Thread: Workshop Formats

Following some recent discussions and general thinking, should we be aiming to give a format description of our workshops as well as a content description?

Would this help/enable people to choose and have better understanding with regards to what is on offer?

I know people (including myself) who have been a bit miffed at paying for a workshop and the content was not what they expected.

I usually open with a short talk and end with a Q&A. I am thinking it might be worth moving towards mentioning the format/structure when selling workshops?

What do people think generally about this?

I think a format description would be VERY helpful! I have shied away from workshops for almost a year because I got burned out of 4 hours or nonstop RUSH RUSH RUSH to shove a choreography down my throat. It's exhausting and I end up sick of the workshop an hour or more before it's even done.

The rare workshop that paces itself well and leaves time to discuss movement theory or cultural relevance works far better for me. And I prefer not to learn a whole choreography of someone else's because I would never perform it and it's too much to process well in one session. Several combinations that espouse the workshop topics are far more worthwhile and interesting to me.

So there have been workshops lately that I would have been interested in, but I stayed away from because I was afraid of the GO GO GO GO element. I learn the very least from that sort of workshop. But workshop descriptions rarely give an accurate depiction of the content or format. And "Workshop with XXX, study with her, she's great!" is not good enough for me, no matter who it is.

absolutely, we should be more clear in our descriptions, but also, I want to encourage dancers to contact the workshop host for specific questions and concerns. Sometimes it brings up issues that we, as hosts, may not have considered, but especially as dancers build up experience, there are certain things like "is this veil workshop going to be exactly like the last 3 veil workshops that taught the same thing, or is there something new on offer" or "last time I studied with this instructor, we didn't have time to talk about x. can you make sure we schedule in a little extra time to cover it."

I *welcome* those kinds of questions and feedback because it helps me, as an organizer, figure out what dancers are looking to get out of the workshop! *Please* don't just say "the last workshop I went to burned me out, what if this one is the same" I understand the sentiment, really I do, but as organizers, we need to hear your concerns so we can fix 'em.

I definitely think the content should be advertised in advance. If someone has hired a teacher for a contract position (which is the case for a workshop), that teacher should not be flying by the seat of their pants. They should know before the morning of the workshop what they are going to teach, and they should have some plan for how they're going to go about teaching it.

Sometimes in the course of a conversation, you end up on a different subject than where you started, but beyond a reasonable point, this indicates a failure of the teacher to structure and keep to a sensible lesson plan. Workshops shouldn't drift way off topic and run way over in time as often as they do. Unfortunately, I suspect the reason this happens as frequently as it does is because teachers often don't get taught how to plan formal lessons, and students are so desperate for information from a reputable source that one topic is never enough.

To some extent, the problem is exacerbated by not being able to separate students by level. With the economy the way it is, most organizers are not going to turn away anyone, and a lot of teachers feel an obligation to tailor their courses to the lowest level of students, regardless of what percentage they make up of the room. You don't know what you don't know, and everybody has a right to learn, but the level of entitled cluelessness that sometimes hijacks a workshop is not to be underestimated. What ever happened to knowing the difference between "There are no stupid questions" and "You should have been ashamed to stop the class to ask that. That was something to approach the teacher about in private or figure out on your own time later"? I'm not talking about sincere misunderstandings of what is being taught. I'm talking about things that any doofus who read the flyer should be aware of. I've probably wasted more than a cumulative hour of my life just listening to workshop teachers spelling things that were on every piece of publicity for that given event. D'oh! Students need to take some responsibility here, too.

I think it is a great idea to offer an explanation of the format for workshops. I too am a bit tired of going to a workshop and just learning one choreography. We spend so much money on workshops to learn advanced technique or to learn tips from professionals we don't have every day access to. So it is disappointing when I go to a veil workshop expecting to learn veil moves but I get there and we do a choreography with basic veil tricks.

I think by advertising the format of the workshop, dancers can get a better gauge of what level the workshop is geared towards. So more advanced dancers will know up front if a workshop is more for beginners and vice versa.

I know that SOME workshop teachers believe that the largest market consists of people who want to attend, learn a choreography, and then perform it at all the haflas in the coming year. Therefore, their workshop offerings are all choreography-based.

I've never personally enjoyed attending that type of workshop. I'd much rather do a technique-focused workshop. The exception is that if I'm learning a particular dance style that's new to me (for example, schikhatt), I might enjoy learning a choreography in that style IN ADDITION TO THE TECHNIQUE as a tool for helping retain the technique I learned. But I have zero interest in attending any more generic belly dance choreography workshops.

