Looking after the teachers

Do you remember when you were a student in your first dance school?  As I recall, at first it was strange, then gradually became fun, then suddenly filled with excitement, comradeship and a pleasure in dancing which morphed into passion. It was difficult. You really had to work hard to try and meet the demands of the teachers. Just when you thought you could almost do something (stand on one leg on half-pointe holding onto the barre, for example) the stuff would get more difficult (suddenly having to do it without the barre, and knowing that it was actually never going to be possible, until one day, it was). There was a dedication to the ideal of it, clearly unattainable, but so satisfying to make the attempt, again and again, and slowly to find that, even though you weren’t dancing well, just being able to do anything at all with it gave you a fierce, private joy. Not so private really, because everyone else felt the same, working as hard as they could to try and achieve this strange, almost surreal thing that was only there for a second, fleeting to the point of evanescence. Everyone shared the same secret passion, a delight in dancing that had absolutely nothing to do with outside reality, impossible to explain to people who didn’t know about it. For me, this was pure love, a love that kept me going, trying and trying again, every time, to find this elusive thing that would change constantly, every time I thought I almost glimpsed it.

Remember the overwhelming excitement of performing onstage, the sense of privilege and pride that came from being part of the show? Nothing in everyday life even came close. Of course you had to go to school, do the mundane stuff like algebra or physical education or assemblies or homework, but that was insignificant beside the unbelievable exhilaration of the theatre, the dressing-rooms, backstage, ONSTAGE. The blazing lights, the rich costumes, the smell of makeup, the power of the music, the complete beauty of it (whatever it was, one’s own show was always beautiful). This was a three-dimensional fantasy world, where nothing humdrum ever intruded, where glorious possibilities lurked around every corner. Even at rest, a theatre is beautiful – that mysterious blue-grey light filtering down from the flies, the quietness, the sense of waiting for something extraordinary that you absolutely know is going to unfold, sooner or later, on this very spot.

“Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would fain ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide
And dance with you upon the mountains like a flame“.
— William Butler Yeats, The Land of Heart’s Desire

And you’d take it home with you afterwards, finding make-up on your pillow the next morning, dreaming through the day, desperate for the next performance, the next rehearsal, the next chance to be with the others. This private passion, this secret knowledge of the infinitely wonderful world of dance created powerful bonds with others on the same quest, and you knew with absolute certainty that there was nobody in the world as good and fascinating and admirable and wonderful as dancers. For people who carry on dancing, who make it into the profession and wind up doing many, many performances as their job, this fierce passion is still there somewhere – there are very few dancers who really want to change their jobs, even after years of exhausting, constant work.

“You don’t stop dancing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop dancing.“
— Agnes de Mille

The thing is, though, sooner or later, time forces you to do just that. It’s a traumatic moment, and most dancers find it very difficult to leave dance. Some of them (like me) never do so. They stay on as teachers, or ballet masters, or they work in some of the other multiple ancillary jobs in the theatre – notators, rehearsal assistants, administrators, wardrobe or backstage or make-up technicians. In this way they achieve a transition to “civilian” life which, while it may not be prosperous or comfortable, is nonetheless a way of staying in the theatre, keeping in touch with the magic.

“A dancer, more than any other human being, dies two deaths: the first, the physical when the powerfully trained body will no longer respond as you would wish. After all, I choreographed for myself. I never choreographed what I could not do. I changed steps in Medea and other ballets to accommodate the change. But I knew. And it haunted me. I only wanted to dance.”
— Martha Graham

Teachers are a special case here. They may have had to stop performing, but they still dance actively, all day, every day. A point you may not have noticed when you were a student is that teachers seem to have endless quantities  of steps for you to do. Choreography and training exercises pour out of them, like constant hot and cold running water. Students seldom ask where all these steps come from.  There are simply steps every day, punctually served up for you to try to execute, and if you’re having trouble with the execution, there is the teacher, demonstrating for you over and over again, repeating the process as often as necessary to bring you a little further on your journey, and then doing it all again for the people in the class after yours, and the class after that, and the next one, all day every day until late in the evening. These are mature adults we’re talking about, people who have danced for decades, and who have their own baggage of chronic injuries and stress. Because stress is what it is, creating and dancing steps and exercises or even teaching established syllabus as though on a choreographic conveyor belt, with a body that is no longer in shape for this kind of load, and which never gets the chance to warm up or to rest properly.

