What Not to Do When Teaching
On Wednesday I had the chance to interview Inés Arrubla, a professional flamenco dancer, for an article I was writing for our local paper about an upcoming series of performances she's putting on in Northampton (the city where I live).Inés told me about how she progressed to her current postion as an independent performer and teacher. Here's the story she told, as I wrote it up for the Daily Hampshire Gazette:
“Are you a dancer?” That question from a visitor to her gymnastics class in Bogotá, Columbia, got sixteen-year-old Inés Arrubla to wondering. So far, her strong need to move had always been satisfied with athletics, but maybe dance was a good idea. At least she could give it a try.A key point that didn't make it into the Gazette story is that Inés's difficult experience at the Amor de Dios academy became a guide for her concerning what not to do in her own teaching.
Arrubla already knew which school she’d contact. Every day her school bus passed Las Zapatillas Rojas (The Red Shoes), an academy with a tempting display of shoes and costumes in the front window. She gave the school a call and arranged to start attending ballet classes.
But when she arrived for her first class, a visiting Spanish flamenco teacher said no, no, no, she mustn’t take the ballet class. She was obviously meant for flamenco and should come to his class instead. Since he was so insistent, she agreed. and quickly found that the intensity and rhythms of flamenco were indeed a natural fit.
After her first teacher returned to Spain, Arrubla began studying with another in Medellin, where she was attending college. In short order, she was spending the bulk of her time practicing and rehearsing. Her teacher invited her to be part of a group he was taking on tour through several eastern Mediterranean countries.
Arrubla wanted to go, even though it meant dropping out of school. Her parents were not happy. As a counterproposal, they suggested that if she was really serious about flamenco, she go to Madrid to study at Amor de Dios, the best academy for both aspiring and fully fledged professionals.
In an interview this week in Northampton, where Arrubla is preparing for a three-performance run of her new “Son Flamenco 2006” show at the Iron Horse, she described the rigors of her training in Madrid. The teachers at the school were practicing professionals who felt no need to nurture. The students, at all levels of proficiency, had to make what they could of the instruction and the chance to observe the most accomplished of their fellows. “The fact that I survived was proof that flamenco was my vocation,” Arrubla says.
Arrubla made friends with several advanced students, one of whom was from Holland, which is why, looking for a change of scene after five years in Spain, she knew enough about Amsterdam to decide it would be a good place to live. She stayed there until moving to Amherst in 1998.
Arrubla speaks animatedly of the “ completely different culture” she encountered in Holland. In contrast to what she was used to from Columbia and Spain -- passionate, impulsive people all talking at once -- she found herself dealing with “very individualistic people” who controlled their passions and listened to what she had to say without interrupting. Most important, they were respectful to her as a person, without preconceptions based on the fact that she was a woman and a dancer.
The discovery of a new culture, combined with the value placed on the arts in Holland, led to a new depth of self-discovery. “I learned who I am, what I like, how I like to move, how I like to dress,” Arrubla recalls. Especially , she realized that she liked melding elements of Latin music with the gypsy music of traditional flamenco. “I want to open up my Latin heritage, use it, not ignore it,” Arrubla says. “I want to pull the best things of all cultures together.”
Somewhat to her surprise, she has found that she has a gift for teaching, and central to her technique is giving her students the feedback they need in order to know when they've got something right, and when they need to keep working on something to get to mastery. There's a lesson here for all of us.
Labels: Teaching
posted by Karen Nelson @ 6:39 PM
<< Home