Jane Syder's Blog

Memes and genes?   A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture. Personality traits. My son tells me this word has been engulfed and takes on a new meaning. A gene ' is a sequence of  DNA  or  RNA  that  codes  for a molecule that has a function.  Inheriting prenotypic traits to our offspring. My son tells me science can manipulate genes, giving them new meaning. Our identity is in continual flux, as is science and the creative arts equally. Is there really one truth?

Touch - the missing sense? Can we focus holistically on the corporeal aspect of dance education without  acknowledging touch? How is the use of touch approached in your practice?   How does your country see 'touch'? Is the taboo attached to touch in our society pushing us away from each other?   Is the disconnect in society based on too much fear?   How can the differing qualities embodied during the process of learning to dance connect people through touch?  Is the idea of touch, imagined touch build into a teacher's descriptive narrative surrounding tactility to objects or nature, instead?   How is touch applied through the Somatic without people feeling threatened?  How can touch offend certain cultures?  Respecting one's space and distancing each other accordingly is an expected professional and personal etiquette.  Your intuition tells you how much space people require to feel comfortable.  Physical space, emotional space and personal space.   Doe

I have just read a Linkedin Post from Dave, regarding the interesting changes being made to the Education system in Singapore.  The article focused on looking at the child learning through problem-solving, reasoning and socially inclusive processes.  This supports John Dewey's model outlined in 'Child and the Curriculum' embracing a more collaborative learning approach by creative teaching strategies which enable the child to drive towards goals that have meaning to them, rather than a fixed defined goal to achieve a result based on one answer questions,  In my opinion, this has got to be a better approach when contemplating the mental health of our young people.  With an education model and mentality of either success or failure based on only grades and examination criteria, continual judging between each other and placing ourselves within a hierarchy purely through this process without including emotional intelligence must be putting humanity at risk.  This further exas

Embracing and embodying the world around us or dominating the world with our presence?   Which?

CODES, CODES, CODES. Morse Code.  Lines and dots with sounds. Computer codes.  More than lines and dots! Alan Turing's code.  Algorithm and computation.  Clear defined process. Smoke signals.  Space between smoke bursts.  Timed and analyzed with shared meaning. Bar codes.  Scanners and phones required to understand them.  Matrix of patterns, based on Morse Code. Braille. Multi-Model processing - Shinsuke Shimojo - Images to sounds for blind people Sign-language Body language. Dance Language Tap codes - rhythm, pace, pause, syncopation, emphasis, inflection - meaning?  Questions, answers, meaning.  Steps have some reason. Modern dance codes - New vocab, based on shape, form, objectified, new steps. National dances from all over the world - Steps with meaning based on work/ritual, artifacts and objects provided purpose to the movement giving it meaning.  Costumes affecting movement qualities, posture, cultural practice based on cultural beliefs.  Spiritual signific

                                             EXPLORATION AND PLAY Skipping ropes and singing. Blind man Bluff. Squeak piggy squeak. Ring a ring a roses. Okey Cokey. Murder in the dark. Sleeping lions/tigers. Hide and seek. Chinese whispers. Musical statues, musical chairs. Hoola Hoop. Hoop and Bat. How many of these games did you play as a child? At parties, birthday parties or at Christmas? What other childhood games did you play? What did you love about them?  What did you not like so much? Did you play these games with your own children? Would love to hear your thoughts.

Power structures in our society and the effects of hierarchy in the dance world. Living in a Western capitalist system, where money is valued, competition is rife and hierarchical establishments control others, at what cost is this to the creative individuals with no support system around them who have original ideas and lack of funding?  Cooperation and relationship building, unity and respect for all.  Is this evident in our dance world or are people still bartered, exploited and objectified? Instead of controlling human nature, repressing individuals for personal gain, using people as stepping stones to cross the river, exploitation is evident in our society today as much as it ever has been. Power structures are often build within the proven, scientific, certainty in something on the fear of making mistakes.  Assessments judged within the confines of rules and rules are formed by who?  A 'fact-value dichotomy' allows domination and superiority to rule. (Lewin).    Cr

DO YOU BELIEVE DANCE IS INNATE?  IS SELECTION HEALTHY?  WHAT COULD SELECTION ALSO REPRESENT?  IN A WORLD OF MULTIPLICITY are we shutting out possibility and potential through rigid selection based on a set of rules?  Who makes up the rules and who believes them?  OUR BODIES ARE LIVING, BREATHING SPONGES!  How much do we retain?  Is this only possible through repetition? Can we only draw on movement years later that has been ingrained.  Is this a form of 'brain-washing' with the body?  What could be the benefits as well as the dangers?  Please can you blog back an example from your own experience of a certain set of codes that have been created for a dance style and by who - what you think their reasons were? Does repetition, routine fit the purpose for creative people?  Can too much drill result in crushing creativity or support certainty and are the instincts the body learns our own? Would love to hear your thoughts on this.