What is the saying… The best way to learn is to do? I agree—for the most part. But I am here to bring attention to the silent but immeasurably powerful, Observation. As dancers, I believe it is safe to say that we crave the role of the performer, the doer, the one who is seen, not the one who waits in the wings. We want to be in the moment, not watch it pass us by. That is why, perhaps, taking on the role of the observer may seem a bit foreign. But if you think about it, dancers are naturally suited to be excellent observers. Simply look at the make up of a dance studio: a few walls, a ceiling, a barre, a floor, maybe with some slabs of Marley on top, and a final accoutrement, that dazzling reflector, a mirror. This is no coincidence. Mirrors provide us with our reflection; they are designed to allow us to observe ourselves and our fellow dancers. So what if we take that already trained inward eye and focus it outward? Who knows what the keen eye of a dancer can find. Just in case you need a little nudge, here are some ways I have been recently affected by the power of observation. I was reading at a lake near my house and directly across from my wooden picnic table was a young girl playing in the grass, flipping her body onto hands and then kicking her legs up in the air before landing on her feet again. A perfect picture of carefree, innocent, natural movement. I saw this same movement done by a woman on a television commercial, and though the scene was contrived in an attempt to promote a product (a field of yellow daisies, a wafting breeze, a warm summer haze, etc.), the woman’s movement remained carefree and natural. Both the actual scene of childlike innocence and the contrived scene of adulthood-reverting-back-to-childlike-innocence were effective in portraying the body’s ability to move naturally, even upside down. As I sit here now, reflecting on these two images, I can’t help but think that if I were to give a name to the movement performed by both the girl and the woman, to teach them how to properly execute a “cartwheel” (which was precisely what they were each attempting), that image of childlike innocence would quickly dissolve, and I would no longer see a little girl or a middle-aged woman, but a gymnast or a former gymnast. Would it still be natural? Would it remain carefree? In the same way, I suppose that ballerinas-in-training transform into ballerinas-for-real when they take their propensity to twirl and spin into the studio and call it a “pirouette”. It seems natural only because the body has been trained to make the twirl or spin or jump or flip appear effortless. It’s a case of the chicken and the egg—or the twirl or the pirouette—I suppose. ADVERTISEMENT I have been dancing with a choreographer in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area for about a year now. As part of a larger work, she transformed a solo into a quartet, and I was one of the four dancers in this particular section. This past weekend, I saw the choreographer perform the solo as it was originally intended, and simply by observing, I was hit with so many new emotions, nuances, even movement qualities that I can now use to deepen my own performance of the piece. To see the choreographer perform her own choreography, to see the original intent amplified on the original mind and body that created it was incredible. Besides the fact that she has a beautiful silky, undulating torso accompanied by an almost jarringly erratic quality in her movements, the mere act of observing let me see into the mind of not only the choreographer, but the piece itself. The gaze of a dancer-as-audience-member upon a dancer-as-performer can be a powerful tool, one, I think we as dancers need to use more often. I am amazed each time I see a dance performance how much I learn about myself. Whether it be that a particular movement would feel great on my body, or that spacing wasn’t very interesting, or look at how she moves her head!, etc., I always come away having learned something new either about myself, dance, or, in the most compelling cases, both. Perhaps the most clear example of how important observation is (that has truly made me a lifelong convert), is that in the Pilates certification program I am completing this spring, about half the total hours are made of simply observing classes. There is something extremely beneficial when sitting on the sidelines here, especially when realizing that sitting on the sidelines does not mean you are out of the game. The only way to make observation of a Pilates class effective is to actively watch, study, analyze both the verbal cues and the movements of the teacher and then the responses, movements and questions of the students. Maybe the point I am getting at concerning observation is that something happens in observation that does not always happen in performance. How many times have you been told as a dancer, “Don’t think! Just let the music guide your movements”, or something to that effect. Of course our neurons are fired when we perform either in class or on a stage, our brains are engaged—how else would we move? But only in observation do we have the ability to truly relax our bodies and fully engage our minds—to turn that inward eye outward. Being an observer is the only time that we can reflect on something other than our own responsibilities, both as a dancer and as a person. We don’t have to think about what comes next, how many pirouettes do I do now, where should I be, did I forget to feed the cat this morning? We can forget our responsibilities (maybe even that stressful drive on I-95) for a moment and ask questions as to what we would do if we wanted to attempt a cartwheel, how we would perform a solo given to us by a choreographer, why we would use a certain verbal cue if we were teaching a class. Give observation a try. I know you might get antsy the first couple times, but keep watching, keep learning, keep thinking. Then take what you have learned and apply it to your own dancing, life, whatever. I promise you it’s worth it. •