Am I alone in this?

I agree, Shira. I said pretty much the same thing above. I like some combinations that practice the techniques being taught, but not a whole choreography. I would never perform someone else's choreography unless it were a troupe situation.

I want workshops that are about technique and theory.

After a certain point in one's education, there is a fork in the road. Either you want to keep doing what someone with more experience tells you, or you want to set off on the path where you yourself might someday be the expert. I'm not saying one objective is more justifiable than the other, but I agree that, yeah, the group who wants to be told is the larger one. Most people are doing this for recreation, not scholarship, even informal scholarship. They're just not all that interested in putting in the effort on their own time, because it is thousands of hours of work to get yourself to a point where you kinda-sorta know what you're doing beyond executing the moves decently. Following someone else's instructions is a shortcut for looking like you know what you're doing, especially for GP audiences who can't recognize that Big Name Dancer's brilliance isn't yours. Our dance economy runs on the students who want the shortcuts.

Whether choreography is more useful than not-choreography depends on the teacher. Reda's work is conceptualized as group choreographies, so that's what I expect from him. What I am tired of is one flavor-of-the-month dancer after another doing choreography workshops. I mean, it's great that this BDSS dancer or latest Cheeky Girls video star has organized her dance philosophy into a five-minute routine, but I don't particularly want to dance exactly like this person, and I don't want to dance to this one, particular song exactly the way she does. I'm at a point where I want to understand how to find my own individual expression through this framework of movement and music. Mimicking a better dancer made sense when I was a beginner, but I'm looking for something more personally relevant now. I completely understand that doing justice to someone else's artistic vision is a valid and difficult skill, but it's not the direction I want at this point in my dancing. Is it worth $40-100 to spend four hours for a choreography I'll never perform, but maybe I learned one or two combinations I might be able to repurpose later? Not always.

And let's face it, sometimes the ambiguity in advertising is to the organizer's advantage. For every Shira who's silently fuming, "I wouldn't have come to this workshop if I'd known all she was going to teach was this choreography," there are probably two or three students in the alternative universe thinking, "I wish she'd just teach us a choreography. I don't know what to do with all this theory and technique on my own. This is useless to me!" Being vague increases the chances that students with different agendas will show up.

Great post, Tourbeau.

Originally Posted by *Shira*

I know that SOME workshop teachers believe that the largest market consists of people who want to attend, learn a choreography, and then perform it at all the haflas in the coming year. Therefore, their workshop offerings are all choreography-based.

We've talked about this for Louisville, and it seems that the students who are very roughly in the 2-4 year experience mark prefer these kind of workshops. Makes sense. I guess our market has a lot of students at that level, but the majority are beyond that so we don't host choreography workshops any more.

The BEST choreography workshop I've ever been to was some years ago in Indy. Habiba of Philly has a video out of her choreography to Gawaher. When she came to Indy, she told us she was going to discuss pulling different things out of that same music, and gave us a handout of the different possibilities she went over. This was GREAT for people who already had the video and knew the choreography, and if you didn't, you still learned a choreography with a lot of variations for personal expression. Plus I loved that she said "Now here I'm picking up the flute, but you can also pick up the accordion and move something like this." It was a wonderful approach to analyzing music and choreography.

I'd much rather do a technique-focused workshop.

Eh -- unless it's radically different than what I'm used to seeing and doing, I don't get much out of those. First workshop with Dina was all technique and was wonderful because I'd never really thought of movement that way. We did choreo with Tito, but the choreos weren't complex, and you got to spend a lot of time really working on the technique inside the choreo.

But after 10 years, I'm really picky about what workshops I go to. Yes I'd like to take workshops with every hot new star, but my interests are really more in the folkloric, the Reda style, and the various eras of Egyptian dance, so I don't really attend combos and choreography, general technique, or combo workshops anymore.

The exception is that if I'm learning a particular dance style that's new to me (for example, schikhatt), I might enjoy learning a choreography in that style IN ADDITION TO THE TECHNIQUE as a tool for helping retain the technique I learned.

Yes -- I feel the same and I love learning a little choreography for those kind of workshops. Also, if I'm learning a style like Turkish or Lebanese that I don't really have any experience with, I'd like a choreography just to see how it all comes together (because I'm in that market segment of relative beginners to that style.) Same with specific choreographers -- I like seeing Reda or Bobby Farrah technique come together in a choreography, but I also like to see the individual concepts discussed and analyzed.

