Last weekend I
attended the American College Dance Festival Association (ACDFA) Northeast
regional conference at Penn State University. It was an incredible and
jam-packed four days! In addition to taking three daily classes and watching
performances every night, I had the opportunity to present a work of solo
choreography I created this semester. One of the guest artists I took class
with at the conference was Andrea Olsen, professor of Dance and Environmental
Studies at Middlebury College, in Middlebury, Vermont.
When I began my
project at the beginning of this semester I ordered Andrea’s book Body and Earth, An Experiential Guide. I
found her book by Googling “environment and dance”; at the time I had no idea that
I would get to take class with the author only a few months later. I recently found
out that Andrea teaches a semester-long course at Middlebury entitled Body and Earth, which is based off her
book of the same title. Andrea Olsen also wrote an earlier text entitled Bodystories, A Guide to Experiential
Anatomy, and she currently working on her third book.
Andrea Olsen: “Moving from Fear to the
Sublime: Art Making and the Environment”
I was able to
take both classes that Andrea taught at ACDFA; one class was about the nervous
system and dance, while the other was entitled “Moving from Fear to the
Sublime” and involved lecture, discussion, movement improvisation, and
self-reflection. During my Google search early in the semester, I also came
across a video of a presentation that Andrea Olsen gave; it turns out it was the
same speech she gave during one of the classes I took!
I highly
recommend checking out her presentation. After watching the video several times
at the beginning of the semester, watching her give the presentation live at
ACDFA, and re-watching the video upon my return to campus, I am still getting
something new out of it with every view.
Andrea Olsen,
From Fear to the Sublime: Art Making and the Environment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmw2ZbLV-Hc
Environment, perception, dance, and
emotional health
After taking class
with Andrea at ACDFA I had the opportunity to chat with her for a few minutes
about her personal experiences with the environment and dance. Andrea told me
that her work is based off the knowledge that the body is a part of the
environment. She stated, “we need to understand perception better---that’s how
I most see dance and the environment relating.” I saw this statement as closely
linked to a lot of what Hilary Lake talked about during her interview regarding
the relationship between kinesthetic and environmental awareness.
Andrea also made
the connection that statistics won’t “change people’s hearts, but art can
create caring”—the same conclusion I ended with in my last entry! She stated
that her course Body and Earth focuses
on grounding yourself and finding your literal voice. (Yes, as in the one that
comes from your vocal chords. No metaphor here.) She emphasized how important
speaking about your values is when working in environmental advocacy, and that
everyone who hopes to go into environmental activism should practice public
speaking.
Andrea made
another interesting connection between arts/dance and environmental issues that
I had not occurred to me: if you study environmental problems, you realize it
is really depressing; it can be emotionally draining to work in the
environmental field. Because of that, it is important to train people in
creative expression. Dance—and art in general—is a way to process our environment differently than simply learning the facts.
She used a quote from environmentalist Martha Murray who stated, “If you want
to save the environment, you better learn to dance!”
Body and Earth: An
Experiential Guide
In Body and Earth Andrea emphasizes finding
connections of all kinds. The book is written as an exploration guide comprised
mainly of movement and writing exercises organized into 31 days. These
exercises aim to assist the reader in gaining deeper self-knowledge and with
that, deeper environmental awareness.
In the preface to
this text Bill McKibben states,
“We’ve spent the last fifty years in a
consumer fantasy world, ever more disconnected from neighbor, from work, from
our own bodies. This has caused myriad problems: the pervasive sadness that
goes with the loss of community… even the alienation from the body—and hence
the spirit—that comes from spending every hour in front of some screen or
another… [We need people who] can feel the richness that comes from practices
like the one described herein and hence have little need of the riches laid out
at the shopping mall.”
With this quote
I found yet another way to connect dance and environmental sustainability; by
knowing the fulfilling “richness” that dance provides through individual kinesthetic
awareness, creative expression, and finding meaningful connections with others,
perhaps as individuals we won’t feel the need to place the ownership of more
and more “things” high on our priority lists in an attempt to find a sense of fulfillment
in our lives. Of course this can apply to other arts as well, but I see dance
as being unique because it involves both individual creative expression the
benefits of participating in a fully embodied activity.
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