Our final visit to the Galaxy space had arrived. In preparation for this workshop, Celeste and I had talked about the way(s) DNA and mitosis are first introduced to kids. So I went on Amazon and looked up "kids books about DNA". One of the first hits was "Have a Nice DNA" by Fran Balkwill & Mic Roplh, published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. It's an interesting book that oddly enough features most of the images I had used with the kids in previous workshops. The illustrations matching the descriptions are a lovely mix of realistic and generalized details. For this visit, we decided to work as one big group the entire time. We began with the group sculpture exercise that we had been doing previously, but this time, after the first student made a sculptural pose, everyone else formed a shape around them so that by the end we didn't just have a 4 or 8-person sculpture, we had close to 20. I led a couple of shape warm-ups, where we tried to move in certain ways and play with movement in various parts of our bodies. Then, I brought out the book and we began moving in ways similar to the phases in mitosis. This workshop played out like most of the others. I read and had one of the students hold up enlarged images that corresponded to what I was saying. The rest of the group then attempted to form the image together. Here's what I read them:
What happens next in a cell with two copies of DNA? Well...
...the cell rests for a while (copying DNA is hard work!).
Then the DNA strands get shorter and fatter - you can see the individual chromosomes.
The chromosomes line up in the center of the cell. They are attached to very fine cables.
Each chromosome breaks into two halves with identical DNA. The two halves are slowly pulled apart by the cables.
The cell begins to split in half. This will make two cells with identical DNA instructions.
The kids were super intrigued by the book and by wanted to understand what the images were. Even though some of them had never been introduced to mitosis, one boy looked at the images and noticed how the last image was exactly like the first one. "How do you think that happened?" I asked him. He didn't really know how to respond, but walked off to a corner with the book in his hands, now curious and intent in figuring out the answer. Throughout the workshop, the kids moved in brilliant ways yet again. Some of them never wanted to leave the floor and performed a beautiful mitosis dance all on a low level! A lot of the kids were gathered around the book once the workshop was over. Some of them even recognized images that were similar to ones we had seen in weeks past, like the ATCG's that symbolize the genetic code or the image of a gel.
Noting that that visit would be our last visit we didn't leave before putting a word in for our upcoming performance with the Dance Ensemble that some of the kids would be featured in! I had just started thinking about how I wanted my presentation of this research to be done in a dance performance-lecture approach and was thinking of having a slideshow of photos of the kids from throughout the semester displayed behind me as I gave my talk and demonstrated some of the workshops we did.
"Why aren't you coming back next week?" one little girl asked.
"Well, we have a performance coming up at the college and we need to get ready for that" we responded. "But you're more than welcome to come!"
"What day is the show?" she asked.
"December 6th, 7th, and 8th" we answered.
She gave her friend a very serious look at that point.
"Oh," she said "that might be a problem. See, we have [friend's] birthday on the 6th, and the Princess Ball on the 7th...but the 8th might work!"
"That would be great!" we said.
She came in close and said in a hushed voice "but, my friend and I might talk during the show."
Our third
time at Galaxy started the same as before. Zoe lead the warm ups and
did a great job getting everyone to begin thinking about creative dance.
Meanwhile, I was finding white boards to tape up the 5 photographs of mitosis that
we had used a few days earlier with the small groups of kids. Seeing as how few
kids were at the workshop where we looked at these beautiful photographs, I
wanted to bring the images to the attention of all the Galaxy kids!
Because the
group was quite full, we decided against working with all 5 images in the right
order, or at all, necessarily. Each group started at one of the images and stuck
with that image for most of the remaining time. I had a group that began by
looking at the image, intent on finding every single detail within the picture
and were totally into translating what they saw into movement. They were very focused, for instance, on the black spot at the lower left corner of the image. Right away the kids had some fantastic ideas about the movement we would use. Some kids were exploring how to dance “the background”, some were
figuring out how to emulate certain parts of the cell, while others were
experimenting with how to be the chromosomes. As we were piecing together
ideas, one young girl declared that we would end the dance by walking in a
grid-like pattern across the space, which would lead us offstage – the same
grid walk we were rehearsing during Dance Ensemble for our final performance!
But in an instant, the focus we had maintained thus far so well was gone. It was our group’s turn to become distracted by the pile of beanbags this time. All the bags were pulled out and promptly began to be thrown about and jumped on. I worked with this diversion, as the bags became the dark spots on the image or the border of the cell. But as more bags were being pulled out, more ideas tossed around, the group inevitably began to fall apart.