To me a good description and information about the format suggests the teacher is focused on both the topic AND how she'll teach it, and I think it's a great idea.

Even if the topic wasn't initially something I was interested in, the right format might have me signing up. It could certainly win out for me over a vague/unhelpful description from an unknown quantity on a more obvious topic. Though I am as unrepresentative of the perceived market as the rest of you; give me technique-focused classes over choreographies-to-perform every time.

Mini choreographies to learn technique and/or get a taster of a style are fine, but if for me it's going to turn into a couple of hours frustration trying to remember what comes next while technique and any actual dancing go out the window, then I'd really appreciate knowing upfront so I can find something more suited to my learning style!

And I wish people would give up the overblown descriptions where they imply you will "master" anything or learn the signature style of Ms Bigname who is teaching it- does anyone seriously believe this?

Unfortunately, few people are going to be eager to sign up for a workshop advertised as, "Kind of get the hang of twirling a cane!" or "How'd you like a faceful of somebody else's veil? We'll be too many dancers trying to move a lot of fabric around in too small a space!" or "Attempt to learn this choreography that you'll end up misunderstanding or changing because it's too much material for most students to process in four hours!" Sometimes honesty isn't going to sell either.

Part of the problem gets back to the issue of student levels and expectations. The depth and pacing of the material for a roomful of finely honed dance machines (advanced students who start from the premise of a high motivation to learn and good technique and conditioning) will be different from a class aimed at a roomful of rec students who haven't developed great skills for absorbing new material, don't have good conditioning, have middling-to-less dance technique, and who have weaker motivation. For many students, a workshop is not primarily an opportunity to study with a master teacher--it's an equally important shopping and socializing event, and possibly even an obstacle to overcome in order to perform in a corresponding show. If you want to sculpt a block of marble, but all you have is a block of soapstone, you've got to change your plan. Miles might be able to expect his dancers to learn a new routine from a choreographer in an afternoon, but he's in an unusual position. The average workshop teacher has a different raw material. The population who shows up at a random workshop will be substantially inferior to his BDSS dancers in terms of experience, physical state, and motivation, and some of them will want to believe they have "mastered" something in a few hours, rather than understanding that all they've seen is one sliver of one person's perspective on a complex and multifaceted subject. The dance economy depends on allowing these lesser students to keep a few scales on their eyes, because too much honesty discourages them. A lot of dancers are not mentally ready to accept that one workshop does not necessarily prepare them to go back to their students and troupes and teach what they (think or hope they've) learned on Saturday afternoon. "Spend $40-100 to become incrementally less ignorant!" is not going to be a successful sales pitch for most workshops.

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

Unfortunately, few people are going to be eager to sign up for a workshop advertised as, "Kind of get the hang of twirling a cane!" or "How'd you like a faceful of somebody else's veil? We'll be too many dancers trying to move a lot of fabric around in too small a space!" or "Attempt to learn this choreography that you'll end up misunderstanding or changing because it's too much material for most students to process in four hours!" Sometimes honesty isn't going to sell either.

You forgot "hone your X-ray vision skills by trying to see what's going on through three closely packed rows in front of you!"

No, even cynical old me doesn't expect that degree of honesty. I'd just far rather have an objective description of what the teacher will be trying to teach and maybe an outline of the workshop content/ structure than some overblown fluff about what I'm going to get out of it from someone who hasn't a clue about my ability or lack of it.

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

The population who shows up at a random workshop will be substantially inferior to his BDSS dancers in terms of experience, physical state, and motivation, and some of them will want to believe they have "mastered" something in a few hours, rather than understanding that all they've seen is one sliver of one person's perspective on a complex and multifaceted subject. The dance economy depends on allowing these lesser students to keep a few scales on their eyes, because too much honesty discourages them. A lot of dancers are not mentally ready to accept that one workshop does not necessarily prepare them to go back to their students and troupes and teach what they (think or hope they've) learned on Saturday afternoon.

Wow. I know what you mean, and I'm one of those substantially inferior dancers on just about every level, but couldn't they keep those scales on without the dance economy having to pander to this mentality?

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

"Spend $40-100 to become incrementally less ignorant!" is not going to be a successful sales pitch for most workshops.

LMAO!!! That's about how I feel about much of what I teach. It's so conceptual, and so long-acting, seeds that sprout and grow over time. It is all about finding your self, your style, your dance path: emotional timbres, embodied movement, music interpretation, improv, composition, and performance skills.

