Yoga and Ethics in High School
Jodi P. Falk, M.F.A., C.L.M.A.

In the past three years, I have taught yoga classes to students at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School, in addition to my job as Dance Director. This school already is an open environment; the students are generally interested in the arts (although as a charter school we have a lottery instead of an audition admissions procedure) and the Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts is known for its larger-than-national-average proportion of left-of-center thinkers. This allowed me to teach yoga as a holistic discipline, meaning not just as a series of steps and poses, but as a way of thinking and being in the world that is many thousands of years old.

As the primary dance teacher, I know about the power of movement as a form of release, fun, self-empowerment, practice in discipline, and psycho-physical integration. I also know that focusing on each form that is taught in our school: ballet, modern, jazz, African, break-dance, funk, tap, choreography, Laban analysis for actors and dancers, among others, can sometimes compartmentalize the movement learning into specific skills for specific actions. Teaching yoga as a holistic discipline allows me to do two important things: teach from a perspective that opens my own mind to new possibilities existing outside my dance knowledge base, and reach a larger population of students that might not find themselves inside a dance studio but who wish to connect to their body-minds.

Although yoga can produce a limber, strong, and centered body, the actual goal of yoga itself can be found in the English translation of its name -- union. Yoga is a way to achieve a unified being – unified in body, mind, emotions and spirit. It isn’t very yogic to embody the poses, or asanas, with presence and calmness, to challenge oneself with humility and compassion, and then leave the studio and commit road rage, verbally abuse your fellow classmates, or on the other side of the spectrum hide yourself and your talents from others due to fear or lack of confidence. Yoga is a practice that makes its practitioners more humane, calm, powerful, and insightful. Yoga, according to author and yogi Stephen Cope, is about the “twin pillars of clear seeing and calm abiding,”(1) being able to see clearly oneself and one’s actions and thoughts, and also to create equanimity and compassion about oneself and one’s actions and thoughts.

One of the pathways toward union that yogis practice is called the yamas, or ethical principles. Here we get into tricky territory in a public school, yet due to the open-mindedness of my administration and colleagues, I decided to plunge in and teach these principles in an interactive way. The following is an outline of this unit of the course, and some of the reactions of the students who participated. This unit follows weeks of doing the poses, or asanas, and breath techniques or pranayama. Toward the end of the course I also have them do a karma yoga (service through action) project in their community.

Yamas and Character Education

The yoga class is focused primarily on postures and breathing techniques, but two weeks in the cycle of 15 are spent learning about the five main ethical principles and how they may create new awareness and changes in our lives.

In class, we take as a starting point an article written by Judith Lasater in Yoga Journal called Beginning Journey.”(2) This article frames the yamas in contemporary, practical ways. Students read the article, and usually pretty lively discussions follow: “Does practicing non-violence mean I can’t get angry at my sister?” “Is it greed if I don’t share food with someone who needs it when I need it too?” and, on a more charged note, “When I go to the mosh dances, we bump into each other and hit each other purposely. Is this violent?”

Students choose a yama that they wish to “work on” for two weeks and then record in a journal the resulting awareness and actions that arise. For instance, they note when the desire for violent thought arises, whether it is toward themselves or others, consider their options, and write down the results. Just noting when it arises may be all it takes for thoughts to shift. Another student may see that asteya, non-stealing, as Lasater explains can also mean not stealing from yourself, not hiding your talents or needs. She may decide to go ahead and practice her piano or take the risk of auditioning for the school musical and give herself the gift of fulfilling her potential. The five yamas, in contemporary re-working are: ahimsa, non-violence; asteya, non-stealing; satya, truth-telling; bramicharya, presence and total commitment; and aparigraha, non-greed. I stress to the students that becoming aware may or may not result in change, but it is the first step. The goal is not necessarily to change, although many of the students begin to see the benefits of reviewing their thoughts and actions. The goal is to see how many times these ethical principles are called for in our lives. The choices they make after noticing that are theirs.