Some of the other group leaders were having the same problem at that point so we thought we would just say our good-byes. Most of the groups had dissipated and no one could really piece together a movement. Nonetheless, like the week prior, we had exposed the students to these images that inspired them, even if for only a moment. The workshop allowed them to use the skills of observation, analysis, and synthesis through movement that we have been practicing throughout the semester in an effort to think in a different way. No doubt it was hard for everyone to remain focused after a long day at school. But for the time that we were focused, it was wonderful to see how many different ways we could bring the still image to life.
Galaxy’s
third time at Grinnell proved a completely different experience from the ones
we had had prior and from what anyone was expecting. While we were expecting
the same 30 odd students to walk through the door of the dance studio, only
about 7 came (turns out there was no school that Monday). We had the same
number of kids as we did Ensemble dancers, so we paired them up – one dancer to
every Galaxy student.
For this
workshop, I was planning that the kids would do the workshop that I had done
with the Dance Ensemble regarding mitosis. We started, in the same way, with
the video of mitosis in real-time. I played the video as the kids watched for a
few minutes and then dived into improvisational movement with their partners.
From there, I continued with the photographs of mitosis in 5 stages. So, we started
with the first image. A low murmur pervaded the studio throughout the afternoon
as the kids and their partners conversed and came up with some really unique
movement ideas. They were timid at first. I would be too! Having all the attention
of a college student focused entirely on you and your ideas?! But as the
workshop progressed they got more and more comfortable, as did the dancers from Ensemble
as they figured out the right questions to ask: Can you perform that movement
on a different level? Can you do it in a different part of your body?
It was so
wonderful to hear some of the kids gasp in awe as they were presented with the
different photographs of mitosis in its various stages. The beauty of the
scientific concept was, literally, breathtaking!
It was a
great experience for both parties. Some Ensemble members were inspired by how
imaginative the kids were, by finding ways to move they would never have
thought of, like incorporating movement in their hips, or by finding
similarities to Batman in the some of the photographs! But it was a treat, nonetheless to be able to work on a 1:1 level with the kids. It allowed everyone to become more familiar with each other, to focus, and to be challenged in a way we had never been challenged before.
For my third
workshop with the kids, I planned on working with the idea of mitosis. Mitosis is
a process that seems to be taught almost synonymously with DNA. As soon as DNA
is introduced in a classroom, mitosis is sure to follow up close behind.
I was first
introduced to the idea of dancing mitosis from Celeste, who used this exercise in
the very first rehearsal last fall as we began rehearsing for “Small Elephant Stories”.
We were given a photocopied paper that had little black-and-white figures of
every phase within the process of mitosis. Underneath might have been a couple
of sentences, briefly describing the phase that the image represented. Us
dancers, in groups, came up with movement loosely based on the ideas stated on
that sheet. This was the first time I had ever danced science and I loved the
idea of using different steps of a process to build a movement phrase. However,
for this semester’s purposes, I wanted to largely expand on this idea.
I have found
that when dancers (myself included) are given a sheet of paper with
scientific-esque writing on it and a concept made up of various intricate
details, the information becomes overwhelming. I’ve experienced this not only
from that first mitosis rehearsal but also this semester when we did a Wolff’s
Law workshop.
Wolff’s Law: Bone in a healthy person or
animal will adapt to the loads under which it is placed. If loading on a
particular bone increases, the bone will remodel itself over time to become
stronger to resist that sort of loading. The internal architecture of the
trabeculae undergoes adaptive changes, followed by secondary changed to the
external cortical portion of the bone, perhaps becoming thicker as a result.
The inverse is true as well.
When we were given this definition in rehearsal
and told to use movement to work through the definition, we never took the
proper time or energy to learn the material. As we awkwardly stood in groups,
we skimmed the convoluted definition and dove into movement material loosely
referring to the definition. When reflecting on this experience with Celeste,
we realized that studying and learning does not occur in this way. So why
should it have worked similarly in the dance studio? To gain understanding of a
concept, focused reading, processing the information, and application are all
necessary factors. And this is what I think was missing from the workshops both
with Mitosis and Wolff’s Law. I have mentioned before how important research is
within the process of learning and understanding. The same needed to happen in
the dance space.
At this
point I thought back to another idea concerning movement research that Celeste
introduced me to last fall. She had brought in a video of a dancer that she
worked with who performed a short, 2-minute dance. We watched the video and
then had to understand and dance the “essence” of the movement we had seen.
This technique is one Wayne McGregor talks about in his delightfulTED Talk as he describes
the methods and processes he uses as he choreographs.
