Posts Tagged ‘publisher’

 by Rhee Gold

There are many ways to measure success in the dance education field. Some people might see a degree in dance as true success. For others, it might be owning a school with 500 students or training many dancers who move on to professional careers. Still others measure it by the awards their students have won at competitions. For many teachers and school owners, success isn’t about the business; instead, it’s completely personal, like having a well-balanced dance and family life.

When you see people whom you perceive to be successful, are you intrigued by how they managed to pull it off? Are you anxious to learn from their example? Do you admire their ability to focus and make their dreams come true? Or do you envy their success? Do you tell yourself that they are where they are because they know someone or somehow cheated their way to achieve what you perceive as success? Or maybe you simply believe that you are better and deserve to be where they are, and they don’t?

I can tell you that responding yes to the first three questions will move you closer to your own aspirations a lot more quickly than the last three, and this is why: Being intrigued means that you want to know more, and wanting to know more means that you will grow and learn from successful people because you are open to expanding your own horizons.

On the other hand, if you envy someone’s success or justify it with negative excuses, you are subliminally telling yourself that you won’t get there yourself because you don’t have the same circumstances. That mentality never gives you a chance to experience the inspiration that successful people have to offer.

You have the same blood, passion, and soul as any successful person. Those tools are inside each of us; however, if you don’t allow yourself to access them, then you can’t succeed.

While contemplating how you define your own success, consider that most successful people have made many sacrifices along their journey. For example, that school owner whom you envy because she has 800 students might spend seven days a week at her school to keep up with her responsibilities. Maybe she has no personal life and dreams of a day when she can spend time with her kids. Could it be that she would perceive you to be successful because you need to be at your school only a few days a week and you have time to spend with your family?

The gift of success comes in a different package for each of us. And that’s OK. Let all the negative thoughts and jealousies go by the wayside; instead, respect those who are in a different place than you are (at the moment). If they have something you believe you want, pull out your tools to get yourself there.

Words from the publisher

I was first exposed to dance as a toddler during the 1960s, and at that time most private schools offered only ballet and tap, though some offered acrobatics as well. But by the late 1960s, jazz dance had begun to sweep the nation. Throughout the 1970s teachers flocked to intensives, conventions, and training schools to learn from jazz masters who were (and still are) known simply by their first names: Gus, Luigi, and Matt. Soon jazz classes became a staple at schools throughout the United States and the world. Looking back, I think dance people wanted more freedom to feel the music and the movement. Jazz was it!

During jazz dance’s early days, some teachers snubbed their noses at what they considered to be a fad. In their minds it wasn’t real dance. Some school owners called their programs “Modern Jazz,” thinking that name sounded more respectable. But the great masters and their protégés created solid techniques that instill a strong base in jazz dancers.

Now, some 40 years later, jazz dance is still evolving, and in my opinion it will be for a long time. The jazz revolution has led us to lyrical, hip-hop, and contemporary, all of which I have heard today’s teachers refer to as fads. I keep wondering, “Does a fad last 40 years?”

What’s funny about the whole thing is that the 21st century has also brought a resurgence of modern technique, which is now being taught in numerous schools across the country. Students are learning who Lester Horton, Martha Graham, and José Limón were and about the differences in their techniques. On So You Think You Can Dance, young dancers with dreams of going pro are learning Broadway dance, the cancan, samba, and cha-cha. Once upon a time, a ballet dancer would never cross the line into a modern-dance world, or vice versa. Today, world-famous ballet companies are presenting modern works and even hip-hop.

We are experiencing evolution while coming full circle at the same time. Those in our community who are determined to define a style or technique are having a hard time. The syllabuses can’t be written yet, and it could be that this period in dance history isn’t about coming up with the definitions. For now, maybe it’s about the art of expressing the emotions of life and the passion that is dance.

If we embrace the reality that dance is an art form that is literally on the move, developing in new incarnations while revisiting the so-called fads of previous generations, then we are living through one of the greatest periods in dance history. As artists and choreographers you have no boundaries; your role is to add your own flavor to this evolution. And how cool is that? Each of us contributes to the next 40-year “fad,” and I can’t wait to see what it will become.

Words from the publisher

They don’t perform grand leaps, not one fouetté turn nor a single pirouette, and there’s no flash at all. Yet you watch them with your mouth open, while that head-to-toe body chill takes over your full being for a few moments as you settle into the greatness before your eyes.

