From Corrector to Listener: A Practitioner’s Method for Dance Teachers

Abstract

The article asks whether a teacher who has spent ten years training the corrector’s eye can grow a second eye beside it: a listener’s eye; not replacing the corrector, but beside it. I spent seven weeks examining myself and my own practice. The argument I make is that for all dance teachers, in whichever room you teach, the attention mode you bring to your students will not change until you have run the same observation on your own body. Note to readers: The writing style in this article mirrors the episodic, fragmentary nature of this process.