The Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast

Maia
Welcome to the Casual Dance Teachers Podcast, this is Maia, and today we're wrapping up Choreography Month. If you're just joining us, we've done several weeks on many different elements of choreography, and I'm really excited that today we get to wrap up that whole series with a really special conversation about artistry. Which, of course, why even bother doing choreography if you're not going to have artistry? We are going to talk to Chelsea Weidmann today who you may also know as the Geeky Ballerina about the elements of artistry and how she goes about teaching those. Chelsea Weidmann has performed in character core soloist and principal roles and has worked as a ballet mistress, private coach, a teacher in both private schools and pre-professional programs; she's also choreographed for many different venues, including a 22-minute retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, multiple choreography festivals, and a piece commissioned by the acclaimed Los Angeles-based company Jazz Antiqua.

In addition to her over 25 years' experience in the classroom, Chelsea has published articles in the Journal of Dance Education as well as Dance Education in Practice. Chelsea received her MFA from Goddard College and is an ABT certified teacher successfully. Completely the ABT Teacher Training Intensive in Primary through Level Seven, and partnering. She's also certified in Movement Methods, Flexibility Curriculum, and Progressing Ballet Technique. Her students have been invited to numerous prestigious summer programs, including American Ballet Theaters, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, Alberta Ballet School, and Boston Ballet School, among others. So without further ado, welcome Chelsea!

Chelsea
Hi it's so weird to hear my bio read out loud

Maia
I know I always debate if I should do that or not, but I just like to like make it part of my life and I'm going to the conversation and I love sharing.

Everything that my guests have accomplished and done because here's little me in Pennsylvania, and like it's so such an honor to be able to talk to you,

Chelsea
well, but I think that really speaks to something that we do as dance teachers, because I love to hear other people's bios when you introduce them. And I just think that we have a tendency to undersell ourselves, and so this is good practice, and it's not little old you, like I mean, I've posted on your stuff before, I'm like, what you're doing is amazing and powerful. Yes, yay for us!

Maia
Appreciate that, yay, yes, yay for us. Speaking of That yay for you, that you have really delved into our artistry and kind of created this codified system of what you call the nine elements of artistry so let's get into it can you tell us what those elements of artistry are and kind of how you developed that approach

Chelsea
yeah but I'm gonna actually flip the question and do the other order if that's okay.

Maia
Perfect, okay!

Chelsea
I was working at a an amazing, beautiful, wonderful ballet school, and we were rehearsing Swan Lake. The kids were doing Act Four of Swan Lake for their spring show, and the girl that we had doing Odette there came this part like Rothbart came out and he cast his spell and All of a sudden, her face was just blank and it gave me chills, but the problem is that her face was always blank, so in that moment it worked really well, and I think that's what I'm trying to tell you.

But in general, it didn't, and I turned to the director of the school and I said, 'How can we help her develop her expressive skills so that she can be powerful like this all the time?' And the director did what a lot of really talented dancers do, and that is because artistry came so easily to her. She didn't break it down; she went, 'Oh well, you're either born with it or you're not,' and that just planted the seed of, 'I don't think so.' Like my bio doesn't Say, this but I didn't start taking ballet until I was 12 so like you're either born with it or you're not, I don't know sometimes you can learn a lot, yeah.

So that's when I started getting interested in it and then I did my MFA through Goddard College and it's a it's an interdisciplinary arts program which gave me a lot of freedom to go wherever I wanted as long as I could justify it with the faculty, and so I decided I wanted to look into what are elements of artistry and I have it down to nine just because a person can't do everything; there is no one like source for this information, in fact I think I only had eight when I did my thesis. Because I needed to graduate, but I had the opportunity to look into like how the brain works, and so we could look at body language and mirror neurons and posture, and I could look really anthropologically at are there cross-cultural body language things, are like what about eye line is cultural, what about eye line is biological?

So it gave me these two and a half years to just let my geeky little brain go nuts and learn as much as I possibly could, and then try to condense it down into a written thesis.

