Training an Artiste (a teacher’s perspective)

Many young and ambitious dancers don’t understand this, but the most famous dancers are never the best dancers.  They are the ones that give producers and directors the least problems.  They are helpful; they do the ‘shit work”; they do it quietly, without asking and with a smile.

As a teacher, I’ve encountered (in my short span of teaching), many dancers and students who pick up steps and techniques very fast.  These bright young dancers are very smart people, and many of them know that.  However, many of them get distracted easily or become over-confident and do not train as hard or take instructions as well as the less talented ones.  They tend to talk or comment a lot, but when it comes down to producing, I always see the quiet, less talented but determined dancers win the show.

Key to Success #1: Be Teachable - humble & willing to listen, able to change to suit the industry’s needs

I just saw a final episode of Heidi Klum’s Project Runway and one of the first episodes of Tyra Bank’s America’s Next Top Model.  What we always see is the same trend in every episode.  In Project Runway, it was the final episode where there were 3 women battling it out on the Runway to win the title.  Of the 3 women, all were talented with their own unique styles, all were amazing designers and artistes in their own right.  But 2 of them were really outspoken, in an impolite way (or bitchy, as we would say in this generation).  They outright argued (impolitely and forcefully) with their advisers who were trying to give them positive feedback to help them improve and grow.  The way they spoke when being interviewed by the camera about these arguments was also very “This is how I feel, I have to go with how I feel so if you don’t agree with me, so be it,  I don’t have to listen to you”.  The way they commented about their competitors was also quite nasty.

The winner of the show was a sweet girl whom you can tell is humble and polite, and not so street smart.  She keeps to herself and is eager for advice and suggestions from the advisers.  Looking back on the designs, I would say that I preferred another girl’s collections and designs; she was a better and maybe more talented designer.  But if I were the company who will be sponsoring and hiring one of them, I would go with the judges’ decision.  Why? Simply because if I am an expert in the market and the business, and I am eager to share the knowledge and help these new designers to grow, I would find the most teachable student.  Skills can be trained; the designer just needs to be pointed in the right direction.  But attitudes are hard to change. 

If I were to sponsor the other girl, how can I teach her when she has already decided that she knows everything there is to learn?  How much effort and time will I waste to argue with her every step of the way just so that she can improve and grow?  How could I trust her with the trade secrets?  How would I know that all the things I sincerely and genuinely share with her would not come back to bite me when she’s unhappy with me and decides to go to the press and my competitors spreading nasty rumors, like the way she talks back to the mentors?  How can she, with the character that she has and the way she talks, represent my company and my name in good light?

In Tyra Bank’s supermodel show, there was one girl who made this statement:  “I’m outspoken by nature and if anybody doesn’t like what I say, so be it”.  You could see in the show later that she complained about everything given to her; from dying her eyebrows, to the make up put on her, to the costumes given to her and the pictures chosen for her to emulate.  She complained about basically everything.  She had one of the strongest pictures in the group but she was nearly sent home because of her poor working attitude.

Key to Success #2: Allow yourself to be Used

How can you teach a person that in order to succeed, you have to give a lot, be willing for others to use you and take advantage of you, even if you are not happy with the storyline, the costumes, the dance steps etc?  As a professional in your field, you make the best of the situation and what’s given to you and do your best, no matter how uncomfortable you feel (not withstanding being made to do sexually provocative things that you never agreed to do, of course).  As an artiste, a supermodel or a designer, you need people to endorse you, or recognize and promote your talent.  In other words, you need people to use you.  If you are not willing to let them make use of you as they see fit, they will simply hire another.  There have been many times when I start a project or choreography with steps that I planned out in advance.  But in the course of doing the project, the director or producers have different ideas, or the dancers are not able to do the steps.  As a commercial choreographer, I have to change my steps to suit their needs, even though it is not what I prefer or what I originally planned to do.

Dancers, models or designers alike are typically commissioned to do projects where they must adhere to a certain costume, theme or make up.  They may be made to wear uncomfortable things, or requested to do moves that they are uncomfortable with.  Their skills are hired to be used.  If they do not have the skills or refuse to do the things requested, the commissioner will just hire another who will do it.  Newsflash: you are paid to do what they want, not what you want; if you don’t give them what they want, they won’t pay you.

Key to Success #3: Teamwork allows you to go further than you can go solo.