These are the people who put you onstage, who choreographed and designed the performances which you so loved, who taught you and rehearsed you and congratulated and consoled you, who challenged you and put you through your exams and worried about you and planned for you endlessly, spending every free second on you and your classes and your future. And these are the people whom you one day suddenly left, as all students leave their teachers.

That bit is hard for teachers, when someone on whom they lavished so much time and care and love and effort is no longer there, and will very soon forget how much they meant to the people who taught and looked after them. But teachers go on, because they have to. There are other students to teach, all needing just as much time and care and generosity as you did, and besides, everyone needs to work.

“The teacher doesn’t teach, not really. The teacher offers stimulation and ways in which the person can educate himself or herself. At best the teacher wakes that person up and makes a person hungry.”
— Murray Louis

Teachers have a particular problem – if they don’t teach, they don’t get paid. Even if they’re ill, or gradually becoming unable to deal with the stress or the physical discomfort of it, they still have to teach. This is the other side of the coin. They have to go on, no matter how painful it may be, just to survive.

I’ve worked with great dancers who became exceptional teachers, with wonderful second careers. They were known and loved in companies and academies all over the world, and they taught and coached and helped hundreds of amazing dancers. Time caught up with them though, and for some it was very painful. As they began to age, but still kept on teaching, travelling, working all the time, bones and joints began to fail, yet every morning at ten they’d still hobble painfully into the studio for Company class, then coach the principals or soloists all day, maybe teach the warmup barre in the evening. I think they had a difficult time.

It’s even harder for teachers running their own small schools, who may never have had enough money left over to save anything, perhaps have only a very meagre pension, and pretty much have to go on teaching, just to stay alive. That’s a rough ride for a little old person who has spent her dancing life giving inspiration and help and encouragement to everyone else, without ever getting much tangible appreciation back.

Put yourself in her shoes for a moment.  You wake up, having spent the night remembering and dreaming about your past life.  Get up, and the bone pain kicks in, but you can’t do anything about that, you’ve still got classes to teach.  Not as many as there used to be — the school is getting smaller, but there are still a few kids.  Get down there, open up, open the postbox.  There are the usual bills and a letter from the landlord asking for last  month’s rent (overdue) and this month’s (due now).  The rent will be going up at the end of the year as well.

The bell rings, a few people arrive for the first class.  Three are  missing — one you haven’t seen for a couple of weeks, and she’s probably going to give up — the other two haven’t bothered to let you know they’re  not coming.  Of the few that are actually there, one can’t afford to pay anything, so you teach her for free.  One of the others is always late paying, and you’ll have to get after her family again, as they’re always a month behind.  The day grinds on, and you’re hurting more and more.  Some students are trying hard, others look bored and resentful, sometimes downright rude.  You haven’t put anyone in for exams for a couple of years (too much administration, and  the system keeps changing).  Maybe they’re fed up about that.

You can’t afford a pianist, so you teach to recordings — old CD discs which are now wearing out, so quite a lot of the music you used to use is just not playable any more.  You push on, using the same tunes all day, then lock up late in the evening, moving slowly from room to room, turning out the lights and the heating.  You leave your dark studio and make your painful way home to your small, unlit, deserted accommodation, cold and damp now, as you don’t leave the heating on when you’re out (too expensive).  You make something to eat, and go to bed alone, unable to sleep, worrying about money and the future, and hurting in more places than the painkillers can reach.

Wouldn’t it be good if one day the phone would ring, and a student whom you haven’t seen for years were on the line, asking you out to a show next week — she’s got a spare ticket, and maybe you could all go out to dinner first, she’d love to invite you.  How are you — is everything all right?  Anything she can do to help?  How’s the studio going?  Could she come and watch some time?  Do you need anything?  Are you happy?

Just think about that for a moment.  That one phone call, that moment of consideration from someone who owes their career to that teacher, would make such an enormous difference.  The mere fact of contact might be life-changing (possibly even life-saving…).

“No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.”                                                               — Agnes de Mille

If you have had, or know of a teacher who might be in this position, it would be a great thing to stay in touch, make a bit of a fuss over them, show you appreciate their years of dedication and selflessness – a way of tactfully saying thank you to them and all the teachers like them who gave us the wonderful adventure that is our dancing life.

They gave us this life — they have richly deserved our thanks!

© Jeremy Leslie-Spinks

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