 the male dancer
written by Ginge                on 08.06. at 22:45:33Please indulge my rambling for a while as I explain my needs to you. I am an ex-actor and director who is now embarking on a career as a full-time drama/theatre teacher in secondary schools (age range 13-18yrs).During my theatre training I was lucky enough to receive some excellent dance training. However, for me dance was never destined to be a viable career choice. Dance, classical or otherwise would not have been accesible to me largely due to my background (macho, working-class, council estate neighbourhood and school) had I not attended college for drama training. It was again just a lucky "accident" that once there dance was made available to me. For purely selfish reasons I asked to join in with the classes in my spare lessons (Reason 1 being that I was and still am build like miniture nightclub bouncer and adding some finesse to my movements would be of great use in period theatre and Reason 2 being - girls with incredible legs in shimmery tights!). However, the dance training not only gave me a degree of graceful movement - and toned me up like no martial art I had tried - but gave me a greater knwoledge of the art that has been invaluable to me as an actor and director but also great pleasure in my personal life. As a teacher I want to be able to open the eyes of students from similar backgrounds as myself to the world of dance. Whilst I have been acheiving some success I am aware that some of my colleagues at teacher training college have met with a lot of reluctance from teenage boys to try dance. Much of this seems to be their fear that dance isn't macho and may make people think that they are "less of a man" for dancing. The fact that I am a chunky fellow with a background in stunt fighting seems to reassure "my" boys but female colleagues report that even using exactly the same materials as I do does not get results. There seems to be a general reluctance within boys to dance!If you are still reading this and have any thoughts, ideas or views I would be overjoyed to receicve them. I am currently planning to write a paper to exaimine the ways in which dance can become more accessible (and acceptable) to boys within drama and would welcome your input. Also details of relevant articles/books would be very welcome. Answers to this message:
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