Maia
Do you mind going through the list? Is that too much or can we start there and then we'll hone in on maybe just a couple of them? I don't mind at all so the elements of artistry that I look at are breath, and I think that's a really good question because I think that's a really good question and I think that's a really good question because I think that's a really good question. And somatic awareness, eyeline, line, body carriage, dynamics, musicality, carving through three-dimensional space, and acting and they interplay a lot.

In fact, the first draft of my thesis I wrote as a choose your own adventure style book, because right it was super fun, and also not successful; like, I had a committee member who is a creative writer and she's like, 'I love this idea, but it is not working.' And she was right, but every element draws from and feeds into other elements, and so you kind of just pick the one you're most interested in and start having fun.

Maia
Nice! This maybe answers my question a little bit because I've talked about this right from the get-go in my curriculum episode that I usually try to pick one element of artistry and I'm definitely going to borrow from your list when I do that, yay!
Um, but I'll say like this unit is going to be all about carving through three-dimensional space, let's say. But because of that interplay that you're talking about, do you think that that's a good approach to divvy it up and Say we're going to do a unit on this element, or do you think that it has to be more interdisciplinary and work on all of them all the time?

Chelsea
I think to a degree it depends on the teacher's style like you and I because I listened to your curriculum episode we tend to think in really similar ways but for everyone I do think it is a good idea to pick one to start with because if we throw nine ideas at them none of them will stick, yeah.

So pick the one that you think will serve them best or that interests you best because that's valid too, no and then when you're done with that unit or that year or it seems to have run its course which one did you Kind of naturally evolve into next, do they go in a certain order like you should start here and then it builds into this blah blah blah or totally no changeable website I talk about how I am working on creating a new resource for artistry. Here's the deal: yes, I am expanding my master's thesis into a book. Um, Volume One is currently on track to be released by the end of October.

Maia
Wow!

Chelsea
But anyway, back to your question on the order my book and my thesis: I'm very careful to include applications for all levels, beginning elementary, intermediate, advanced, because there's not a natural starting point for what we do. Really, it's a jump in and they all can be applied to any age and any level, but sometimes you need a little um some ideas, and that's what I'm here for.

Maia
Oh, perfect! That's amazing. Do you have a favorite or like one that you gravitate towards?

Chelsea
My favorite one is always the one that I am currently learning more about. So, I was just teaching a private yesterday, and we started working online in a really, really deep way like I mean, I go deep into my in my book online; it's that section is with a reader right now, and she messaged me and was like, 'Lady, what have you done to me?'

I was working with the student yesterday, and I was like, 'Oh, it goes Deeper, but I need to stop writing because otherwise it'll never publish anyway. But we were talking about like the difference between a quarter inch in her collarbones can create a lot of space for her to be able to write, and she's like, 'Oh, I'm going to write a diagonal through her collarbones that will extend her arabesque in a way.' And like, I love teaching; I mean, I love teaching everybody, but this particular student her brain works in a very similar way to mine, so we both kind of like jumped head first down into that rabbit hole right, which was super fun. But a few hours before that, I had been working with a group of like six and seven year olds and we had been working so much on musicality because they were tired and they weren't focusing and so when we brought their focus around a different direction into the music all of a sudden their attention on their technique also improved so i love them all.

Maia
I think in my podcast i've talked about musicality i think i naturally gravitate towards that i think; probably both line and eye line when you mentioned those i thought, "oh shoot i'm not as good about those." um so if i start with that because i have a lot of dancers that struggle with that and it's actually typically the older dancers i think that are dropping Their gaze. So, do you have any practical tips or little activities I could do in the classroom with dancers around eye line that would help?

Chelsea
Eye line is a really difficult one, particularly because when someone is using their eye line, they cannot look in the mirror to see how effective they're being.