Some Results

A young woman in my class, working on ahimsa, or non-violence, noted how many times she was nasty to her sister. She decided to try to be nicer, or at least walk away instead of producing verbal venom. She began to actually like her sister more and had more positive interactions with her.

A young man, who has been sent in the past by the state to anger management classes, also chose ahimsa. He watched the ways anger arose in his family and wrote about how many times his mother called him “ugly” or “worthless” and wrote about how he at times agreed with this estimation. He then wrote about how much his girlfriend supported him and how he came to her aid in a touchy situation with another male adolescent. He talked about how he wanted to act violently toward this teen and about how he stood up for her without becoming violent. He had not yet made the leap between his familial belief system and his anger, but he had begun to see how he could correct his own actions.

Another young woman suffers from a neurological disorder and is often afraid of physical challenges. Her illness sometimes causes weaknesses in visual-spatial relationships and working memory. Taking the class itself was a lesson in asteya, not stealing from her potential, and she focused on bramicharya. Traditionally this yama was translated as celibacy, and in Lasater’s article it is revised as presence, doing what you are doing now, in this moment, and nothing else. (In sexual matters this would mean being faithful to your partner in thought and deed.) This young woman used bramicharya as staying committed and focused to her work in her class, not giving up or getting anxious. She, in this way, helped to overcome her real and perceived physical limitations.

In no way were any changes the students felt easy and obstacle-free. Yet they saw it as a process and a new way of looking at their world. There certainly were those students who did not invest themselves as much as others, but overall the work seemed valuable.

What For?

After eight years of teaching dance full-time in high school, and ten years before that of teaching dance in university, conservatory, and private settings, I have come to realize that even with the wonderful vehicle of movement, the content that I teach takes second place to the how, the why and the what for of what I teach. What good is knowing how to do a really amazing leap or well-aligned plié if the student is angry, unloved, scared, or anxious? The body is a perfect vehicle to notice, breathe into, accept and change these places inside ourselves and to find ways of doing so appropriately in community.

A good dance class can also address the issues behind the form, the dancer from the dance. I have found that the emphasis that yoga places on the proper action in the community allows me to open the students to these ideas as a natural part of the form.

The end of the semester brings our karma yoga project. Karma means “action”, and karma yoga is the practice of doing an action without the thought or need for reward. This project changes every semester. Sometimes the students make a commitment to do a certain action, like cleaning up the area around the school. Sometimes our whole class does a project, like teaching a yoga class for the local senior citizens with disabilities.

Although it is certainly important to note that I am not a therapist and I have the support of the school guidance counselor when needed, the seeds of understanding, compassion, and insight that this practice seems to have brought to these students shows me that perhaps this is one step toward helping our nations’ teens, a vulnerable group at best, develop skills far beyond the traditional classroom.

References
1. Cope S: Yoga and the Quest for the True Self. New York; Bantam Books, 1999. p. 122.
2. Lasater J: Beginning the Journey. Yoga Journal November/December 1998. pp. 42-44.
Article published in Journal of Dance Education, pp 132-134, Volume 5, Number 4

Dance and “Dis”Ability: moments from working with CandoCo Dance Company in the UK and Remix Dance Theatre in South Africa

Author: Jodi Falk

“The struggle to find a language to describe the ‘unfound’ movement of dance with an integrated dance company which includes physically challenged dancers is in itself an eloquent expression of progress into a new field, one that speaks of readjustments and ultimately of revisioning.” (Adam Benjamin, Dance Theatre Journal, Summer 1995)

I joined this struggle when I choreographed for two different dance companies that integrated able-bodied and physically challenged dancers: two works on the English contemporary repertory dance company, CandoCo, and another work, with co-choreographer and poet Ellen Kaz, on the South African dance company, Remix Dance Theatre, ten years later.  Both had their versions of what constitutes integration, virtuosity, political awareness, and mixed ability, and yet they both agreed on the desire to be seen completely on artistic par with any contemporary dance company working today.

