Teaching Versus Performing
By Nelly Mazloum

The possibilities of the human organism to receive impressions is infinite, but its capacity to interpret, understand, assimilate and apply creatively, is always limited by the background of each individual. So repetition, study and constant practice are forever necessary. Otherwise the knowledge received gets trapped into mental verbalizations which become a lot of words without any practical value.

Remember that dancing is not just ideas, daydreaming, fancies, words.  To dance means to express thoughts and emotions DIRECTLY with the WHOLE BODY!

Of course none is excluded from making a living out of teaching or performing. At times one can be a good dancer yet lack the ability to transmit knowledge in a class room. On the other hand one can be an acceptable teacher yet not possess the capacity to project meaningful and exciting impressions during a performance. Such are the mysteries of natural disposition.

To truly know how best to serve one's talent is a matter of wisdom. To insist in an area which is not cut for one's dimension is an escape into truths pretending to be something one is not. Such a situation sets goals for transitory profit without mature thought for a lasting professional career.

Some people are born dancers, some others are born teachers, but to want to be both is a lifetime achievement for which long study and arduous years of training are needed. A clear orientation is necessary in the basic differences that performing demands and those assessed by teaching.

A dancer's dedication is fulfilled in public. A teacher's dedication is applied in the restricted area of a studio. In both cases the public and the students are observers. This is why the situation looks the same. But Alas, it is not!

The public attends a performance to enjoy, have some fun, and return home gratified. But students go to a teacher to LEARN, to be told the stark truth about themselves, and to be helped in their hopes for progress, which often makes them return home tired and frustrated. The public applauds, adores and forgets. But a teacher struggles, loves, and tries not to forget.

An artist on the stage belongs to the audience, In the class room the student belongs to the teacher. A good audience appreciates what talent has to give, A good teacher creates talent that is buried away and has nothing to give to the teacher. On stage the dancer feels free. In a class-room the teacher feels bound and bombarded by the drawbacks, weaknesses, misunderstandings and inflated ego of the students.

As a performer, one offers Art. As a teacher, one serves a craft. The teacher is involved in creating and investigating ways to open the road for talent to grow in others. On the stage the performer is a total egoist. In class-rooms the teacher is a complete altruist.

The best performers are those who remain students, dedicated to the excellence of their Art. The best teachers are those who have stopped performing and soulfully aspire to technically, practically, philosophically, theoretically achieve mastership to serve their craft with devotion.

I can only say that, for those who have set their minds on a particular career: Check first the integrity with which ambition for success works in your heart. Strive more for personal growth, than for notoriety. Work in the beauty of your art and seek the freedom of the spirit to teach you how best to live and to love what you do for a living.

A teacher who truly commands the whole gamut of experience from Beginners to Highly Artistic levels remains a source of energy and inspiration for the student and aims at giving opportunities for autonomy to function in those who are ready to take over independence without losing their way in fancy-free distortions.

My teaching method treats students as individual personalities. I try to open possibilities inviting them to alternative choices where they can evolve in different areas of style. The teaching dips them into sources of regeneration which repair the wear and tear of existence while clearly pointing the ways to personal fulfillment.

To teach, how to dance and possess technique, is not enough. To think that spontaneity can break the shell that blocks communication twenty four hours a day is a delusion. It is not enough to love Dancing, for dancing must first love you! It must become one with your Being, one with the Spirit that rules your character, your body and your Soul.

Dance is not like so many ciphers on the screen of a computer. Dance is Life and expresses the joys and pains, the passions and dreams, the sufferings and glories of a civilization, a nation, a race, a Planet, striving to survive and evolve in matter and Spirit. Dance is the expression of cultures past and present, the only form of Art that has the body of a human being as its primal work of Art. Dance is Now, here, you, me, them, existing in our biology at this very moment of our living luminosity.

Next  ►