That's when using other students as examples of really great eye line is a good idea or if your students are comfortable with you videoing them on their phone, you know it depends on your studio's privacy policies and then showing them the difference. That's a really good one. Um, I often tell my high schoolers, I'm like, 'Your eye shadow is awesome, but i should not know what that looks like and they know that that's like a cue to lift their eyes another thing i've noticed is when dancers get really when they misunderstand they don't know what they're doing they don't know what they're doing they don't understand eye line they tend to artificially lift their nose and their chin and it pulls their head back a little bit and so if you can get students to self-massage the base of their skull it will help to soften the neck tension which will lift the eye line in a more natural way another really critical thing to keep in mind with eye line is that it is extremely culturally determined, so a lot of particularly Asian and Southeast Asian cultures do not prioritize eye line the way that United States culture does. Like here, it's a sign of confidence, it's a sign of honesty, and in other cultures to not meet a gaze directly shows respect. So if you're working with students, I'm thinking specifically back to the episode you did about military families, if those students have just come to you from a stint in an Asian country, the eye line we are asking for is very uncomfortable, so that's an area of sensitivity.

And then also, and I think this is why it's often the older dancers that drop their gaze we are just less comfortable and confident as we get older and i this is not my area of expertise but here comes my opinion anyway it's got to be so hard to be a teenager with social media i'm so glad i'm too old for that you know hard enough back in the day and they have so many opportunities to feel less than And when we feel less than we automatically in our in United States culture, we would drop our eye line. So it gets really tricky. But you had asked for tips and I went into theory. So, whoops.

Maia
That's good. We'll apply the theory. That's perfect.

Chelsea
I think with eye line, it's really helpful to think, how will this serve the student? Is it going to be used communicatively or is it going to be used to help their technique? Because you can look into it either way. And we're going to flip-flop back and forth all class long. Like when we're doing a plié or a pirouette, your eye line is helping you succeed. In an adagio, it tends to be more expressive and communicative. So, you know, that gives you lots of chances to show the students there's more than one way to apply this. And then as we apply them both ways during class, what we're doing is we're giving students the opportunity to discover, which is more comfortable for them. And then we can build on that skill set.

So if you have someone who is very introverted and not comfortable asking to be seen, they are probably going to feel more comfortable building their eye line habits through technique. Whereas if you have a student who came to dance because they love the attention of the performing, but maybe they came a little bit later and they're not as confident in their technical skills, they're going to lean more towards learning about eye line through the performative aspect of it.

Maia
I cannot wait until your book comes out. Because I'm like, if you have this much about eye line, my mind is going to be blown open by all nine of the different elements.

Chelsea
There's only four in the first volume.

Maia
That's good. It'll be a little more bite-sized. Perfect.
I was thinking when you mentioned about doing the massage on the back of the neck, maybe incorporating like rollers or, you know, exercises like that. Because I think especially in ballet, there's such an emphasis on using the barre, of course, that sometimes the head and the neck is left out a lot. You know, we're doing combré, but we're not talking about why it's important to use the whole spine top to bottom. I'm a modern teacher, too. So I'm always going to go back to that whole spine and the curve, you know, all of that. But in ballet, it's harder to incorporate. Just because of that traditional structure. So I, yes, I've taken a lot away from what you just said.

Chelsea
And I think as ballet teachers, okay, here I go.
You know, a lot of modern dance originated as a pushback and a reaction against ballet. And so like a hundred years ago, there was a firm like us against them. And I just really, especially the more I research into somatic awareness, which is the fourth section that I'm trying to get wrapped up, that divide might have been a necessary starting point, but it's not. It's not serving ballet anymore. It might be serving modern. I don't know. You tell me. But in terms of ballet, look at all of the things that modern dance has created and explored and brought to the table, because a lot of it helps us in ballet. A lot of it. And it drives me crazy when a ballet teacher can't be open-minded and open-hearted to other dance styles.

