drained your body's adrenaline supply which adds to the physical exhaustion that comes at the end of a season. 

The dance is about anger, loss, and forgiveness. We wear long black skirts and red tights, our feet emerging blood red beneath the hems of the skirts when we dance. The music is Allegri's "Miserere," a hauntingly somber chorus of female voices. 

I have never peformed something with such an intense subject matter in such an intimate theater. With the audience so close to us, our acting has to be impeccable. Jennifer also is known for coaching her dancers to be actors as well. 

After performing this piece every evening, I have found that I am in an extremely vulnerable emotional place. Today, one dancer, whom I shall refer to as AM, told me, "at one point I looked at you and saw the emotion on your face. You looked like you were about to cry. So I almost started to cry. I had to say to myself, A, hold it together!" 

The comment was both a compliment on my acting — which made me very proud — and also an observation about how the dancing the piece in such an intensely emotional place messes with our control. 

For the next few weeks, I am going to be extremely careful and aware of that emotional exhaustion, and try to get some rest after the season is over. 

Holy Basil for Stress Management

Dancers are a diverse group; we come from all over the world. We have our own styles, our own unique identities within the dance community.

But in many ways, we are the same. And a lot of times, we think of ourselves in terms of the things we share. 

Most of us share a certain level of perfectionism, for example. 

And yes, there are exceptions to this. But on the whole, most dancers share a certain attention to detail. We look for patterns. We scrutinize our formations, our spacing, our lines. Perfectionists are drawn to careers like dance. We thrive in coming as close as we can to excellence. Since the medium for dance is the body, when your dancing improves, there is a way that you feel you have improved as a person. You become closer to perfection not only as a dancer but also as an individual. Dancers crave this feeling. In this way, perfectionism drives us towards success.

But perfectionism also comes with a price. At times, it can damage, rather than enhance our performance.

My own perfectionism can often result in worry and anxiety rather than productivity. When I come home in the evening from dance and finally have time to rest I start to worry about my performance and how I could do better. This on one hand is great — it can help me improve. On the other hand, sometimes I worry a little bit too much. So I've developed several ways that I cope with stress in the evening to wind down at the end of the day. 

I have found that taking a Holy Basil herbal supplement in the afternoon before a performance, or after a particularly difficult day in the studio, helps me deal with evening anxiety. Often I also make jewelry in the evenings, as a way to engage my mind and body in something entirely separate from the day at dance.

Focusing on other things does help me wind down, but from my experience the Holy Basil supplements play a major role in my ability to manage stress. The herb has been used for thousands of years in India to treat colds, coughs, and other ailments and is essential to Ayurvedic medicine. More recently, research has been conducted that suggests Holy Basil may have anti-inflammatory and pain-reducing effects. 

However, the most compelling and exhaustive research shows that Holy Basil is one of the most effective herbal supplements that can relieve symptoms of stress. When combined with breathing exercises and relaxing activities, it can be very helpful. 

Holy basil supplements can be purchased at any vitamin or health food store. I use the brand "New Chapter." 

Contemporary Dance on Wikipedia

Music can be written down. Paintings can be restored and coped. Buildings can be planned on paper.

Dance cannot be written down.

Although you can record dance on videotape, it is a poor replacement for experiencing dance in the moment. And so the traditions of dance are communicated verbally. There are very few concrete definitions. Information is passed on in studios, through the movements themselves.

Classical ballet is old enough that a vocabulary has been established and communicated, and specific traditions have been set. Modern dance is not. Although some modern dance techniques have a codified system, the newest forms of dance do not.

The dance community relies on the dancers themselves to preserve and add to its vocabulary, traditions and history. Although there are many books about the history of dance, most have a limited perspective. Every modern dancer since Isadora Duncan will tell a different version of the same story, simply because it is the way things have been done since dance began.

So the history of dance is not in books. It isn't in videotapes either. It isn't written on music papers, or recorded in some universal blackboard of what dance is about. Dance is recorded in a unique and very profound way.

It's in our bodies.

A beautiful idea, in theory. The truest and most direct version of the history of dance is recorded in the bodies and movement qualities of today's dancers, passed kinesthetically from generation to generation. But when we are asked to write down our vocabulary, history, and traditions, often the key concepts are left out as they are so difficult to illustrate.

Essentially, the more dance progresses as an art form, the more difficult it is to put into a textbook. The terms that define different types of dance evolve.

