Dancing to Connect: An Interdisciplinary Creative Arts Approach to Holocaust Education Within Liberatory Pedagogy

Abstract

This chapter examines a collaboration that took place in the fall 2014 semester at Queensborough Community College, between courses in English literature, dance choreography, and English composition. It highlights the liberatory nature of our approach and chronicles the process. Students in Atik’s Introduction to Literature class read several poems and excerpts of Foucault to generate a working knowledge of concepts such as discrimination, surveillance, and hierarchies of power. They composed personal narratives exploring their own experiences as subjects of observation in a public sphere. Geismar’s choreography students transformed this writing into embodied narratives and shared them with their peers in a live performance. Miller’s English Composition students composed a digital essay exploring the collaboration and its implications.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Essay on Space, Surveillance, Memory, and Otherness (Aliza Atik)

Overview

As we discussed in class, specific sites have the power to call us into being as subjects—making us aware of the hierarchies and discourses around us, which situate us as social beings. This paper asks you to look at this process with an example from your own personal history, and it directs you to examine the ways in which space and discourse shape how we are viewed in the public sphere.

The Task

• A. Your goal for this paper is to come up with an independent thesis statement that answers the following questions:

  • 1. How do unique spaces allow for different acts of surveillance and regulation?

  • 2. How is this reflected in your individual experience?

The Process

• A. After workshopping in class, compose a thesis statement that sets out your agenda.

• B. This thesis should be reflected in the body paragraphs of your paper, wherein you describe your experience as an “other” in a specific time or place (2–3 pages).

  • 1. Describe your own experience as an “other.” Using the excerpt “Antonio’s Story” from Milton’s chapter as a source text, describe an experience where you felt “visible” because you were subject to “correctional surveillance” or caught up in a system of “meticulous tactical partitioning” (Milton 2011, 80).

    *The experience you describe does not have to be with a police system or other judicial authority. You can discuss any social, personal, academic, or judicial moment where you were had to negotiate scrutiny within a hierarchical system.

  • 2. What will make this section strong is if you continue to employ coherent paragraph frames that focus on clear topic sentences, as well as vivid details and dialogue as “evidence” to support each paragraph’s claim.

Appendix 2: Choreography Assignment (Aviva Geismar)

You will receive a piece of writing from your partners in the English 102 class. (You may receive more than one piece if you have more than one partner.) The writing is on the topic of surveillance. You are going to select some aspect of this writing to respond to through a choreographic study. You might choose a feeling that the piece brought up for you, an image, the rhythm of the language, a word that struck you, and so on. You do not have to retell the narrative of the piece; telling narratives is hard to do in dance and has already been done by the writer. Look for something essential about the writing and allow yourself to respond to that through movement. You can use music if you like, but you do not have to.

We will have time to work on these studies in class and to receive feedback from each other. We will be showing these studies on October 16 to the English 102 students.

Please also respond to the writing that you have received via the WIKI page. You are required to write a respectful response to all your partners who posted writing for you. You may be using one or multiple pieces as inspiration for your dance, but you must write something for each writing assignment posted for you in order to acknowledge that you have received it.

Guidelines for Giving Choreographic Feedback

Start with what you see. Can you describe it in terms of the elements of dance—space, time, and movement quality? Can you see the choreographer’s intention—that is, what he/she wanted the piece to do or the effect he/she wanted the work to have? Try to get inside their mind and figure out their intention. Our objective is to help them fully realize their intention. Did the dance suggest any meaning to you beyond pure movement exploration? If so, relate it back to what was happening in movement terms. If you had an emotional response try to relate it back to what was happening choreographically. One of our goals is to deepen our ability to see and articulate what we see. You are trying to help your classmates fully realize their intention by reflecting back what you see in the work.

Things to be cautious about:

• Try to not state an unqualified emotional response. (That means an emotional response by itself without explanation.) Explain the emotional response by relating it back to the choreography. An example would be, “It gave me goose bumps.” If it gave you goose bumps try to figure out what the choreographer did that had that effect on you.

• Try not to SIMPLY compare it to another work of art. If it reminded you of another work of art, explain why. For example, “It reminded me of Paul Taylor because you respond to the music in such a spatially complex way,” or “It reminded me of Malcolm Low’s piece because the groupings of dancers on stage were constantly changing like jump cuts in a movie.”

• If you find yourself wanting to make a suggestion to the choreographer , look for the observation behind the direction. In other words, if you want to tell someone that they should end the piece by walking off stage, try to figure out why that is the choice you think is most fitting: “Because you began by walking on stage, I felt that the ending in which you remained center stage broke up the symmetry of your structure. Was that intentional? It felt jarring to me.” This is the feedback. Maybe their intention was to be jarring; maybe not.

Other Guidelines

• When you are showing share with the audience your title and nothing more besides instructions about when to start the music, and so on. Let the work speak for itself. This is what we want it to do in the theater. If we explain things before we show, we are not letting the work speak for itself.

• When you are receiving feedback please refrain from discussion. Again, your comments will color our view of what you are doing. If you feel the need to discuss or ask questions, do so after all the feedback has been given.

Appendix 3: In-Class Assemblage Assignment (Benjamin Lawrance Miller)

Each group will be working on creating a digital segment for the documentary film. Students in Group 2 will be responsible for creating a brief description of the collaboration that our class has been part of this semester. The purpose of this part is to explain to the audience what exactly the collaboration involves: Who is doing what? Why are they doing it? What is the subject material? Explain what classes are contributing to the collaboration.

Group 2 “The Collaboration”

• 1. Preview the images in the folder on your flash drive.

• 2. Organize these images in the program “PowerPoint.”

• 3. Each member in your group should write a paragraph that explains the collaboration. Remember to write it in a formal way.

• 4. Record your voice reading the text in the program “Audacity.” Save the file in the flash drive folder.

• 5. Combine the recorded voiceover and the PowerPoint in the program “Camtasia.” Save the file in your flash drive folder.

Initial ENGL 101 Film Production Timeline

• Fri 8/22, Blackboard shell that includes all three courses will be created

• Thurs 9/18, Literature students will post text to Blackboard Wiki

• Thurs 9/18 to Thurs 10/9, Dance students will be able to comment, reply, and post images or videos as a response

• Thurs 10/9, Deadline for Dance students’ responses via Blackboard

• Thurs 10/9 to Wed 11/26, Composition students will create digital profiles of collaborating students and interview Literature students and Dance students about the texts and dances that were created

• Thurs 10/30, Dance students begin a second assignment based on Literature students’ texts

• Wed 11/26 to Mon 12/15, Composition students use collected images, audio files, and video to create a digital documentary of the collaboration

• Thurs 4/16 from 5 to 7 pm in KHC Gallery, Attend “Inspired Testimony: QCC Students Respond to Genocide through Art, Research and Creative Writing,” a student-led exhibition

• Thurs 4/16 from 7 to 9 pm in QPAC, Attend “Inspired Testimony: QCC Students Respond to Genocide through Music and Dance,” a student-led performance, in collaboration with the MOTÝL Chamber Ensemble