As a teenager in the late eighties and early
nineties I was an avid hip-hop and break-dancer. This was an era when those
interested in the genre would sometimes, while walking in public spaces, carry
bulky stereos on their shoulders with pounding music that caused equal amounts
of annoyance and amusement. Often, on the sidewalk or in the park, the stereo
and sheets of cardboard would be placed on the ground, a circle would form, and
we would practise our moves and compete against each other. Twenty years have
passed since then, and now I am an almost middle-aged academic. My students
have probably never seen one of those stereos except in some eighties flick or
a museum.
Although I stopped dancing regularly, there still is
a part of me that has a blast moving to the rhythmic melodies, rhyming lyrics, and
booming beats. In fact throughout the past few decades I continued to dance,
but only occasionally and for fun—sometimes at home in the living room, other
times at clubs with friends. This year I decided to take up hip-hop dancing
again, even though it would be hard to reconcile with the punishing hours
involved in my teaching and research. It has been two months since I started
taking weekly classes. I am still in the beginner-intermediate level, and plan
to make it to the full-intermediate by winter 2015 and to the advanced-level by
2016, but already I have learned that hip-hop dancing has a lot of life lessons
to teach:
1) Humiliation
is necessary for success
Entering my first class was very awkward, mainly
because I was twice the age of almost everyone else. Generally I am a pretty
confident guy, but this confidence did not prepare me for the embarrassment
that I felt when I was unable to keep up with the others. I thought that my
past history of dancing would have made a beginner class a breeze. What I
found, rather, was that I could not follow all the moves of the instructor, nor
coordinate with everybody else. The humiliation was compounded by the fact that
all this happened in front of a huge mirror, where everyone could see how out
of step I was. At certain moments, I just wanted to leave the room, with my tail
between my legs, and forget about the whole experience, never to return. But I
was determined. Two months later, I have improved considerably, such that I can
now keep up with the instructor and with everyone else.
Last week I decided to take my first intermediate
class. I thought I would be able to handle it because I have become good at the
beginner level. I was wrong; the next level is harder than I thought, and,
similar to my first beginner class, I was humiliated because I was the only
person in the room who could not keep up. But this did not discourage me. In
fact it made me more determined than ever to master the intermediate level. It
also made me more comfortable with humiliation, which is salutary in so many
ways. It not only forced me to think about what went wrong and how to improve.
It also deflated my ego, which is a good defense against pride, one of the
major defects of character that afflicts the human race.
2) Anything
worth having is hard
My objective is not to become a professional dancer.
At this stage in my life it would not be prudent to throw away the ten years of
university that it took to obtain a PhD and aim to tour as a back-up dancer for
J-Lo or J-Z. My definition of success is more modest: to reach the advanced level
in less than two years. But even this will take a lot of dedication, sweat, and
hard work. And who knows? I might discover, after reaching that modest
objective, that my definition of success was too restricted and that I should
aim for the stars, although with my already aching knees that is very unlikely.
3) To be
original, one must first learn from the experts
We live in an age in which originality and
individual self-expression are supreme values, often irrespective of the
quality of these things (in some circles, the very notion of “quality” is a
bourgeois anachronism that devalues human equality). One of the ironies of the
times, though, is that as more people aim to be original, they actually become
more like each other. Most claims or perceptions of originality, then, are
quite shallow. True originality should therefore include the element of
quality; it must not only be different, but in some sense an improvement. This
takes a lot of hard work, and before one can get there, one must learn from the
masters of the trade. This is true whether one is completing a PhD or learning
how to dance. Because of my history of dancing it would be easy to delude
myself into thinking that I can come up with better moves than my teacher, but
this is not the case. My sense is that I will be able to be truly original when
I have mastered the advanced level. After that, I can start to try to develop
my own techniques and routines that build upon and improve what I have been
taught. This is no guarantee that true originality will emerge, but it will be
worth trying.
4) With art,
feeling is more important than thinking
Taking hip-hop classes has forced me to train my
brain to learn in new ways. I remember ideas pretty well. After reading a book,
I will remember most of the main ideas of the text; give me a newspaper, and
after reading it I will be able to recall the content of most of the articles;
ditto for poetry: with a little effort I can memorize entire pieces of verse,
like Hamlet’s “To Be or Not to Be”. The reason, I think, is that I have always
been a reader, and my brain—either through learning, genetics, or both—is
equipped to process and internalize ideas. One of the reasons I struggled
during my first hip-hop classes was that I tried to learn the dance routine the
same way that I learn ideas: through thinking and memorization. Luckily, I had
a good instructor to tell me that that was the wrong approach. He told me that
I had to “feel” the moves. How, I asked? He replied that every move should be
felt as a whole body sensation. That little piece of advice made a dramatic
difference in my capacity to learn.
Feeling is important for other reasons. When
listening to a beautiful piece of music, or reading a moving poem, or observing
a delightful painting, we are touched because of the way that these pieces of
art make us feel. We can
intellectualize all we want about why Hamlet’s “To Be or Not to Be” can stir
the soul, but fundamentally the poem’s power has endured for centuries because
of its emotional impact on the reader. The same is true for hip-hop dancing.
Watching the instructor dance is beautiful because of the way his talent makes
the observer feel. Success, then, will be measured, not mainly on the basis of
how much I have learned, but on the way that people feel when they see me
dance. Did I impact them emotionally in some way? If not, then I have a lot to
learn.
Lastly, the beliefs “if it feels right, do it”
or “follow your heart” or “it is right if you feel it” have no place in the
attempt to become a good hip-hop dancer. In fact in many ways this genre
teaches me to ignore the way I feel. Had I followed my “feelings”, I would not
have returned to the class after those humiliating experiences, nor would I
risk dancing in front of others when I am so unsure of myself. One of the
beautiful things about this experience is that it is helping me to become
comfortable with negative feelings, to not run away whenever things get uncomfortable
or hard, to accept my flaws and weaknesses. This is difficult but wholly
salutary for all areas of life. Progress is slow but with determination becomes
inexorable.
5) Harmony
and coordination with others compliments individual talent.
Hip-Hop dancing has been a helpful reminder that we
are not equally endowed. For reasons of biology, learning, and plain old luck,
some are simply more talented than others. At the classes, I sometimes cannot
help but be envious at some of the dancers in the room who seem to be able to
learn and perform the moves with ease, while I am struggling. But although—at
least at this point—I am not as good as the others, I am getting better. And
when I dance with those who are better than me, it helps to motivate me to
improve.
When we dance together as a group, this inequality
of talent is somewhat reduced because we are all doing the same moves. Some do
them better than others because they have more rhythm in their bounce, or
because they can somehow incorporate their entire bodies—including the
slightest facial expressions—into each move, giving the motions much more soul
than would otherwise be the case. But these differences are minimized when as a
group we do the same routine, and when we are coordinating the moves with one another.
This seems to be a metaphor for other spheres of human activity. The intrinsic
inequality of talent between human beings is somewhat attenuated when they work
together for a shared goal—whether in the seminar room, business enterprise, or
dance studio. This does not, of course, negate the value of individual genius.
Watching Michael Jackson dance is a reminder that some will always tower above
the others, and no amount of team work can change that. But still: there is
something magical when people dance together because, almost through osmosis,
the skills of the best are transferred to the less talented, creating something
that is more than the sum of the individual parts.
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