Wikipedia's "Contemporary Dance" page is an excellent example of this. It places a mysterious and poorly justified emphasis upon the Cunningham technique.

This is probably because whoever took the time to write the page had the most experience with the Cunningham technique and was less familiar with other forms of contemporary dance.

The issue becomes even more complicated as the definition of "Contemporary" dance shifts, depending on whom you ask. And recently, the terms that define modern and contemporary dance are constantly evolving.

Often, Wikipedia is criticized because it allows for anyone to edit or add to the pages, damaging its credibility.  But this is what makes Wikipedia ideal for the dance community. If we were all able to contribute what we know, the "Contemporary Dance" page would be a great deal more informative than it is now.

Although I cannot make the page more inclusive of all the contemporary techniques out there, I can contribute what I have learned in the past year dancing at Jennifer Muller/The Works.

Before I edited the "Dance Technique" section of the page, it was a long list of terms. It ignored many important dance techniques related to contemporary dance. The list format was overwhelming and the way it referred to Pilates and Yoga as if they are equally as important to Contemporary Dance as Graham and Horton technique was misinformed.

You can see the changes I made here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_dance

I encourage dancers to educate their communities about the art form. Modern dance is even more of an obscure niche than classical ballet. We can start to change that by contributing to our communities. Dancers, go on Wikipedia and make the change!

Yoga for Dancers at Modo Yoga NYC

Trying to find a yoga studio in New York is easy. Trying to find the right yoga studio is not easy, simply because of how many there are. And when you add in concerns about injury prevention and seeking out instructors who truly understand what dancers need from a yoga class, it is nearly impossible.

After a trip to my hometown in Colorado and a class at CorePower Yoga, I realized I had forgotten how great yoga could be. CorePower is great for dancers: a focus on the center, like Pilates, is key to the studio's philosophy.

I had been looking for a good yoga class ever since I moved to New York.

It had been three years, and I still hadn't found one. Dancers are picky about their cross-training. It has to be challenging, but not so challenging that it ruins your performance the next day. 

I tried Pure Yoga, which is wonderful, but it costs an arm and a leg.

I tried the yoga classes at Equinox, which were also wonderful, but their studios were freezing cold. For dancers, this is a hard sell. We're used to having to warm up in freezing theaters, but for our workout, we shouldn't have to worry about it.

Bikram classes, on the other hand, are much too hot. Because dancers are already incredibly loose, there is a risk of overstretching in such a hot room (I learned this the hard way.)

After a while, I started to think that I wouldn't find anything like CorePower. I started to think that I was destined to attend yoga class in cashmere sweaters for the rest of my career.

And then I found Modo.

Modo Yoga NYC in the West Village caters to an elite, fashionable community of West Village glamazons. Including Katie Holmes, apparently, though I've never seen her there.

But in contrast with its chichi clientele, the classes are very affordable. In addition to the glamazons, Modo is also frequented by a great deal of dancers. And for good reason: the teachers at Modo understand how to instruct dancers. Some are dancers themselves.

The classes are heated, but kept well below the scorching and slightly dangerous temperatures of a Bikram class. Technique and alignment is especially important, but none of the instructors are condescending about it. They just correct your alignment if you need it. Rather like a dance teacher.

I've been practicing yoga at Modo for a year now, and it is an amazing recovery for my body as well as a strengthening and cardio class. I also find that coming to Modo changes my perspective; it takes me out of the dance sphere, and provides me with a chance to move in a place where I'm not trying to make a good impression on anyone.

Modo Yoga is located at 434 6th Avenue between 9th and 10th streets.  

Why Today's Dancers are Struggling

It's true: dance companies these days, and by default, dancers themselves, are struggling. They struggle economically. They struggle to find consistent work.

They also struggle with something deeper.

Recently, Free People released a video campaign for dance clothing, featuring a model who claimed she had studied dance since she was three years old.

It was painfully clear in the video that she had not. She was faking it. Her poor technique, combined with her boasts of years of training and impassioned monologue about the beauty of dance resulted in a vicious uproar against Free People by dancers throughout social media.

Gradually, the company re-launched the campaign in collaboration with a California-based dance photographer, and somewhat redeemed the Free People dance movement line.

What this story tells us isn't that Free People needs to restructure their marketing team (although this wouldn't hurt.) It tells us something important about the way American dance is seen. Why American dance? Because Free People is a very American brand. And the sentiments of the ad, following one's passion and doing what you love to do, is a thoroughly American ideal.

