Posts Tagged ‘Debbie Steingesser’

Enhance your dance classes with concepts and practices borrowed from yoga

By Sophia Emigh

We’ve all seen them—classes called “Yoga Dance” or “Yoga Bootie Ballet,” mixed in among the traditional ballet or jazz offerings. But this trend—the crossover between dance and yoga—has something deeper to offer than the average craze. With even a beginner’s understanding of how yoga can augment traditional dance classes, teachers can integrate it into their dance classes in simple ways: as part of a warm-up or cool-down, as preventative care against injury, as restorative care during recovery, or to promote awareness of the body–mind connection.

Two teachers join dance and yoga
Two San Francisco-based teachers, Brianna Taylor and Debbie Steingesser, have long used yoga to connect with the more subtle qualities of dance.

Taylor came to yoga when she first took modern and African dance classes as a dance major at the University of Colorado at Boulder. There, she discovered disciplines such as yoga, tai chi, and martial arts being blended into her dance classes. In addition to taking modern, African, and yoga classes weekly and choreographing with SoShe’s Performance Collective, she teaches two varieties of movement classes. One integrates yoga and energy awareness for students who lack a technical dance background; in another, more dance-oriented one, she opens and closes the class with yoga postures.

Steingesser also studied West African dance after training in jazz, tap, ballet, and modern dance. She discovered yoga in high school in a modern class with Lynn Brown at Brant Lake [NY] Dance Camp, where he introduced a 10-minute relaxation period that she equates to savasana, or “corpse pose” in yoga. After studying under Saul David Raye, Dana Flynn, and Baxter Bell, and West African masters Alseny Soumah, Djeneba Sako, and Youssouf Koumbassa, Steingesser now teaches her own style, called “Afro Flow Yoga,” in addition to traditional vinyasa flow yoga and dance classes.

Taylor and Steingesser both teach classes that approach yoga from a traditional dance class perspective and others that explore elements of dance within the structure of a yoga class. Both teachers speak about yoga’s ability to move attention away from perfect aesthetic performance and toward self-awareness and joy of moving. Yet yoga can enhance technical discipline; it can create grounded strength in the body and help dancers prevent injury by teaching them how to listen to internal messages.

Finding a balance
In an early ballet class, Taylor remembers being told, “Look at yourself in the mirror, and if you don’t like what you’re seeing, change it.” This emphasis on visual presentation at the expense of inner confidence turned Taylor cold, and she worries that students will believe they aren’t good enough if they don’t look a certain way. And from a strictly physical viewpoint in African-based dance classes, Steingesser is wary of the lack of deep stretching in class warm-ups that consist more of “just doing movements that will lead into the dance, like a watered-down version of the movement.”

According to Taylor, the key to integrating yoga and dance is to focus on yoga’s emphasis on “being where you are within [a disciplined] practice and being present, not forcing something to change,” rather than beating yourself up if you’re not doing a step correctly.

Of course, challenges can be found in yoga classes as well, where Steingesser often sees “a basic stiffness in bodies.” She starts every class on the ground to encourage a sense of connection and rootedness so that sukham, or lightness and ease, can then emerge in the rest of the class from a safe foundation of steadiness, or sthiram.

Yoga’s offering
While the word “yoga” means “to yoke” in Sanskrit, people commonly translate it as meaning a state of union. In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, a foundational text dating back between 100 BCE and 500 CE, yoga is defined more specifically as “the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind.” In other words, yoga aspires to a state of inner wholeness and connection to a bigger picture, above the daily dramas and mental obsessions that distract us.

Yoga’s overall intention is to increase understanding of the body and its relationship to the inner and outer world. Thus, incorporating yoga practices into dance classes can help to introduce concepts or qualities of movement, rather than promoting the perfection of a specific step. Taylor often teaches movement concepts that she asks students to follow but not necessarily imitate. For instance, she says, “the idea of swinging is about feeling momentum within yourself.” Even when teaching choreography, she focuses on finding out how her movement can resonate uniquely in someone else’s body.

At its best, yoga can provide a sense of connection to one’s body, fostering self-confidence within a framework of discipline and focus. This is especially crucial in young dancers who may be more prone to self-judgment due to dance’s aesthetic demands. Steingesser credits this connection to yoga’s focus on awareness of the breath: “The second you connect movement to your breath, it takes you out of the pure physical and into the energetic body. You never think about your breath when you’re dancing. Connecting your movements to the pattern of your breathing slows down the mind, giving it something to focus on and connecting you into a state of being present.”

Nuts and bolts of yoga fusion
When teaching dancers, Taylor says, “I typically start with yoga because I feel like it brings a sense of foundation within your own body. The way it’s structured also helps me focus more on internal alignment. Starting with yoga helps to ground me as a teacher, and it’s my belief that it helps to ground students too. It’s about going inside yourself and allowing the movement to come out, rather than trying to make shapes happen or trying to copy the way somebody else is moving.”

In an effective full-class sequence, you might include a moment to center the mind before working with the body, either in a seated position with the eyes closed or in a calming posture like balasana (child’s pose). Then do a gentle warm-up, bringing warmth to the whole body before delving into challenging sequences that could tear cold muscles. (Deeper stretches are more appropriate for the end of class.)

Next, you could leave traditional yoga postures behind for dance sequences, followed by time for deep stretching and a cool-down section to bring the energy back down to a safe and grounded level. You could also incorporate some breath work (pranayama) at the beginning or end of class to bring awareness to the inner body and the ability of conscious breathing to maintain focus and energy.