Due to the physical uniqueness and artistic success of both companies, they have broadened the view of theatre dance and the dancing body held by audiences, promoters, and other artists.  The struggle mentioned above includes not only the language, but also ideological issues which are embedded in dance practice.  Who can dance on the professional stage?  What determines “good” dancing?  Even the choreographic process itself is challenged and struggled with in this work.

The very definition of disability by the World Health Organization in the 1980’s presupposes a lack, or “inability”.  “Any restriction or lack (resulting from impairment) of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being.” (The Attenborough Report)  Impairment is defined as “any loss or abnormality of psychology, physiology, or anatomical structure or function.”

CandoCo and Remix Dance Theatre by their very existence play havoc with this definition of disability.  Although many of the dancers have physiological impairments, each performs activities, by virtue of his/her profession, far outside the manner and range considered normal for human beings.  How much they are considered dancers, or “acrobats of God” as Martha Graham put it, is proven by their reviews, number of fans, and hectic international (CandoCo) and national (Remix) touring schedule.  However, in the case of CandoCo ten years ago, their reviews, fans, and promoters distinguished in their writings and requests for pieces specific to particular disabled dancers, and thus begged the question of what kind of disabilities are acceptable onstage, what classifies a disabled dancer as virtuosic, and what is the nature of virtuosity in the making of “integrated” dances.

Historical Precedence

The Remix Dance Theatre is co-directed by Nicola Visser, a former Laban Centre London student who saw the CandoCo company and modeled the group after them.  Both companies did not start out to be a political or therapeutic tool for the physically challenged in dance.  The main goal was to be a company of dance artists, some of whom are physically challenged, performing professional works in professional settings.  This is an outgrowth of the democratization in western concert dance that was born out of the Judson Church and Grand Union dance groups in the 60’s and 70’s in the US, and the X6 in the 70’s and 80’s in the UK.  The philosophies of these generations of dancers were ones of inclusion; dance bodies could be relaxed, untrained, “non-dancers”, nude, eating, creating sexual imagery, etc.  (Sally Banes, Terpsichore in Sneakers)  However, it is interesting to note that the word sometimes used for this new dancer is “pedestrian”; even the inclusion was exclusive of those in wheelchairs or without legs.

Although the eighties became an era of greater control over body image and muscularity, as well as a time of greater virtuosity of the more traditional type, this history of expanding definitions paved the way for the dance world to accept varying bodies into its fold.  And although the dance world accepted various bodily shapes and sizes, the records of physically challenged bodies in the history of professional theatre dance are very few.  And the idea that a physically challenged body can be virtuosic is a relatively new concept in dance; virtuosity has represented the eternal struggle of “man against the threats of time, space and chance.” (Selma Jeanne Cohen, Next Week, SwanLake)

CandoCo

CandoCo itself, at least ten years ago, was hierarchical about the issue of the eligibility of the performer and the philosophy of inclusion.  The existence of the company and its pioneering work in integrated community dance workshops throughout England is a strong statement for inclusion of all as participants in dance and for dance to embrace non-traditional bodies in its working processes and artistic products.  However, not any “disabled” (their term at the time) or able-bodied dancer can join the company.  Dancers audition; some get fired.  One has to have the qualities that this company looks for; a company style develops.  The issue of finding replacements for injured dancers epitomizes the company’s political stance on the physically challenged performers.  Categorically, no able-bodied dancer can replace a disabled dancer, especially one using a wheelchair.  This, they feel, would be unfair to the dancer and to their audience, a percentage of whom are disabled.  This also means that many of the dances are performer-specific; once those company members leave, so do the dances.  Yet, the company sought to build a repertory of work for large-scale touring.  Therefore, CandoCo balances their inclusion ethos with the market forces of a stable repertory touring company.

The audiences and critics took time to accept CandoCo’s performers as artists in their own right.  At first, critics were overwhelmingly positive, almost giving what Clement Crisp of the Financial Times dubbed, the “sympathy vote.”  Adam Benjamin, one of the cofounders of the company, offered that CandoCo’s arrival in the dance scene was only confirmed once they started receiving some negative criticism. 

