New Levels of Teaching Artistry: An Interview with Molly Heller about Distance Learning in College Dance Programs
How do things converge?
Re-arranging space,
So we can locate ourselves
Re-mapping
Proximity
And dimensionality
Imagination;
Interconnection.
Back on May 21, 2020, I caught up on the phone with University of Utah dance professor Molly Heller about completing the semester through distance learning. As we all navigate this new and unprecedented territory, I knew I could turn to Molly for dialogue around the artistry of teaching. Always curious and investigating, Heller is a teaching artist through and through; it is all artmaking, exploration, and study — whether with her students, dancers, or preparing for her own upcoming performance.
Molly shared lessons learned from this first round of distance learning. I wondered about what ideas she would be holding onto as she planned ahead for future teaching online. How to keep the integrity of your work? How to keep students moving and creating?
We began the conversation with these 6 questions in hand:
1. Have you ever taught or lectured online prior to March 2020?
2. Which courses did you complete via distance learning/online this spring, and which platforms did you use?
Can you talk about:
3. Care of the students via distance learning?
4. Care of the teaching body?
5. The concept of “keeping moving?”
6. On curiosity, play, and physicality (for students and teachers alike)?
— —
Molly Heller: Teaching online makes me think about our interrelationality and interconnectedness. And also what that means in terms of making. How do things converge? Convergence, rather than thinking of isolation. A new reality and new acceptance.
This spring I paused my own professional work with Heartland, but I did do an online show through Shawl-Anderson Dance Center on May 2nd. I did not know how I fit into it — the dance world — right then. Now I feel a little bit of an opening in myself.
Jill Randall (JR): Have you ever taught or lectured online, prior to March 2020?
MH: Not much, but I do teach for the masters in arts in teaching program at the University of Utah. I taught a graduate level socially engaged art making course. I started it online, back in January 2020. We use the platform called Canvas. I filmed lectures and filmed movement experiences. Since it was a lecture course, it was set up to be more congruent with the online platform. Because of this course, I had a couple months of practice prior to shelter-in-place.
JR: Which courses did you convert online to finish the spring semester?
MH: I had to re-map almost every course.
- The teaching practicum class I just mentioned — with K-12 teachers. They could not go back and teach and film their work.
- My technique course.
- And, a course called “Graduate Thesis Research,” which is the thesis proposal class for our second year modern graduate students. It was a hefty one to recalibrate. A course that is equally divided into theoretical and creative work. The grad students had all been making things in person and had to completely re-shift their work.
JR: Can you talk about the tech side of it — Canvas. Is there an option for live streaming?
MH: I did use Zoom a lot, and you can do a live webcam recording on Canvas.
I decided to do an asynchronous class for technique. The course usually meets 3 days a week, for 6 hours a week. What I decided to do was to post 6 hours worth of work on Mondays.
Each week had a particular theme or umbrella. I pre-recorded a movement experience. I gave them a specific improvisational prompt. And, I gave them a viewing or reading.
They could complete/experience the assignments at any time, any place. Students had the week to work. By Sunday at midnight, the students posted their 200 word journal response to those three things. The journal response became their weekly participation grade. For this spring semester, and finishing up online, I did not evaluate the movement. I did not try to sync up with them as most of them went home….all around the country, in different time zones.
I got a lot of feedback from the students. They appreciated this asynchronous format. They could do it on their own. They could do it everyday if they wanted to. I attempted to give assignments that were very clear and adaptable to support their needs, interests, and spatial situations. The ideas could be done anywhere — outside, on the porch, in the living room. The conceptual idea or other sources were meant to relate to the technical prompts.
I would then meet with the students every Friday, in a Zoom check-in. This provided a bit of consistency — to see me, to see their classmates, to connect on a personal level with no agenda.
JR: Can you talk about the use of other mediums in your courses, to expand the ways into concepts and to provide multimodal learning experiences?
MH: Other mediums became important to me. Dancing and teaching in a studio is so specific and beautiful…the freeing nature of the space, and what it allows.
But this has shifted now — and we must shift…..
I got a little rogue in my technique classes. The space that the students needed. The care for the individual really became primary, and then ways that the group could come together. During this time, our individual needs are quite different. Some have health concerns. Others are navigating family….for other people financial issues are primary. It is hard to slap a syllabus now onto the group as a collective — to have it be the same. I wanted to make it more tailored, and again adaptable.
I gave writing prompts. I also had them work with a different medium one week. Like any visual medium they wanted to. A response to movement.
Using their bodies to make things — labor, making, industriousness. But without productivity. The act of making is movement. The students LOVED that week. They gave me a bunch of feedback. That week was the most impactful and freeing — a reason to want to move again. Many expressed their lack of desire to take a class on Zoom. The balance of improvisation, other mediums at any time of the day, and then the structured movement classes — this multidimensional approach worked for the students.
JR: I love it! The dimensionality of it. The artistry of this — that there isn’t one answer. I so appreciate your sense of curiosity, tinkering, and presence. THIS moment in time, with these people, in these spaces….all over the country.
MH: I did not record in the studio, as the students were not dancing in studios. I wanted to do the same thing that they had to do. I was going to let them see me be imperfect. I was not going to record in studios or re-record the classes. There is a beauty in letting them see you grapple with the unpredictabilities of life as a teacher.
JR:Thinking about the ideas of space/spaciousness/confinement in your lessons…Either owning what this is, or helping students to imagine? What are some prompts to feel open, extended, or dimensional?
MH: Imagination was big!
One other thing, in thinking of the student care part — is to trust them. Not to micromanage them. To trust that they are doing their best and doing what they can.
Rigor has to change. Rigor suddenly becomes less of a priority. “How can we be bounded and open?” (A Parker Palmer quote….) And hospitable yet charged?
Imagination was a part of everything. If your literal space is confined…and you don’t feel safe going outside…..what does your mind allow? Spaciousness is both physical (proximity to objects) but also a quality of being. How can you create the moment you want to live in?
I used a lot of quotes from onbeing.org. A David White quote — “to feel abandoned or alone is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings.” Your home becomes your intimate partner, with all of those complexities.
So I had my grad students one day change the flow of a room in their house. They recorded it over the week. They loved that exercise because it was about what they were seeing or not seeing in their current environment. Re-arranging space. Locating yourself, re-locating yourself.
For people who could walk safely outside, I had them do a “block practice.” Each loop was an accumulation. It built endurance and joy. Skipping was a part of it, and an arm dance. I built this 10–15 minute loop dance. Some did it at a park, others in their neighborhood, some up and down their block. They loved that.
Students connected with their neighbors. The potential for lightness and the whimsical nature made them feel joyful. A moment of fullness.
JR: Yes, cleverly getting into larger movement. There is such a loss right now (locomoting, moving big).
And, can you share about “the teaching body?”
MH: The teaching body is really hard to address. But I think about ways to do less. Rather than to add.
And, to not future project. “Is this going to be how it is from now on?” This fear and anxiety about things we cannot control was not helpful to my teaching body.
Re-understanding my own value and belief systems. I thought a lot about that. The ones I come back to are: adaptability, magic, curiosity, and wonder. DIY/resourcefulness. What is right in front of you, that is already present, and speaking to you? And then honesty. That means taking a pause. If I am being honest with the moment, I am practicing patience with myself and allowing myself to take a pause.
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