Connection 

We have been lucky in our program to have had so many opportunities to be in, learn from, and resonate with our natural environment. Taking inspiration from Andy Goldsworthy's work, we created nature installations. We visited the Sunshine Coast, hiked Smugglers Cove and spent time in the water. We danced, exercised, wrote poetry and created art in nature. We read and listened to indigenous stories about the lessons that our natural environment has to teach us. 

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I learned the value of reconnecting to self, each other and to our natural world. As humans, we are all connected with all other living creatures in one big spiderweb. Our disconnect is to our detriment. We are responsible for our earth and we are running out of time.   

In my own teaching practice, I hope to continue engaging students in more site-specific/environmental dance inquiries.  I hope to engage my students in the technique of contact improvisation as physical research on what it mean to truly be connected an supported. By encouraging my students to reconnect with each other and their physical environment, I hope to build a greater sense of empathy with all of humanity and the natural world. Through the creative process of this human video, for example, I challenged my students to negotiate a physical connection each other and then challenged them again to renegotiate this connection once they started dancing in tall grass, lake side, and in between trees. Through trial, error and practice, I witnessed my students engage in a beautiful conversation between movement, body and nature. 

Collecting Stories

In our very first class with Vicki Kelly, we were asked not only to share our name but to share the story of our names. How did our name come to be? What inspired our parents to choose this name for us? This was the beginning of many tellings and many sharings that helped us rediscover our who we are as individuals and brought us close together as a cohort .

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I learned that our beauty is in our differences and that we each deserve to live a life free from judgement, full of love and unique to our own circumstances. Our stories are what make us who we are. They are the happenings that define us and characterizes us. Our stories are varied, some silly, some exciting, and some heart-breaking. They all make us who we are.The stories that have brought us here, our circumstances, our struggles - these stories are what makes us human. Sharing our stories is what builds empathy and brings us together in humanity.

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In my own teaching practice, I hope to make more room for my students to share their stories with me and with each other. I hope to honour the  varying journeys that my students are navigating through and to provide a safe place for them to be and dance. For this video series, for example, my students engaged in some reflective writing that prompted them to share stories of people in their lives who they find are inspiring humans. This sharing revealed so much about their character, quirks, strengths, and insecurities. It was such valuable information for me ,as their teacher, to know where they have come from and where they hope to be. 

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Spaces In-Between

Through place-based inquiry, nature taught me a lesson about the spaces-in-between. The spaces in our lives that seem and feel boring, empty, incomplete or negative can actually be places that hold the most beauty and growth. This resulted in an art project that framed both naturally occurring and deliberately cut out holes in leaves - a metaphor for life and finding beauty in the imperfect. 

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I learned that imperfection is what makes is perfectly human. As humans, we are people in progress. We are transforming and ever changing. Our lives and our bodies are imperfect, messy, and asymmetrical. That is how it's supposed to be. We go through seasons in our lives - emotionally, mentally and physically. Sometimes it is in the negative spaces - the spaces in between - that the most beauty shines through. And in a world of busy, the moments of rest, the moments of nothingness, could be exactly what we need to grow into ourselves.

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In my own teaching practice, I hope to provide a space in my classroom  where mistakes are expected as a part of the creative process. Mistakes are what invites creativity and innovation. I hope to create a language around process where "room for improvement" does not mean "not good enough." I hope to place value on hard work but also in rest and restoration. Both are needed for success. This year, I have found that the spaces-in-between my day such lunch, transition time in between classes, restful weekends and car rides to and from work are the times that I get to learn about my students, myself and my colleagues the most. It is times of rest and transition that our humanity blossoms. It is in times of were were we are no longer expected to do but just to be.  

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