The reviews the company received during my time working with them, mid-nineties, were often about the virtuosity of one of its performers, David Toole, a man born without legs due to Thalidimide and a beautifully present performer.  The virtuosic dancer is often seen as someone stronger, more fit, more beautifully facile than most dancers.  Here, the virtuoso is a man without legs, and at times it is because of his disability that he is such a virtuoso.

To Please the Desert, 1992, premiered at Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1993, (“intense, still beauty” – The London Times, “To Please the Desert was the triumph of the programme” – Scotland on Sunday) is the first of two works I made on the CandoCo dance company of the UK.  It began as a solo work for David Toole, who showed up at the Laban Centre London where I taught, new to dancing and new to us as a physically challenged student.  The rest of my students were not physically challenged, at least not visibly, and the test was to integrate the class in order to challenge everyone.  I began to make movement for everyone that was based on David’s movement possibilities; torso use, hand details and contact improv were important foci of the class.  He had at this time just begun working with the company, mostly dancing in his wheelchair.  He had one duet in which he left his chair that made an impression on me.  I began to choreograph on him for a faculty show; Adam Benjamin saw the work and invited me to choreograph for the company.

Certainly I was aware of a fine line to walk between working with David as a man with special limitations as well as capabilities and the possibility of abusing him as a was done with other physically challenged people in “freak shows” of the past.  Clement Crisp said in a BBC interview, “if David were not so talented, it would be embarrassing.  But he is incredibly talented.  And so it is marvelous.” (BBC, February 1996)

I worked with his virtuosity, and it was to include his unique facility.  His body composition allowed him to create images that others cannot; he can look as though he is rising from the ground when he lifts himself from a resting position on his ribcage to standing on his hands.  He could rest on one hand, while lifting the other arm spear-like into the air, an arm penche.  A person with legs cannot do this.  He could make us see the actual disability of being conventionally able-bodied.

I spent time with David, seeing what he can do, what could be translated from my body to his.  And what in dance is beyond the body.  What instead is about presence, energy, will, commitment.  I watched him and both remembered and forgot his special body.  Why?  David seemed to prove that the dance is beyond a body and is something more, a lived, phenomenological connection between performer and audience.  His virtuosity came not from struggling against “time, space and chance” but from playing with them.

To Please the Desert became a duet between David and Kuldip Singh-Barmi, a beautiful able-bodied dancer, at Adam’s request.  My aim was to discover and enhance both dancers’ physical capacities, and not to disable anyone.  I discovered two ways of getting there, one through working on weight sharing and relying on each other physically, and the other was using rhythm as an initiating factor.  The studio was like a sound canvas where I asked the dancers if they could help create the sound I was looking for; I wanted to watch the rhythm of the different body parts in counterpoint with each other.  I felt this to be a common ground on which to integrate the two performers.  I focused on time over physical steps to integrate two very different bodies by me, a third body.  And questions… can you? at first was met with a “no”, to which David and Kuldip would try anyway, and then do it. 

When David was asked what a good dancing body was, he replied “one that doesn’t collapse.” (author’s interview with David, June 1996)  The loosening of what a dancer is has opened the field to allow more the technique of the individual.  Perhaps one of the legacies of CandoCo is to more fully embrace the modern dance’s main premise: the importance of the individual.

Remix

Ten years later, I directed and co-choreographed a new work, Mapping the Wild Ground, 2004, (“remarkable” – Johannesburg Star) with choreographer and poet, Ellen Kaz, on the Remix Dance Theatre of South Africa.  This company, modeled after CandoCo, is fast becoming well-known all over South Africa.  It carries many of the political and artistic missions of CandoCo.  It not only integrates dancers in terms of “dis”ability, but also in terms of race, still quite a factor in the country ten years after the end of apartheid. 

