Teaching Dance

Photo credit: Sherryl Hauck Sometimes I wear a hat (see the photo to the left). The reaction to it from my dance students really depends on their age. The middle schoolers think it’s cool, “I love your hat Mr. Robey.” The high schoolers tend to jeer, “What’s with the hat?” I even heard one student remark to another that it was “to hide his receding hair line.” Luckily, I am blessed by my Grandpa Walt (my mother’s father) who at 81 still has a full head of hair and has passed that trait on to me. Yet the question remains, “What’s with the hat?” An easy, simple answer is that it is my personal piece of flair. I make my living as an artist and teacher after all so a Trilby Hat and Christmas-plaid Converse are acceptable parts of the uniform. However, there is more to it; there is a history to the hat that relates to my life as a dance-artist. But before I can go there, I have to tell you about my first hat. I loved that hat. When I was in Junior High, after a conversation about t...

“creating without possessing, acting without expecting, guiding without interfering.”  ~Tao te Ching (from the Stephen Mitchell translation) Creating, acting, guiding, and (I might add) teaching without possessing, expecting, and interfering. This has been a guiding principle of mine as a teacher. Why? Because I feel it is my role as a dance teacher to create independent (rather than co-dependent) and creative (rather than mechanistic) dance-artists. Just like with my son Jakobi (now 16) who is preparing for his adult life, I have to make way for the second-severing of the metaphorical umbilical cord toward greater independence, which means suppressing the urge to hold on tighter as Jakobi, and my students, pull away. Teachers and parents share this similar experience. In the 1990’s I directed the dance program at Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, Ohio. For their first concert, I prepared the students and gave them many responsibilities for producing the concert--props, sets, ...

I spent the past two nights in the theater preparing my students for their annual Spring Concert. What struck me as interesting is that the transition from one space to another is completely disorienting at first. On Monday we moved the younger students from the small studio into the big studio for a rehearsal. This threw many of them completely off. The change of space, the new environment made what was regularly well rehearsed and comfortable into something foreign and frightening. The next step was moving them all onto the stage in the theater (change of space #2) and, again, the reaction was the same. It takes time for them to adjust and get their bearings. They are kids and they are learning so this is to be expected. But, it made me think how in life there lies a parallel. I love the sense of ease and peace I get on vacation--especially if it involves the sand, the ocean, and the sun. I soak in that stress-free feeling and vow to take it home with me. Nevertheless, when I get b...

I feel a little weird about taking the title The Mindful Dancer for this blog. Why? Well, I worry that it sounds a bit presumptuous. I am not the most mindful person. I try to be mindful. I would like to be mindful. I aspire to be mindful. But, I don’t deserve to wear the title anymore than the next dancer/artist/blogger. I sometimes make mindlessly rash judgments and my fluency in the language of sarcasm has on more than one occasion left me wishing I could reel back in a mindlessly miscast comment.   Rather, from my perspective the concept of The Mindful Dancer is more of a life goal, a way of approaching day-to-day life as a dance artist, teaching artist, and well-meaning human being. To me, being mindful as an artist suggests a moment-to-moment awareness of the creative life—a life lived with authenticity and from a place of integrity. These are things I hope to explore, live out, and share through this blog. Now, this won’t be pretty. Part of living authentically is being ...