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The Effects of Hatha Yoga on Contemporary Dance: Pitfalls, Practices, and Possibilities

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The Effects of Hatha Yoga on Contemporary Dance: Pitfalls, Practices, and Possibilities THE EFFECTS OF HATHA YOGA ON CONTEMPORARY DANCE: PITFALLS, PRACTICES, AND POSSIBILITIES: By Solveig Santillano Submitted to Wesleyan University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Liberal Studies March 2007 Dr. George Russell Wesleyan University Visiting Lecturer in Liberal Studies copyright@2007 Solveig R. Santillano To all of my teachers who have sparked my curiosity and imagination, and have nurtured and guided me throughout all the twists and turns of my journey: Your patience, expertise, enthusiasm and personal dedication have lit the way for my dancing career as well as my personal life, and, in turn, shone a guiding light on my newer path of sharing this through the education of others. It is an honor to be a part of the great lineage of dancers who have passed the torch of knowledge through time by endless hours of physical and intellectual study in order to magnify the magnificent light of the soul for all to see from either the stage or street. For Mark and Ella, my parents, and my mentor, Judith Hanson Lasater CONTENTS Acknowledgments CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 2. DANCE IN A NUTSHELL a. What is dance? b. Who is attracted to dance? c. My personal attraction to dance 3. YOGA IN A NUTSHELL a. Yoga in the United States: 2006 b. The Practice of Yoga i. Body ii. Mind iii. Soul 4. WHAT ATTRACTS DANCERS TO DANCE AND YOGA a. Dance Circle b. Beyond Words c. Mind Body Connections d. Rhythm and Soul e. Vision and Vessel f. Spirituality in Motion 5. THE DANCER PRACTICES YOGA a. The challenges and needs of a dancer b. The integral role of body type c. Understanding the dancer’s body d. Dance and yoga injuries: the experiential 6. THE BENEFITS OF YOGA: THE DANCE BEHIND THE EYELIDS a. How yoga has affected dance and teaching b. Change in approach to dance and yoga 7. CONCLUSION Appendix Reference list CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION My final project for the Graduate and Liberal Studies Program at Wesleyan University is a culmination of my six – year pursuit of a Masters of Arts and Liberal Studies with an emphasis in Movement Studies. I designed a study that enabled me to utilize a multitude of skills learned throughout the following courses during my graduate experience: Laban Movement Analysis, Yoga, Meditation, Anatomy, Choreographic Improvisation, and my independent study on Awareness, Understanding, and Connection through Multi-Sensory Learning to name a few. The focus of my final project was to discover and explore the effects and benefits of Hatha yoga practice to the committed dancer, through extensive research and interviews. Under the expert guidance of George Russell, D.C., I initiated an in-depth study that sought to discern the impact of yoga on the dance field by setting up a series of interviews with a number of fellow dancers, colleagues, and artists who have experienced benefits or injuries that have been either assuaged or aggravated by a yoga practice. I have drawn upon their experiences as well as my own dance training, performing, and teaching career, and have gathered data that has enabled me to look for trends in this unique population. Throughout this project, I have been examining data in order to draw a variety of opinion – based conclusions as a result of my findings as to how a yoga practice has impacted the careers and lives of this representative sampling of forty-one dance performers. 1 Kinesiology, dance, and yoga constitute the knowledge base from which I developed this project. In addition, I have received generous assistance from experts in all these fields, notably George Russell, D.C., Peentz Dubble, Dr. Terry Pettijohn, and Judith Hanson Lasater, PH.D, P.T. Their guidance, support, and experience have enabled me to formulate articulate conclusions from an overwhelmingly large and fascinating trove of data. This data has focused on success, injury, and challenge, as well as profound impacts of my own and other’s yoga experience. My mentors have helped me organize this information thematically by assessing body type, attitude, movement patterns, and injuries in relation to training, body balance and structural efficiency, including preference, forms of rehabilitation, and genetic and cultural factors. A wonderful by-product of my research and analysis is that I am able to make more fluent and accurate observations and assessments in the classroom, and I expect that this will only continue as I continue to teach and write. I was fortunate to know and be referred to many dancers who were willing to share their extraordinary journey, more, in fact, than was practical to