Vicky Shick. Photo by Kegan Marling.

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

Happy February 29th! I hope that you have had a great month. Today I wanted to share posts from the past month on the blog, some books I have been reading, and some other articles of note from colleagues.

A Home for Improvisation at "Never Before Never Again" – Sarah Chien

This Time (Reflections After “Never Before Never Again”) – Pamela Vail and the Architects

Encounters with Vicky Shick – Valerie Gutwirth

Continuing to work on what you're working on – Megan Nicely

One Good Quote: MidCentury Blue(s) with the Wax Poet(s)

Post-Performance Reflections on MidCentury Blue(s) with the Wax Poet(s) – Bhumi B. Patel and Sarah JG Chenoweth

Creating a New Model and Landscape for Dance Criticism and Dance Reflection: Honoring Artists' Voices and Offering Multiple Viewpoints – Jill Randall

Inviting Us In: Four Ideas Around Marketing and Communication For Your Next Performance – Jill Randall

Repost: How Can I Practice Dance Technique Without Being Frustrated by Learning Steps? – Suzanne Beahrs

Another Site!

I am excited to launch another site – New Dance Writers – to support essays, musings, and reviews by college students and high school students. Please consider joining in! Find out more here, and submit pieces to me at randalldanceprojects@gmail.com. Thank you!

Books of Late

Not going to write full reviews here, but wanted to give shout outs to

Futures of Dance Studies – a hefty 537 pages of 28 essays by emerging dance scholars , covering a wide range of topics such as dance history, gender, sexuality, sites, politics, and economics. I especially enjoyed Sarah Wilbur's essay, "Who Makes a Dance? Studying Infrastructure through a Dance Lens." Edited by Susan Manning, Janice Ross, and Rebecca Schneider

Hot Feet and Social Change: African Dance and Diaspora Communities – a valuable addition to dance history courses. This book highlights African dance and diasporic dance in 8 U.S. cities. I especially appreciated the essay on improvisation, considering the practice in both African dance and modern dance. Edited by Kariamu Welsh, Esailama G.A. Diouf, and Yvonne Daniel

Dance on the Historically Black College Campus by Wanda K.W. Ebright. Ebright gives the background on how Historically Black Colleges began in the United States, and then she surveys 5 HBCU schools, including one in which she taught. Ebright looks at all of the ways dance exists on a campus, from courses to social events to dance teams. 

We also ran a book group yesterday at my nonprofit about Nyama McCarthy-Brown's 2017 book Dance Pedagogy for a Diverse World. Highly recommend reading this if you are a dance educator! Highly recommend using this in any dance pedagogy course you teach for undergraduates and graduate students! I so wish I read this book at age 21. 

I also am a time/productivity/work culture/leadership book nerd. Wanted to give a shout out to How Time is On Your Side by Bridget Watson Payne. Don't be deceived by the small size of the book. Payne poses many thoughtful questions here about how we spend our time and how we value our time. It feels almost like a super distilled version of Overwhelmed by Brigid Shulte (which is also a great book, but very dense and 286 pages). How Time is On Your Side is a nice companion to How to Not Always Be Working by dancer Marlee Grace. And while I am at it, and if you are time-obsessed right now too, just one more mention of The Sweet Spot: How to Find Your Groove at Home and Work by Christine Carter. I loved listening to the audiobook of it a few years back, and I just pulled the hard copy off of the shelf this week again to read the "Easing the 'Overwhelm'" section.

Other Articles to Highlight Today

An ounce of self-promotion here, but this is a recent article I wrote for dance-teacher.com called A Simple Checklist to Complete, Before You Take on Yet Another Teaching Gig.

Please also take a few minutes to read Yolanda Bonnell's important Why I’m Asking White Critics Not to Review My Show.

If you are a teaching artist: “Does Your Face Light Up?”: Five Words That Changed My Teaching and Parenting

If you are an arts administrator: Can A Mindful Leadership Purposeful Pause Give You 20/20 Vision?

Diversity, equity, and inclusion in the arts: Let’s Get Real About Why Women of Color Are So Tired

Plus, an e-course recommendation: Embodied Wealth with Elizabeth Husserl (begins March 21, 2020)

 

Thank you for reading Life as a Modern Dancer! As I mentioned on January 29th, I am committed to paying EVERY writer this year a stipend for each piece. Please consider donating $2, $3, or $5 a month through Patreon to support the 100+ pieces on Life as a Modern Dancer in 2020. Thank you! Contribute here.

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