You know the feeling—it’s the one we experience when we see phenomenal dancers or companies perform a masterpiece. Yet the dancers I’m writing about are not the ones who receive rave reviews from the dance critic in the New York Times. Actually, they probably wouldn’t come up on the radar of any critic or some people who think they know great dance. But to me—and I know I’m not alone—Company d, a Memphis-based group that bills itself on its website as “a performing arts troupe of young adults with Down Syndrome,” is capable of taking its audience to the same place any professional performance could.

So what is great dance and who created the meter by which we judge it? I wonder how high on that meter a group of dancers who move you with their spirit or joy would be. Might they land in the same place on the meter as the arabesque in relevé with perfect turnout and a fabulous line? Could the sense of accomplishment radiating from the dancers’ spirits make the meter rise at all? I don’t know.

If a 62-year-old man who always wanted to tap dance finally gets himself a pair of tap shoes, along with the guts to walk into a class, will he feel the same sense of accomplishment as the ballet company soloist who is finally performing the piece she only dreamed of a few years back? I wonder.

Is the student who comes to class once a week, who has a passion that you can feel when she enters the room, at the same place on the meter as the girl who is there every day, taking every class, and has no passion but believes she is awesome?

Would the 6-year-old cancer patient who is in dance therapy, moving her arms over her head, pretending to be a ballerina, land anywhere on the meter? I’m not sure.

OK, so why am I not sure? Because I always hear dance people say, “Oh, she’s fierce,” when they see a dancer execute some fabulous trick, while they pooh-pooh the 62-year-old guy in tap shoes.

I’m not sure because a lot of the dance we see today is judged for its technical feats and passion has nothing to do with it. It happens on our television sets every week; it happens on dance competition stages every week; and it happens in the classrooms where dancers are striving only to be better than someone else.

This I do know: The publisher of Dance Studio Life would pay twice the ticket price to see Company d perform as he would any great dance company.

By the time you read this the November election will be behind us and we will have come to terms with what a new president means for this country. Along with the many truths that have surfaced during the arduous two years of the campaign is the evidence that ethical behavior is far more rare in the world than we’d like it to be.

Taking the high road—avoiding gossip and negativity, focusing on what you do best instead of what you think your competition does poorly, accepting the fact that diversity in an industry is the responsible way to meet a wide range of people’s needs—is a topic we’ve touched on often in the past, both in editorials and in the types of stories we run in Dance Studio Life. As a former dance teacher and school owner, Rhee faced the challenge coping with those who didn’t share his values. And we’re facing it now in the publishing world, as we see mounting evidence that a competitor is attempting to undermine—or at least that’s how it seems—Dance Studio Life and the Rhee Gold Company.

Though this kind of less-than-admirable behavior is disturbing, we have confidence that the passion behind our mission and the dedication of our readers to the values reflected in a quality dance education—and on our pages—give us an advantage. We’re not strategizing
about how to undermine the competition; that’s a waste of our time, which we’d rather spend delivering an excellent product to our readers. Dance Studio Life is headed into its fifth year of publication, and to judge by reader feedback, the magazine provides what you want and need.
That will continue to be our goal, regardless of the obstacles put in our way. Obstacles can lead to good things sometimes—that’s certainly the case with the emergence of jazz dance in this country. Out of the horrendous practice of slavery came a new form of expression in music and dance. Its evolution has been a fascinating unfurling of creativity fueled by human need and emotion, and it continues to this
day. Our focus on jazz dance in this issue will reveal this dance form’s complexity and compelling nature and is sure to inspire some of you to make it a bigger part of your lives.

Not only jazz dance but the dance world as a whole is continually shaped by the diverse personalities that inhabit it, as teachers, choreographers, and performers as well as those who dance, in classrooms and on social dance floors, only for the joy of it. Diversity makes us rich. Take pride in who you are and the good you bring to the art form of dance and to the students and audiences you touch.
Whatever success you are experiencing was born of the unique circumstances of your life. No one can replicate that. That’s what those who focus on their competitors don’t understand. Each dance school, company, artistic director, choreographer, performer, and—yes—dance-related magazine is a gift to those who inhabit our little corner of the world.

In an ethical society, there’s room for everyone. Here at Dance Studio Life, we strive for breadth that will enrich our readers’ lives, as well as those of their students and loved ones. As we head into a future that holds the potential for change under new leadership, we hope you’ll share our desire for inclusiveness. Ethics can shape our lives—if we let it.