For the past year, we have shared dancers' schedules and all that they entail – teaching, training, rehearsing, performing, commuting, and finding down time. In Fall 2015, I asked members of NDEO (the National Dance Education Organization) for dancers with full-time positions within a K-12 school to share their weekly schedules. This series will feature eight dancers from around the country working in a variety of settings.

Today you will read about dancer Kiera Ryckman, who teaches full-time at a boarding school. The "My Dance Week" column offers a great window into the work done over a week – the scheduling of classes, rehearsals, prep time, and more.

Kiera Ryckman is the dance and yoga director at Wasatch Academy, a private international college preparatory boarding high school in the small town of Mount Pleasant, Utah. Kiera is originally from Phoenix, Arizona where she earned 2 associate degrees in dance and dance technology from Scottsdale Community College and a BA in dance education from Grand Canyon University. She danced professionally with H.Lab performance collective under Harper Piver.

Teaching at a boarding school is an incredibly immersive, supportive, and tightly knit environment to be a part of. I live across the street from dorms, I eat meals with students, my good friends are fellow faculty I regularly collaborate with, I catch and send students home when I’m at the grocery store and they are out of bounds, I take students on field trips, sign their liability waivers, have them over for dinner, and take a genuine interest in their lives and the lives of the rest of the community. This can be as amazing or as imprisoning as it sounds. It’s all perspective. Like many dance artists, I learned early on that the glamorous parts are few and I must make an effort to find optimism and passion in everything.

Luckily our student diversity is so vast – inspiring endless opportunities for learning, sharing and growing in the field of dance. Students from Mali teach me African dancing, other students come with insane abilities in genres I didn’t know existed, and my Spotify is scattered with songs in Mandarin and Persian! My students are as much collaborators as they are students, and my gratitude is overflowing daily for their effort.

Teaching is an invaluable skill for me as dancer because I am, at the same time, always a student to dance itself. Adaptability and resourcefulness are key. The most important aspect of my life as a teacher is to USE what I know. I’m talking light plots, sewing, Photoshop, music editing, film editing, kindness towards your community, stage craft knowledge, technical knowledge, teaching ELLs, everything! Every skill I’ve gained throughout school and the professional world has come back up.

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Monday, November 30, 2015

7:30 Wake up! Pet the cat, shower, eat, tea, gather belongings and take a blue-skied walk to work.

8:30 Warm up! Check emails from the week off.

9:00 Teach 2 yoga classes. My favorite classes to start the day with. This is the first class students (and I) have after a week break. Yoga for opening chest and hip flexors after traveling is a must.

10:40 Emails galore. Check attendance email, meeting updates and send an email or organize upcoming school arts festival on Saturday.

12:00pm Lunch. Food, green tea and cat petting at home. Being close to home keeps my sanity.

1:00pm Answer emails. Write advisee letters from home. Faculty members advise up to 8 students and correspond with parents on weekly-monthly basis. See Wed afternoon for more detail.

3:00pm Show prep. Head to school art building to make light and stage plot for Saturday show.

5:00pm Meeting. Meet with other art teachers about final schedule and plans for Saturday’s art festival.

6:00pm Cook and eat quickly!

7:00pm Teach hip hop. Facilitate group choreography projects in preparation for finals.

10:00pm Home and goodnight. Winding down from a day usually comes down to tea, reading and stretching.

Tuesday

8:30 Wake up!

9:30 Work errands. Visit student advisee who works remotely from home, go in search of supplies for upcoming show, budget for show.

11:45 Meet with student. Work on modern Chinese dance and space for Saturday’s show.

12:45pm Prepare ballet final. Beginning dance takes a group test playing matching terminology to translation to movement.

2:20pm Work with middle school solo student. Modeled after Google’s 20% time, we work 90 minutes/week.

3:25pm Teach beginning ballet. Big review day and practice test for Thursday final.

5:30pm Dinner

7:00pm Help student with gloving dance film for Saturday while writing this post…

8:40pm Athletes meditation and release. Tennis balls, release methods, meditation, anything they need to help their bodies recover.

9:30pm Home and goodnight!

Wednesday

7:00 Wake up!

8:00 Faculty meeting! All of the creative and interesting aspects of the job have to be balanced by some administrative work and meetings, right?

9:00 Teach 2 yoga classes.

10:50 Attend school assembly.

11:45 Lunch.

12:30pm Advisory time. Because we’re a boarding school, faculty advises 5-8 students. We are the parent communicators, mentor, cheerleader, grade tracker, goal helper and confidant for our group. One of the greatest parts of this program is mentoring a student for multiple years and witnessing the student's academic and social growth. My advisees are from China, Vietnam, Japan, and the United States.