With
this in mind, I also thought about science in motion. Technology has not become
so advanced to the point at which every process can be shown to public in
real-time. What we visualize or understand comes from still images, either
still photographs or figures that are to convey a process and the potential
movement behind it. Mitosis has been captured with film, and some of the videos
of mitosis that can be found on YouTube are quite lovely. So I found a video of
mitosis to show at the beginning of the workshop. How amazing that this type of
movement is occurring in our bodies at every moment in time.
I played the video for the dancers and had them sit and write about the type of movement they were seeing. What did the composition of each frame look like? What was the timing of the movement like? How big or little was it? Etc. After writing down their observations and ideas, I asked them to dance the “essence” of the movement. How could they focus each detail of the moving image and put it into their bodies? This was also meant to be a purely improvisational exercise, yet a focused warm-up. How detailed could they get? How could their bodies become an entire frame at every moment, like a film – a moving collection of stills? How much could they play with time and space? How literal or how abstract could they interpret the video of mitosis? How could they get mitosis into their bodies? How could they become mitosis?
Prophase
Prometaphase
Metaphase
Anaphase
Telophase and Cytokinesis
In this state of mind, I proceeded to part 2 of my workshop. Here I presented, in order, 5 stages of
mitosis. I used beautifully photographed images that came from my Introductory Biology textbook. With the dancers in four groups of four dancers, I wanted them to think about composition and showcasing all the parts of an image using multiple people within a dance. Thinking about composition is essential to being a thoughtful, creative, and aware dancer and choreographer and is a skill that can constantly be worked on and practiced as a dancer. I thought it would be valuable, as an ensemble, to practice thinking about composition together. I began by showing an image of Prophase. After viewing the image, they were to recreate a “still” of this image. They were to form a similar composition, like the image, with their bodies, one I could just as easily take a picture with, like the photographer did when the cell was in the process of mitosis. With this first still composition, I moved on to the next image, that of Prometaphase, and they did the same thing. They continued this process with an image of Metaphase, then Anaphase, then Telophase/Citokinesis. With these 5 still compositions ready, I asked them to make a dance in which they used these 5 “stills” yet transitioned through them using the quality of movement they had performed when responding to the video of mitosis.
In the end, each group had their own Mitosis Dance that consisted of 5 specific phases of mitosis, instilled with the quality of movement mitosis undergoes in real-time. Research, cooperation, synthesis, experimentation, stillness and movement all played a role within this workshop that, perhaps, allowed for a more authentic mitosis dance, one that was more deeply understood.
This was an exercise for artful composition making as well as practicing the importance of thoughtful and thorough research that allows for more information to be gained and, therefore, conveyed. The final dances that the dancers came up with were beautiful. Can you recognize the corresponding still images of the dancers and their respective photographed phase?
Galaxy’s
second visit to the Grinnell College dance studio deviated from my scientific
theme and had to do more with increasing the kids’ familiarity of creative
dance, dance making, and dance composition. They had done a wonderful job the
first time they came, but Celeste and I thought it would be a good idea to
reiterate some basic structures that coincide with creative dance. In this way,
the kids could not only practice this mode of thinking but also use these tools
of dance when applying movement to science.
We began as we normally do, by standing in a large circle and introducing ourselves with movement. We warmed up using the exercise in which one individual forms a shape in the middle of the circle. One by one more individuals make shapes around the first, so that by the end we have one large, multi-person sculpture. The group then has 8 counts to slowly find a way to get into a different position, thereby creating an entire new sculpture. This was a way to play with various levels as well as positive and negative space. We continued with variations of this exercise using both large and small groups of dancers before we moved on to the final portion of the workshop.
The workshop continued by viewing images that we normally think of as still, instead, as moving ones. Celeste brought in a number of items: a scarf, a magazine, and an umbrella. While these are normally static items, she manipulated them in certain ways so that we could think about and create interesting movement. The scarf was let go from a very high point, and floated to the ground. The umbrella began as closed, but after the push of a button ballooned to its opened state. The magazine’s pages were flipped at a rapid speed. We could think about this type of movement in a variety of ways while using many parts of our bodies. Some kids performed all the movement on the ground, while others traveled across the studio.
This allowed the students to think about movement and movement inspiration differently, which I think was just as valuable for the dancers of the Dance Ensemble to think about as well. This visit from Galaxy was also a valuable one to us dancers because of the flexibility and patience we needed to maintain throughout. After a long day at school, the kids were hyper (to say the least) and brought in enough energy to have me exhausted for the rest of the week. However, this proved to be a great exercise in patience and adaptability – no doubt, some valuable lessons.