manage, and which influenced my decision to present conclusions in a manner more representational than statistical. (The nature and content of my interview process informed the nature of my methodology; my reasoning will be revealed below.) The interview stage of this project took a total of six months and involved forty-one interviews. (See the appendix at the end of this paper for a complete list of those interviewed, as well as their location within the country, the majority being from the northeastern portion of the United States). I laid the groundwork for at least fifty more, but chose to stop for the time being at forty-one, 2 because the material was so abundant that to proceed to the analysis phase became more of an immediate exigency. It also became necessary to make choices as to which portions and persons to include from the actual interviews in order to narrow the scope of the project, which revealed a far greater complexity at closer examination. The result has been a smaller focus than I had originally intended. I discovered that this topic has been woefully under- researched and I am more aware of the enormous amount of research that can and should be done to improve the research in the worlds of yoga and dance. My overall focus is therefore on the experiential aspects of my research, and I leave the quantification of these phenomenon for someone with greater resources than myself. My intention is for this project to act as a springboard for others and myself, to focus in different directions in future writings and publications. It was a pleasure speaking with so many dancer/yogis who shared a passion for my fields of inquiry. Like myself, most preferred to meet in person, and whenever this was possible I would arrange to meet with the participants in their own terrain. The whole summer ended up being one adventure after another, with trips to places scattered across the country such as Minneapolis, MN, Sioux Falls, SD, San Diego, CA, Washington, CT, Erie, PA, and New York City. The trip to New York was by far the busiest, with an itinerary that allowed me enough time to travel from one interview to the next, often from eight in the morning until midnight, with room for an occasional yoga class or dance concert in order to witness one of my interviewees and experience some of the many yoga teachers and styles discussed. Because of the overall level of enthusiasm of the participants, I invariably utilized every moment scheduled, often using the extra 3 time that I had padded between the interviews in order to accommodate for zealous conversations as well as spontaneous additional interviews. With emails and telephone I continued to connect with friends and colleagues across the world including a former Juilliard graduate who has since relocated to Bali, who graciously connected me with others within the field of inquiry. The number of individuals who were willing to meet with a perfect stranger for several hours was astounding, and I believe reflected the dedication for either their own field or the person who had recommended them to me for my research (including George Russell, D.C., and Irene Dowd, who generously facilitated contacts with their acquaintances for research, many of whom are famous and influential within the dance world). Equally astounding was the sense of warmth and family that I experienced throughout my endeavors as I embarked on exploring the interface of yoga and dance. In order to minimize the bias of preconceived notions in the interview process, I widened my scope to include a simple open-ended premise, that yoga had an impact on the dance world, and I brought with this a curiosity as to the ways in which this may have manifested for others. Additionally, I presumed commonalities of experience, which could be culled and integrated with accuracy and conscious intent. Alongside this very open ended intention to uncover whatever truths could be gleaned, I brought with me an open mind and willingness to deeply listen, a recording device and notebook, and a list of several questions that would provide the basis for my inquiries: 1. What was your introduction to dance? 2. At what age did you begin? 3. What attracted you to dance? 4. What have been your main technical limitations and injuries in dance? 5. How, and at what point in your career did you discover yoga? 6. What form of yoga do you study and/or teach? 4 7. What benefits have you gained from yoga study? 8. Does your body ask you to do certain poses? Do you have favorite poses? 9. What difficulties have you had in your yoga practice? 10. Are there poses that you avoid? 11. Do you relate any of these difficulties to your status as a dancer? 12. Do you take a different approach to yoga technique as opposed to your dance technique, and if so, what? 13. Have you been injured doing yoga, and if so, how? 14.
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