Maia
Yeah. No, I'm right there with you. I totally agree. I'm going to backtrack a little bit. Because at the time we're recording this, you haven't heard this yet, but in the choreography series, specifically, I was talking about the cultural differences in what certain formations and pathways that we follow on stage as groups of dancers can speak to in different cultures and being mindful about that. And so with the eyeline and the actual artistic presentation of that layered on top of it, you know, there's so much to explore there with how similar. And so with the eyeline and the actual artistic presentation of that layered on top of it, you know, there's so much to explore there with how similar. Choreography, just from a practical standpoint, can actually say some really different things depending on the lens that we're consuming it through.
Is that relevant to our conversation? I don't know, but I like it.

Chelsea
I am so excited for this episode to come out. This is why teaching is so much fun. There are so many layers. I love it. Like, I'm never going to stop learning.

Maia
Yes. That's what's great about this conversation, this podcast. It's really exciting. And that I'm always going into the classroom with some little new experience, tidbit. Yes, I love it. Yes, me too. Thank you. So my next question related to all of that, similar to what I was asking before, I guess, when you're teaching choreography, so I kind of have segmented my dance season into two parts. I know not everyone's going to do that. But I kind of see I'm teaching choreography for a recital as one method or form of teaching.
And then there's a separate part of my season where we're not worrying about choreography at all. So right now, I'm talking about the choreography part, when I'm teaching the steps to the students, would you say we're teaching the elements of artistry right along with it, or teach the steps first so that they have just the baseline of what the body's doing, and then add in the artistry?

Chelsea
I think it depends. This is part of what makes teaching so hard is that it's not just about dance. There's so much psychology and education involved. And I never feel like I'm, know what I'm doing all the way. I probably shouldn't have said that out loud, but go ahead and keep it. Yeah, that's where I'm coming from, too. That's why I started podcasts.

I was like, maybe I can trick people into teaching me what to do.

Chelsea
I love that so much. Oh, my gosh. Okay, so it depends on what makes sense to you as a teacher. And that is going to grow and change over time. It also depends on what works for your students. So let's talk a little bit about neurodiversity, which is in volume three of my book. But it's like one of my favorite, favorite things right now. There are some neurodiversities that will respond better to steps first, artistry later. For example, anybody on the autism spectrum tends to be a details-first person. People with anxiety disorders tend to need as much information about what they're doing. Like the more information someone with an anxiety disorder has, the more information they're going to have.

And so I think that's going to be a big part of how the safer they feel. And so in a classroom setting that often translates to: I will teach the steps first, and then the artistry. On the flip side, people with ADHD tend to do better learning both at the same time, because their brains are wired in a more of like a mesh net kind of way. They're not just better at absorbing more types of information simultaneously. It's more comfortable for them. I also have a friend and I didn't I haven't read her thesis yet. But my friend's Nikki Bybee. And you can find her on social media as Bybee Nikki Picky. Okay, which is amazing, because she's so cool. It's B-Y-B-E-E. And then Nikki Picky.

She told me that she learned in her research, that a lot of students with dyslexia work better from the top down. And I don't know why that is. And I'm really a why person. So I, I almost hesitate to bring it up. But if you have a student that you know, is dyslexic, and especially if they're like, I'm dyslexic, and I have ADHD, they are going to work better getting both at the same time. So there's not a cut or dried answer. You have a lot of factors to feed in here. Like what is your comfort zone as a teacher? So are you playing to your strengths? Or are you doing your own stretching as a teacher? Do you have like more zoomed in students or more zoomed out students?

It depends on where you are as an artist and a teacher, and where the class is as a community.

Maia
Absolutely. Yeah, it's on my agenda to do maybe a whole series, but at least an episode specifically around the neurodiversity conversation and making sure that we're attentive to that. I'm not sure we can get into that anymore here. But I'm really glad that you did bring it up because well, my son is autistic. So I just think in that mode a lot. I'm not like certified by any means. But I do a lot of work with different therapists. And so we're I'm always looking through the lens of like, what is the motivation for him? You know, what is going to work and what's not.

But just because he has an autism diagnosis doesn't mean I have to treat that any differently than any other student in my classroom. It always comes down to like, what is the motivation? What's going to work for them? How are they thinking through things? And especially with something like artistry that can mean so many different things and has so many different facets. I think you hit the nail on the head. It's never going to be the same thing. And that's what makes it rich and exciting.