No one walks away with ready-made anything; everyone walks away with the tools to become genuine, unique, fully realized dancers. Of course, not everyone is ready for that. I have students who come back years later and say, I finally get what you were teaching us so long ago.

I too am unimpressed with choreography workshops, with basic technique, combos, etc. I can make my own, thanks. I prefer dancers who impart a specific quality of movement or approach to movement as opposed to movement per se. Maybe there is a market now for small, highly specialized workshops for advanced dancers. They would have to be more expensive, but for the right person, I would pay.

So could someone/s give an example of what they mean by a format description? Just curious...

Originally Posted by alia t

So could someone/s give an example of what they mean by a format description? Just curious...

For me, I start my classes and workshops with a chit chat a bit about what I am expecting to get through in the class/workshop, get to know my attendees, and field any questions or concerns that my students may have before we start.

Then we have a dance focused warm-up that includes some of the important moves we will be using throughout the class r workshop.

After that I go through my class/workshop material. I tend to stay away from choreography based classes because I find them a bit tedious and I know not everyone responds well to choreography. I also specialize in improv, so I tend to stress that in all my classes. But, that is just my style. For beginners I try to add small combos that are easier to remember than full choreography.

Then I will do a cool down that may include veil work. I finish with time for questions and note taking. I let students know they can take notes at any time, but it is always good to leave room at the end of class for specific note taking. If there is time, I will also leave a little time for an open dance/improv song. I put on a song and let dancers improv to it and I float around to answer any specific questions or concerns.

As with most things in life, when it comes down to really truly making an authentic shift in anything, many people don't want to. They want the easy thing, the thing that is planned by someone else. Rather than dancing like themselves, they want to mirror someone else that they think is fantastic. Dance probably isn't the only area of life that this behavior pops up.

It seems like the trick is figuring out how to target and find the people who are hungry for pushing and challenging themselves.

I'm going to be teaching a workshop on dealing with performance anxiety. There will be some dance involved, but most of it is going to be other techniques and discussion to look at the reasons why it happens. So far the folks who signed up are the ones I expected, they don't flinch from the person in the mirror, are brave in their dance exploration, and willing to rebuild themselves constantly.

I'm blown away by some of the cynicism on this thread, I have to say.

Elsewhere on bhuz we've complained that too many students won't go to workshops at all. Now we're complaining that those who go to the workshops don't really learn anything anyway and walk away thinking they have?

In any 50 dancers that go to a workshop, yes, some subset of them think they are Dancers Born and have now "studied with" Workshop Instructor. But most of them are there to try and to dance and to attempt to understand new concepts, even if they fail miserably (as I did at my first workshop). Hey, at least they attended and gave it a shot and maybe even retained some tiny (incremental) amount of new knowledge! That is a lot better than students who just don't do workshops at all because they feel they don't "need" them -- and this is sometimes the fault of teachers who literally keep their students uninformed about workshop opportunities.

Originally Posted by tigerb

I'm blown away by some of the cynicism on this thread, I have to say.

Elsewhere on bhuz we've complained that too many students won't go to workshops at all. Now we're complaining that those who go to the workshops don't really learn anything anyway and walk away thinking they have?

In any 50 dancers that go to a workshop, yes, some subset of them think they are Dancers Born and have now "studied with" Workshop Instructor. But most of them are there to try and to dance and to attempt to understand new concepts, even if they fail miserably (as I did at my first workshop). Hey, at least they attended and gave it a shot and maybe even retained some tiny (incremental) amount of new knowledge! That is a lot better than students who just don't do workshops at all because they feel they don't "need" them -- and this is sometimes the fault of teachers who literally keep their students uninformed about workshop opportunities.

I tried not to use any sweeping generalities in my post. Because I know there are students out there who are really wanting to learn. But I've also witnessed a fair amount that go to a workshop with a big name instructor so they can say they "danced with so and so" and it doesn't really sink into their dance education.

However, I'm not saying ALL, I'm saying some/many. I'm sure it varies by region, your mileage may vary, etc. What people are talking about here isn't an unusual phenomenon.

There is a difference between the dancer who's eager to soak up everything like a sponge, and a dancer who is in a rush to want to look good by trying to dance like people who are years ahead in their progress.

If you are happy with your reasons why you are learning and how you are learning, no need to take it personally because it means we aren't talking about you (specifically).