As I think a lot of people are doing, I have been using Zoom (an application I had never heard of a month ago) quite a bit in the last few weeks. My sister, who works for Southern Methodist University, has had several Zoom meetings the past few weeks – with three on her schedule tomorrow. I used it last week to “hang out” with a couple of friends and chat, but mostly I have been utilizing it to teach ballet.
So far, I’ve taught classes with about ten students logged in each time. I purchased an adapter and cord to connect my laptop to my television screen, so I could see the dancers better in their little squares. I worked out the best way to configure my living room for class: push the furniture out against the walls, hang a light-colored cloth over the dark fireplace so I can be seen in my black teaching clothes, pull my coffee table closer to the TV for the laptop, bluetooth speaker, and my water.
I usually start getting everything organized for going online about 20 minutes ahead of the actual class, and the rituals of preparation help me to focus and calm the bit of anxiety I feel in trying to adapt class to both an online format, and for dancers who might be in less than ideal spaces. I saw a comment on Facebook from one of my teacher friends, saying that her husband thought it was weird that she put on perfume before she taught an online class. Other teachers chimed in, mentioning that they too go through their pre-class ritual as if they were actually teaching in the studio – make-up, perfume, teaching shoes and clothes, water bottle, and so on. There is definitely comfort in the familiar, especially when we are employing those rituals in unfamiliar situations.
I’ve definitely enjoyed teaching classes via Zoom, because it’s absolutely better than doing nothing, and I think offers much more than livestreaming or filming a class that students can follow along with but has no interaction. The students in my classes have been fully committed to the work, and the lessons have felt productive even though we can’t really do a full class with traveling and jumping.
Today, I taught a private lesson via the format, my first. I usually don’t like private lessons, for a number of reasons. I always want to fix everything at once, and with only one student in front of me, this tendency (that I have tried to hone over the years when teaching class into “today let’s focus on this”) comes to the fore and can be very overwhelming for the student. I also really like the vibe of a class – the energy, the opportunity it gives the dancers to watch their peers, plus learning and dancing together helps create a sense of unity.
However, today’s private was a lot of fun and really productive. I had a couple of things I knew I wanted to work on with Bailey heading into the class, and for the most part those are what we focused on. I had her repeat exercises a few times, after I gave her corrections, so she could try out the notes and begin to synthesize them into her work. Together we broke down some steps, analyzing her muscle usage and movement habits, and then tried to find new ways for her to think about executing the steps. It was an hour long lesson, and we only got to rond de jambes par terre (about halfway through the opening barre exercises), but I definitely saw progress in what we’d been working on. And I think the private lesson worked well for me online, because talking to Bailey via a computer screen buffered my intense focus in that setting.
Afterwards, I got a text from her mom, Erica, also a dance teacher. She said that Bailey loved the lesson and wanted to set up a regular schedule with me. When I responded that I was glad she liked it, because I worried that it was too tedious for a 12-year-old, Erica sent me a message that I will always treasure: No, she really WANTS to understand how to fix things. And you make everything exciting and feel “important.“
For a teacher, feedback doesn’t get much better than that.
Penny Askew 