At the end of class, resting positions like corpse or child’s pose allow the dancers to absorb their work before transitioning into the next part of the day. If your students are unused to having quiet time at the end of class, guide them through it with calming words that encourage them to let go of self-judgment or effort.

Steingesser believes that this quiet time can be transformative, especially for dancers preparing for performance. Intentionally taking time to note the sensations of the breath and body when not dancing “can take you right out of your mind and right back into your breath and into your body.”

You don’t need to integrate yoga into an entire dance class to see its benefits. Steingesser encourages teachers to start small: Take a yoga class and notice what works for you. Is there a particular posture that reminds you of a dance step you’ve taught and might give it a stronger foundation? You might pick a single asana (pose) that speaks to you and see how you can adapt it to the style of your class. For instance, the simple cat/cow spine warm-up might take on a slow, fluid quality in a lyrical class or have a more accented quality in a jazz class. Or perhaps a breathing exercise would add interesting new momentum to a dance combination.

Beyond the integration of physical postures into dance classes, explore how to bring other aspects of yoga into your teaching as well. For instance, Taylor starts her classes in a circle to foster a sense of community, “holding space for each other as you’re holding space for yourself to explore.”

Listen deeper
Yoga can encourage your students to explore movement in their bodies. Taylor asks, “Are you pushing
yourself enough to grow? But then not going so far that you’re trying to force something to happen? There’s a gentle balance between those two things, and learning to listen more deeply to them is what yoga is all about.”

Tips From Taylor and Steingesser

To prepare:

• If you’re a teacher, consider taking a series of yoga classes or a yoga teacher training to deepen your knowledge of alignment and inner body awareness and discover how you might expand your teaching practice.
• Try a variety of yoga or yoga-fusion classes to see what suits you best. There’s a world of difference between a slow restorative class and an intense Ashtanga class, or between alignment-based Iyengar and flow-based vinyasa.
• As Steingesser says, “Stand on the shoulders of your teachers.” Pay attention to how and when experienced yoga teachers’ sequences open up the body. When are they doing hip openers or backbends? Then introduce a condensed version of that in your warm-up.
• Make it your own! Cultivate your own daily dance or yoga practice and incorporate your small discoveries into class, one at a time. Steingesser says, “Let everything mush together. If you have a ballet, samba, and Iyengar [yoga] background, your practice is going to look incredible!”
• Teach from where you are. Share with your students what connects you to yoga, whether it is foundation-strengthening poses, flowing sequences, or breath work.
• If your teachers are unfamiliar with yoga, try adding a yoga class into the school’s schedule to help your dancers develop awareness against injury and broaden their practice. Or hire a yoga teacher to work with your teachers on asanas that will help dancers in various genres.

In class:

• Build trust with your students. Introduce small elements of yoga little by little so they feel safe incorporating a new movement vocabulary into a form of dance they already know and love.
• Start class with movements that emphasize groundedness before the flow accelerates.
• Mix in deeper stretches with traditional repetitive movements like pliés.
• Connect the shapes of warm-up asanas to more dynamic dance movements later on to create a sense of cohesion throughout the class.
• Give students a general frame of movement to use and then ask them to do a few more rounds on their own to discover what changes when they’re not imitating someone else.
• Encourage your students to connect with the natural rhythm of their breath as a simple way of fostering internal awareness throughout class.

Sample Yoga Sequences

Taylor’s sample sequence:
1. Start in child’s pose to quiet the mind.
2. Warm up the spine with cat/cow, downward-facing dog, then plank and cobra.
3. Move slowly through standing poses that establish the body’s connection to the ground: sun salutations, warrior 1 and 2, triangle, extended side angle, half moon pose.
4. With feet hip-distance apart or wider, bounce up and down. Follow the energy from the tailbone through the spine and out through the crown of the head and back down.
5. Integrate the arms with circles that follow the energy from the heart out through the fingertips.
6. Circle the hips in both directions with bent knees.
7. Swing the arms; find the pelvis’ swing; feel the momentum of your weight.
8. With movement exploration, integrate the concepts of previous yoga postures and movement sequences. Explore the space and movement qualities using the information from the beginning of class. Build momentum, then slow down to contain the exploration.
9. Close with a few gentle postures to calm the nervous system. End the way class began: in child’s pose.

Steingesser’s sample sequence:
1. Begin with gentle poses: downward-facing dog, child’s pose, pigeon, and thread-the-needle on your back.
2. Dance-influenced hip openers, shoulder openers, and contract and release encourage a sense of fluidity in standing poses.
3. Do a few solid standing poses to build the foundation for the rest of class.
4. Include a 10-minute interlude of swaying, swinging, shaking, and a walking meditation with eyes closed and arms swinging, leading into free-form dancing. Encourage students to close their eyes and get inside the natural movement of their bodies and out of their minds.
5. Near the end of class, return to opening poses to bring the energy down.
6. Add deep forward bends and hip openers so everything comes back to the ground.
7. End with restorative poses like baddha konasana, forward fold, or supta baddha konasana: shapes that open the hips and low back and release energy. You may incorporate breath work into these poses or separately.
8. End with savasana or deep relaxation.

Resources
Yoga posture library, with detailed information about the alignment and benefits of each pose: yogajournal.com/poses/finder/browse_categories
Descriptions of types of yoga classes: abc-of-yoga.com/info/yoga-styles.asp