A person who is calculative will find it hard to grasp this theory that was shared to me by my mentor: You can choose to make 100% of $10, or make 1% of $10,000.  The former is working solo, and for your own group; the latter is working in a group and helping each other as a team to grow, and taking turns to shine and lead.  Just like a flock of geese flying in a 'v' formation, they save 70% of their strength by flying in a 'v' formation.  By taking turns being in the lead, they take turns bearing the brunt of the resistance they face while flying.  When the lead goose gets tired, it falls back and another takes its place.  By working in a group, we take turns to shine, and take turns to lead.  This makes the work a lot easier to do (with people helping you to get the job done) and the burdens lighter to bear (as you share the load with one another).  You can also go a lot further as a team than as an individual, and this is true in any company.

Key to Success #4: Understand that your teacher may not dance better than you, but it doesn’t mean that they can’t help you become better.

Tiger Woods was one of the best golfers in the world.  He had 3 teachers.  He golfs better than any of them, but with their wealth of experience and understanding of the sport, they can teach him to become better than he already is and beat the rest.  My teacher always says: you don’t judge how good a teacher is by how good he/she dances; you judge how good he/she is by how good his/her students are.

Key to Success #5:  Struggle to stay Teachable, know that anyone can offer you enlightenment, and most of all, be patient and don't loose sight of your goal.

As a dancer, I know that one of the hardest things is that it’s very hard to keep improving once you reach a really high standard.  Simply because there are lesser and lesser things to correct, and those things that are easy to correct and achieve have already been corrected and cleared, leaving only the difficult things left to master.  When you first start, it takes 10% of your effort to achieve 90% the desired goal; as you progress on to the highest levels, it will take 99% of your effort to achieve 1% of your goal.  That last 10% is especially hard to achieve.

As a teacher, I’ve come to realize that most people cannot take the training to realize even 70% of their potential.  Majority will stop after realizing their 10 - 20% mark.  The self-proclaimed die-hards will be able to realize 40 - 50% of their goal.  There will be 1 or 2 exceptionals who will be able to push beyond that 50%, and these gems come once every 2 - 3 years.

Why is it so tough?  Ego is one point, and perseverance is another.

Perseverance

Thomas Edison experimented with thousands of materials, including hair from his beard, to finally hit on a fibre that could produce light economically.  It’s very hard to persevere to do the same step everyday, failing 99% of the times for 2 years just to get it finally right after 2 years.  Most people give up just after 1 month.  Figure skaters train everyday for 2 years to do a double loop (jump); ballet dancers train their balance and posture for 5  years before doing a single pirouette; gymnasts train for years to master a certain skill; martial artistes do the same. 

It is a boring, long and tiring process if you don’t know how to appreciate it.  The minute details gets more and more important, as the step gets harder and harder.  That’s why I find teaching very useful:  I have a group of people to train with me everyday and I can structure the class to suit my training...  In fact, my students are often my teachers as I learn from them what not to do, and what may be better to do.

Ego

Many dancers get so much praise (both genuine and non-genuine ones) by the time they hit their 40% mark that they become satisfied with that.  They also start to slow down in terms of progressing as it becomes harder to improve (because it takes 60% of your effort to produce 40% of your goal as compared to previous goals where it took 30% effort to achieve 70% of your goal).  Many dancers get impatient here and feel that there is nothing left for them to learn and grow.

Once they hit a certain standard, many people will look up to them and idolize them.  All these attention will distract them, and if they let it go to their heads, they will start thinking that they have all the answers and will stop listening to their teachers’ suggestions and advice, as with the contestants on Project Runway.  At this point, when the teacher tries to teach the student, he may argue or think that he knows better, and at times subconsciously do the step wrong to prove that the teacher is wrong.  When the ego gets in the way, nothing the teacher says will have effect, and the student stays stagnant because he doesn’t listen.  When this happens, the student may then convince himself that the teacher has nothing more to teach him.

I have encountered this from both sides of the coin: I have been that egoistic student and I have also been that exasperated teacher.  I was really lucky to have a teacher that refused to give up on me and tried (despite all the nonsense I gave him) to show me reason.  I didn’t really understand it all (still I did as he said anyway), but I only truly understood what he meant when I was in his shoes, teaching these students who did not appreciate nor understand what I was trying to tell them.

One of the most disheartening things as a teacher is when I put my heart and soul into teaching them and it eventually turns on me when I can tell that they don’t appreciate it.  I always have to tell myself to let go and move on when they don’t appreciate it anymore, and find others who will.  And for one student that disappoints, there are 10 more who will appreciate what I can give to them.

Of course, there are also many sides to a story and this is merely one side... *shrug*