Confluences 6 Physicality and Performance

CONFLUENCES 6 PHYSICALITY AND PERFORMANCE Hosted by the UCT School of Dance Director – Gerard Samuel University of Cape Town 21 – 23 July 2011 Conference Convenor: Gerard Samuel Conference Committee: Sharon Friedman Conference Organiser: Sharon Friedman Dr Eduard Greyling Proceedings edited by: Beth Dutton Gerard Samuel Lauren McGeorge Assoc Prof Elizabeth Triegaardt CD Rom compiled by: Eduard Greyling CD Rom design: Elizabeth Triegaardt Published and distributed by: UCT School of Dance Woolsack Drive ROSEBANK CAPE TOWN This collection of papers has been compiled from electronic copies provided by individual authors. In order to achieve a volume speedily available to the conference, any editing and proof reading has been done in the interest of standardised formatting. Individual Contributions: © 2011 by individual contributors. Collection as a whole: © 2011 UCT School of Dance. ISBN: 978-0-7992-2478-8 Confluences 6 21-23 July 2011 Dear Delegates Welcome to Confluences 6! When I first began preparations in 2010 for this celebrated UCT conference dedicated to Dance, South Africa was in the feverish grip of the thrilling FIFA Soccer World Cup. There was much talk about peak performances, cutting edge training methods and professional athletic bodies. Confluences 6 provides an ideal platform for a wealth of dance-related conversations and in 2011 one can examine care, absence and desire as related sub-themes of Physicality and Performance. I trust that over the next three days you will find a diverse array of academic papers, workshops and performances to support and provoke further debate. As practitioners, theorists and even bystanders of Dance we have, in this opportune moment, a chance to re- question tried and tested techniques in order to nourish not only ourselves, but the many countries from which we stem. I extend a warm welcome to all delegates (especially those that have traversed the kala pani (dark waters), students, the media and the dance interested public at large. I urge you to engage with much abandon with one another and with the staff at the UCT School of Dance as we cultivate visionary dance. My sincere thanks goes to the University of Cape Town and to Distell who continue to support the School of Dance in this important endeavour. Our launch of the South African Dance Journal at this time is no coincidence: it is a natural development from our proud record of six international dance conferences hosted by the UCT School of Dance. Its purpose is to serve especially the needs of African dance practitioners and to share expertise with the international dance community. My heartiest congratulations to the contributing authors and the entire team who have made this dream come true. I am confident that the historic first edition will become a treasured resource and collector’s item. Yours sincerely Gerard M Samuel Director : School of Dance Part I – Keynote Speakers Professor Julia Buckroyd Psychological Aspect of Dance Training The vast majority of those who undertake formal dance training will never earn their living through dancing. For most of them the principal experience of dance will be the dance class. For that reason dance training can and should never be merely a means to an end. This paper addresses three elements in the meta-purpose of dance training. Training as the facilitation of identity development and self-esteem Training as the means to good body esteem Training in the use of dance as a powerful communicative art The paper will discuss the need for these themes to be incorporated in training and will illustrate the problems created when they are absent and the advantages to the person and the dancer when they are present. Psychological Aspects of Dance Training Professor Julia Buckroyd, University of Hertfordshire Introduction What are we trying to do when we begin the process of dance training? In this paper I want to suggest that the conventional account of dance training as the means by which the traditions and conventions of dance, as it has developed over maybe the past hundred years, are transmitted to the next generation, is no longer adequate. I want to propose that we need to articulate a more ambitious set of values and purposes for dance training, and that a failure or reluctance to do so is damaging, not only to trainee dancers, but to dance. I want to address three areas: Dance training as the agent of the development of the dancer’s identity and self-esteem Dance training as the agent of the development of the dancer’s body esteem Dance as a communicative art and dance training as the development of an empowered body-voice But let me begin by sketching out a little of my concern about the current state of affairs for professional dancers. It is interesting how often those who are at the sharp end of any activity, the ones without whom it simply could not take place, are the ones whose status and conditions of work have often been the worst. This seems to be true from coalminers to ballet dancers. Those who organize, manage, direct and administer them are often treated much better. This is generally the case in the dance world. Conditions of work, terms of employment and rates of pay for professional dancers are generally poor or even exploitive. My examples come mostly from the UK, but as I understand it, conditions for dancers are similar or worse nearly everywhere. I am a trustee of the Royal Ballet Benevolent Fund, a charity which, despite its name, exists to support professional dancers of all kinds who have fallen on hard times. We have a steady flow of dancers in their prime who have been injured during the run of a production. The companies have hired them on a project basis; there is usually no provision for injury, often not even for physiotherapy and so when a dancer is injured, she loses her job. In what other trade or profession would industrial injury result in immediate job loss? The dancer then has no income and no means of making one. These dancers come to us destitute. The terms of their employment often disqualify them from all but emergency state support. Dance UK, an activist organization, campaigns for better conditions for dancers. One of its campaigns has been to try and ensure that dance venues provide suitable floors for dance (http://www.danceuk.org/healthier-dancer- programme/healthier-dancer-programme-campaigns) Although I am happy that there is a pressure group attempting to achieve this end, I am also astounded that in the 21st century it is still necessary to campaign for dance floors that will not hurt dancers. How is it that dancers, in the 21st century, in developed economies, are still putting up with conditions like these? Part of the answer is the way dance is funded. With some commercial exceptions, it is mostly funded by government and charitable grants. In the UK government money is shared out by the Arts Council and the Arts Council won’t fund the proper care of dancers while project funding also ensures ongoing insecurity of employment. It doesn’t have to be like this. Some countries do better. The Nordic countries do it differently and so, at least until recently did the countries of former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet bloc countries. I remember speaking to some Hungarian dancers who told me that in their country professional dancers were honoured and respected. In Slovenia in the former Yugoslavia, dancers were given subsidized housing as an indication of the state’s respect for artists. Capitalism has put paid to that. Professional dance, with rare exceptions, is a minority taste. It doesn’t televise particularly well and does not make large amounts of money for anyone. People who disagree with me point to shows like ‘Strictly Come Dancing’. Look, they say, dance is flourishing and has a huge audience. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t enjoy the prospect of dance being used as a kind of spectacle where the humiliation of the losers is the attraction. Dance in my view is a communicative art; watching celebrities go through an intensive training to learn to rhumba, doesn’t give me a lot. But I think there is more to the poor conditions under which many dancers operate than the brutal simplicities of capitalism. How is it, for example, that Equity, the Union for dancers in the UK, has failed to secure good conditions for them when they have been able to do much better for musicians? Perhaps it is significant that the Wikipedia entry on Equity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equity_(trade_union)) does not even mention dancers. Dancers are treated badly because they have been taught to ignore and neglect pain (Aalten, 2007); to eat badly in pursuit of thinness; to believe that it is a privilege to dance for a living for which they should be grateful, whatever the conditions. Dancers in the developed world know that far from being a valuable elite, they are an underclass, readily replaceable and without a voice. So it’s not surprising that these elite athletes and artists have eating disorders (Hoek, 2001) and self harm and that they smoke in greater numbers than the general population. In the Healthier Dancer survey carried out for Dance UK, 36% of dancers admitted to smoking (Brinson and Dick 1996, Munasinghe and Sicherman 2005); the current rate in the general population is 20%. They have very high rates of injury; Brinson and Dick (1996) reported 83% over a period of 12 months; Thomas and Tarr (2009) reported a 90% prevalence of injury at some time and that injury rates do not seem to be declining.

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