It tells us that dance is seen as a hobby, a lifestyle choice that anyone can take part in.

So a national community of professional dancers, most of whom have been studying dance technique since childhood, live in a society in which their work is seen as little more than a fashionable hobby.

I think that the idea that anyone can learn ballet, that Natalie Portman didn't have a stunt double in Black Swan, that any model with the right look can act as though she is a real dancer, is destructive to dance as an art form. The real dancer's work and the real dancer's commitment to the art form is therefore completely culturally irrelevant.

And here is where it becomes personal. Here is where it becomes destructive to the individual dancer.

The Free People video scandal shows us that the years of training and hard work that it takes to truly succeed in dance are not recognized by those who are not intrinsically involved in the dance community.

Today's dancers and choreographers are faced with a daunting task. We have to get people interested in dance again. We have to teach our communities how to tell the difference between a true dancer and a model who is pretending.

Performing Outdoors

It felt like dancing on a rocking chair in a house that was on fire. 

We stood in a row in the hot sun, our feet heavy in the damp grass, dressed all in black. Drenched in sweat. Itchy from falling into that grass and getting back up again. 

While we took our bows, I tried to smile, tried to forget the slant of the ground beneath me during the Beethoven piece. Jennifer Muller's repertory is technical enough to make it difficult to perform on grass, but because we dance barefoot, it is, in theory, possible. But the grass, and the uneven surface it was planted on, made every turn a nearly impossible feat, every fall an opportunity to itch and sneeze. 

By the end of the first performance, my head was pounding. It felt like the furthest from a good performance I had ever had. 

And yet, I had done everything I normally do. I was prepared. I went over the choreography. I drank coffee. I warmed up well. 

I resolved that the next day, I'd have to somehow be even more prepared. 

The next morning on the train to the gardens, I finished a 32 ounce water bottle in its entirety, and was onto another one by the time we reached the dressing room tent. I had also packed snacks: nonfat Greek yogurt in a small cooler with peach slices and a granola bar. 

The water and yogurt snack were, surprisingly, much more effective than drinking all that coffee. I was alert, energized, and the other dancers were fading under the intense heat. 

One of the dancers joked that our makeshift tent/dressing room was an accurate and effective example of the greenhouse effect. 

But I withstood the heat this time, drinking more water before a show than I think I ever have. 

And it worked. I slid on the slant, but was ready for it this time, core engaged, grounded. 

Lesson learned. 

Finding Answers on Dancer Health

Dance is an athletic profession. 

And yes, an artistic one too. But the correlation between health in dance and success in dance is a strong one. It is one that cannot be ignored. In most, if not all, of today's top companies, athleticism is a prerequisite and essential to employment. So, it would be logical to assume that today's dancers are well informed on managing their health. 

But what's logical isn't always true. 

While there are many health resources for dancers, both students and professionals, there is a great deal less information than one might expect. The amount of information available concerning dancer health is laughably small compared to the size of the health industry (a twenty billion dollar industry in the United States, according to ABC News). 

This is especially true for modern dance health. In fact, most published research on dancer health, most nobably the research published by Linda Hamilton, heavily focuses on classical ballet. This is probably because classical ballet companies are typically the kinds of companies that can afford to provide health resources for their dancers. 

The resources that do exist, from publications like Dance Magazine and organizations like Dance/USA, are informative, but are not so widely distributed as to reach enough dancers to truly inform the community as a whole. It is an accepted belief that information on dancer health and wellness is spread throughout the dance community through discussion. "Communication regarding health and nutrition in dance is much like the game 'Telephone'. Because information is communicated primarily through word of mouth, much of it gets distorted," wrote Chmelar and Fitt in their book, Diet for Dancers. 

The result of this lack of information on dancer health is an unprepared performer. A performer prone to injuries. A performer who has a job to do, but lacks essential tools with which to accomplish it. 

"For me, the body is essential," Elisa Monte, choreographer and director of Elisa Monte Dance, told me last week. "If dance is my medium, then I want my dancers to be able to do anything I ask them to do." 

As modern choreographers continue to push the boundaries of choreography and contemporary dance, they are also pushing the physical boundaries of their dancers. So, there has to be much more information than there is now in order for today's dancers to meet these demands. 

While I don't have access to a research team or any formal analysis, I do have daily access to a group of successful dancers and leaders in the field. Among the many goals for SALT, I hope this blog will help address the need for a continued dialogue on dancer health.