Chelsea
Yeah. I'm so excited for you to do that episode. My son is also autistic. Hey. He was diagnosed at 15. And when I started changing the way I communicated at home, so that it landed more authentically for him, I was like, this is simplifying my whole life.
So I went into my studio and I explained, guys, I'm going to change my communication style. Here we go. Oh my gosh. Honestly, if we treat everybody like they're autistic, life gets way easier. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. It's helped me a lot. A lot of regulation practices have helped me tremendously.

Maia
So, okay, let's circle back to that. We have another episode to do in the future. Yes. Perfect. Okay. Well, I'm going to ask you a big question that you can answer however you want. Is there anything else you want to share with us about the elements of artistry and how you go about teaching them?

Chelsea
Ooh. Okay. You might want to edit this out because it's kind of a shameless plug, but I have a YouTube channel. You can find it under Geeky Ballerina. And I have so much fun answering people's questions. Can you help me with X elements of artistry? If I can get a specific question from someone, I will jump right off the deep end for you. And it is so much fun for me.

Maia
No, I love that you brought that up because I was going to ask you about that anyway. And just the fact that you offer so much value, all this content for free for people, we got to get the word out there. That is not a shameless plug at all.
So you have the YouTube channel. I know you have some other resources as well. Can you just go down the list of different things that you offer?

Chelsea
Sure. Well, I used to offer more, and then I realized that I wasn't having any fun. So I've scaled back. You can find me on Facebook. I am most active in the New Ballet Teachers group. It's for teachers who are new and also teachers who are looking for new ways to do things. I am on TikTok as Geeky Ballerina, and I try to post most days. And it's usually me in my car after I have taught being like, oh my gosh, you guys, we had so much fun with this idea.
So if you want to see sweaty, unfiltered me, that's where I show up. And then I have my website, Geeky Ballerina, where I have paid resources for teachers that I'm in the process of also remodeling, because I like to have projects. And I also feel like I need to refine my approach, but also on my website, I have a blog and I have a monthly newsletter that you can sign up for, where I talk about a technique tip and an element of artistry that specifically we've together. So I am bouncing all over the place, just having the time of my life. That's awesome. All right. So I do like to close with a quote. Do you have a favorite quote about artistry? I do. So this quote is not specifically about dance.
It's not specifically about artistry, but it just wakes up this poetry inside of me that hits really hard for me. I just love it. So it's from a book called 'Body and Earth' by Andrea Olson in her section on air, page 120 for the scholars. She says, "although we often think of sky as something above us, in fact, we are standing in it all the way to the soles of our feet."

Hi, it's Maia jumping back in. I would love to just end with Chelsea's beautiful quote and her words of wisdom, but I couldn't let the episode end without saying, thank you again to Chelsea for taking the time to chat with me and share all of her expertise on artistry.

I know that we could have gone on for hours and hours more, but to keep it succinct and share what she did, it was such a blessing for us. And with that, we are now done with Choreography Month. Again, if you missed the previous episodes, this is a great opportunity to go back and listen through all five episodes, starting from the very beginning seeds of ideas for choreography, all the way up through today's conversation about artistry. It really puts it together in a nice package that can help you break out of any kind of artistic or choreographic barriers that you might be facing this season. So I really hope it helped, starting next week. We're going to jump back into some new topics. So if you're like, 'We're done with choreography, Maia, I've had enough.' Don't worry.
We've got some really fresh and fun topics coming up in the coming weeks for you. If you have any recommendations for a topic, that you'd like to learn more about or hear more about, join us in the Casual Dance Teachers Network on Facebook to share your feedback. Let me know what you'd like to hear, what you've liked so far, what didn't work as well for you. That is a great place to continue the conversation around anything dance teaching related. And as always, huge thanks to GB Mystical for the fabulous theme music. I'm so grateful for my partnership with GB Mystical and hope that you all can create some really fun partnerships with any local dance teachers. So if you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below. And I'll see you next time.