The issue of apartheid was in the forefront of my talks with Nicola before we began, mainly in her telling me straight out that no one would appreciate an American coming in and making a “post-apartheid” piece, this after a question I had about how the political milieu affects the dancers.  So, there was no direct reference or focus on such a vast, indescribable issue.  Yet, with one white Afrikaaner dancer in a wheelchair, (who is the co-director of the company, Malcolm Black) and one Black able-bodied dancer, Monwabisi Mraji, there was no getting around the issue.  It was just there.  There were other considerations.  With my collaborator, Ellen Kaz, there was a debate about who should speak her words on the recording of the sound.  If it was her voice, a fellow American, that would speak too much of cultural imperialism.  If it was a male voice, and South African, then which dialect or from which race or class should the voice be?  The piece ended up at the showing having Ellen’s voice, and then a later version a white female South African voice.  Even the title, with the word “wild”, was considered and questioned.

Beyond these issues, were two male dancers, friends (although at this writing Monwa has left without a word and with some of Malcolm’s possessions, another unfortunate nod to a history of injustice and despair) and interested in working.  Again, the way forward for me was to create situations where each dancer relied on the other to make their movements happen.  And when that wasn’t the case, the two legs, four arms, and two wheels were the elements of mobility Ellen and I tried to craft and coordinate.  Again, rhythm seemed to be the integrating element.  Monwa’s hands on the wheels of Malcolm’s chair, moving in a two against a three rhythm, created a visual cadence that fused their bodies.  Also, the focus of the piece was the idea that one needs to go through anything to get beyond it, including our bodies.  So, the bodies leaned into each other, in struggle, in ease, and at the end, in both of them standing up (a feat Malcolm isn’t able to do by himself).  The rhythm of the movement was further accentuated by the rhythm of Ellen’s words, a word poem that she created at the same time that the piece was being made. 

Again, most importantly, was a process of questions.  Can you, will you, what would this be like, are all questions that take on a different meaning in this context.  The answer might be no, or only this way, and this way may be truly different due to wheels instead of legs, or the unpredictability of a physical disability.  In any case, the questions lead to further inquiry and with an open mind, new possibilities that emerge from a coming together of diverse bodies and new options.

The legacies these companies leave, among their works and their artistic integrity, include larger access, not just physically, but in attitude, towards dance training and practice by other-than-optimal bodies.  The choreographic process, here discussed not as an inviolable structure but a template of questions that serve to inform and enlighten dancer and choreographer.  This is a model for able-ism in dance practice.  With or without socially defined disabilities, all dancers and choreographers have unique abilities and disabilities from which art can be made.

The legacy I have inherited from this work involves widening my notions of virtuosity in dance and altering my choreographic methods.  Virtuosity becomes more than the manifestation of the will of man over nature; it becomes a more individualistic triumph over one’s own “disabilities” within the framework of artistic expression.  Physical presence can override anatomy.  Choreographically, focusing on the elements or essences of a work serves to integrate very different bodies; vocabulary shifts to center on the performer(s) and above all open and direct dialogue serves to transform choreographer and dancer.

Questions of mechanics, fears and societal taboos surface between dancer and choreographer as they find mutual ground in the dance of integration.  Dance, then, perhaps truly transcends the notion of the perfect body.  The process also becomes one of transcendence; boundaries are broken and the choreographer must play not the role of leader of his/her vision of the dance but a facilitator of visions – the visions of the dancer about the dance and self, the vision of the dance as it shapes to the materials at hand, and the vision or “revisioning” of dance to audiences.

By Jodi P Falk, MFA, CLMA, Director of Dance, PVPA

Jodi has been a dancer, teacher and choreographer nationally and internationally.  She was the Head of Choreography for the Laban Centre London, and besides directing the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School dance program she is adjunct faculty at Lesley University teaching masters students in education to bring dance into the classroom, at the University of Hartford on their BFA program, and was part of a research team on interdisciplinary education at Project Zero at Harvard University.  She has received critical acclaim for her choreography on the integrated companies of CandoCo in the UK and Remix in South Africa, co-choreographed with Ellen Kaz, as well as for her work with Theatre Ohne Grenzen of Austria and StoneGardens, a work about the cabarets written and performed in Nazi concentration camps.

Correspondence: jfalk@pvpa.com