1:25pm Prep for finals. Students working in small group on choreography projects. Challenge of the day here was creating a separate ballet final for one student who is severely struggling in hip hop, attendance and group work. He was kicked out of his student group for not showing up. Instead, he worked for 90 minutes on one grand allegro combination. It’s amazing how much a student’s motivation can change from one genre to another.

3:30 Show prep. Students need last minute rehearsal time. Who knows how to clean a samba/rumba/cha cha piece…this girl, I guess?

4:30pm Sew a skirt. Simple mend for a cha cha skirt. Remember when you tried to make your own Halloween costume one year? Keep practicing… Those skills come in handy.

5:00pm Make final workshop/show schedule!

5:30pm Quick dinner.

6:00pm Pick up lights from film dept. Transfer (across the street) to art building to begin load in.

8:00pm Search for fabric. Need fabric to create a back drop for the stage.

8:30pm Stumble upon junior class comedic history project. Comedy team trained the entire junior class on basic comedy skills and games. Not surprisingly 80% of the groups played up prohibition.

Thursday

6:30 Wake up!

7:00 Swimming with a faculty friend at the local college pool. During show/finals week, my physical practice diminishes. It’s super important for me to find time to stay active.

8:30 Show prep. Buy supplies, print flyers, post flyers. 

12:30pm Visit with friends! Tea and lunch with a few great friends.

2:20pm Dress rehearsal with solo student doing modern Chinese dance.

3: 25pm Beginning ballet final. Group final on 48 terms, their translation, what the movement is and in what context they would be used. 3/5 students are English language learners. Learning French through English is tough. Group tests with trustworthy students are great tools to use. Rather than being tested on things they don’t know, they are tested on what they do know AND given time during the test to learn things they don’t.

5:30pm Dinner.

6:15pm Support orchestra students at their show.

7:00pm Rough day in hip hop class prepping for finals. Taking 15 minutes for constructive rest, then getting to work on a small specific goal often produces a far better result than pushing, pushing, pushing. When students are tired, they mostly need to be heard and understood. When you feel exhausted and run down, don’t you wish people genuinely understood?

8:40pm Spacing and lighting tech for dance festival performances. We are excited to be in a new, open and creatively saturated space, our school Studio Art Center.

10:30pm Home and bed!

Friday

7:30am Wake up!

8:30 Catch up on emails, send confirmation for videographer, door locks, call times, tech help, vehicle requests and anything that needs to be done in the next 48 hours.

9:00am Teach yoga. Ahhhhh, a break! A yummy class for breathing into the back.

10:00 Work emails, communication, meetings, etc.

1:25pm Technique class helps load and prep for show

3:00pm Set up tech and run dress rehearsal. Why are dress rehearsals always so bad!? Seriously.

5:30pm Advisory night! Formal dinner with student advisees.

8:30pm Print schedules for art festival. Do semi-final cleanup in dance space.

9:30pm Home and bed!

Saturday

6:00 Wake up!

7:00 Prep studio for extra solo rehearsals.

8:00 Proctor SAT test. This is beyond boring, but for Christmas, it might be worth the extra cash. At least that’s what I tell myself. Word to the wise: never choose a job where you have to sit for 6 hours.

1:30pm Begin full set up for arts festival! Tape marley, finalize light focus, sweep, test music, set up films, etc.

3:00 Go time! The festival was a blast. Students had a great experience performing in a new space. Running tech myself was a nice refresher from college — pay attention in stage tech class!

5:00pm Baby strike! Tape, curtain, gels, anything that can be done in 20 minutes with student help.

7:00pm Music show/film screening/dance performance! Great show! Students inspire me more than anything else. Packed full of great ideas for next semester's collaborations!

Sunday

10:30 Begin full strike! Beyond grateful for my second half. Having never rolled a marley, he patiently rolled them perfectly and helped sweep, mop and wipe Marley. With two people, this took 3 hours. I couldn’t imagine doing that on my own but that’s a reality for most dancers.

2:30pm Playtime! Snowshoeing with friends.

5:30pm Dinner and games with the second half!

10:00pm And the week is done!

*This is an average show week. An average week is everything but tech and strike.

 

To find out more about boarding schools and employment, click here.

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Related posts:

Blog Series: My Dance Week

Blog Series: Becoming a Teaching Artist

The Playlist Project: For High School Dance Classes

A Modern Dancer's Guide to….Salt Lake City

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