June Teacher’s Wisdom: Doug Nielsen
Douglas Nielsen came to dance late, at the age of 23.
But he moved rapidly into the professional world,
dancing with Gus Solomons, Pearl Lang, and Paul
Sanasardo in New York, and Batsheva Dance Company in
Israel. He created Douglas Nielsen Dances in 1982. He
has been teaching modern dance around the world since
1973, and under the auspices of the American Dance
Festival since 1987. Now a professor at the University
of Arizona School of Dance, ADF honors him this June
with the Balasaraswati/Joy Ann Dewey Beinecke Chair
for Distinguished Teaching. Margaret Regan spoke to
Nielsen about his approach to teaching.
How would you sum up your teaching philosophy?
The most important part of my methodology is to get
people to relax, trust the atmosphere, and make huge
mistakes. Seriousness is balanced by playfulness. I’m
older than the dancers’ dads, and they can’t imagine
their dads doing a handstand and falling on the floor.
Hierarchy has always bothered me. I want to be part of
what they do. I learn with them. Teaching is so
wonderful because you learn by doing it. And they
teach me something back. I’ll tell you Steve Reich,
you tell me Puff Daddy.
Who influenced your teaching style?
I’m the beneficiary of all my teachers. My first
teachers were Bella Lewitzky and Donald McKayle at
CalArts, and Mia Slavenska. What a trio. The
methodology of those three was very different. I
gravitated toward McKayle because I didn’t like to do
a set warm-up and then move. I liked to move. He
moved. Good parents push you to find your own voice,
and all good teachers do that. I never felt my
teachers were dictating to me to do exactly what they
did. It’s important to me to do that as a teacher too.
My way is not the way.
How do you structure your classes?
My classes move right away. We warm up by dancing,
rather than by preparing to dance. I start class
differently every time. My challenge to myself every
day is to make up three new phrases for each class. I
work in the morning for about 90 minutes on my own. I
don’t demonstrate the combination too many times. I
expect them to pick it up. So what they learn is what
I call conversational dance: They learn to dance by
dancing. I won’t remember the combinations. I just
make another one and let it go. I want to keep it
alive and fresh.
How do you encourage musicality?
I want dancers to learn how to phrase, not count. I
say A-B-C instead of 1-2-3. I don’t want them to lose
the motivation of just moving through space. Sometimes
I have dancers sing while they do an exercise, or hum
what the accompanist is playing. You hum along, you
find it. Sometimes I have them do the phrase in
silence, just to hear the rhythm of the feet. I try to
make class spontaneous, rather than self-conscious.
Your university classes are large. How can a student
make the most of a big class?
When I first meet a class and I have to learn their
names, there’s a point where if I don’t know their
name it’s their fault. You have to come to the teacher
as much as the teacher comes to you. I like to travel
around the space. I establish right at the start when
I give a correction to somebody that it’s for
everybody. Oftentimes I have somebody demonstrate when
they’re doing it really well. That’s a successful way
of giving a correction, demonstrating the success of
the step, rather than what’s wrong with the step.
What’s the best way for dancers to deal with mistakes?
A good response to a correction is to say thank you,
because you’re good enough to see that you can be
better. I embrace mistakes. Once they get over that
fear of being wrong, they learn. If I go to Mongolia,
I’m not going to learn how to speak their language
unless I really mess it up. If I’m afraid to say
hello, I’ll never say hello.
How do you encourage dancers to dance full out while
being conscious of injury prevention?
Most injuries happen out of fatigue or fear. There’s a
mind-body relationship. But recognize when you can’t
work, and then don’t. Try to take inventory and figure
out what the problem is. I have had good luck with
pushing through. I’ve seen kids snap an Achilles
tendon. When they go through therapy, do everything to
get back on their feet, they come back better because
of it.
Why do you encourage dancers to learn about all the
arts?
I always went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, saw
the opera, the ballet, the Broadway shows, went
downtown to see somebody sit in a chair with a glass
of water. I never felt I should shut something out. I
like to tell the dancers to rent a Peter Greenaway
movie, rent a Sally Potter movie. I took my grad
students to a Richard Avedon photography show. We went
to see the Sankai Juku butoh group. In class, I refer
to Zaha Hadid, the architect. She said, “There are 360
degrees. Why not use all of them?” One of the dancers
researched her and wrote a paper. That’s learning.
That’s crossing over.
Why do you encourage your students to study all dance
genres?
By taking modern, you’re a better ballet dancer. And
by taking ballet, you’re a better modern dancer. If
you get too stuck in one patterning of your body, you
lose the expression of it. I’m not an evangelist for
modern. ADF sent me to Russia at a period when they
had ballet and no modern. So when I was teaching, they
thought, “Oh, ballet is out and modern is in.” I told
them, “No, I want to go to the Bolshoi. I like
ballet.” You don’t have to hate one thing to be
another. In my advanced modern class, we lose the
genres completely. It’s all there: the ballet, the
jazz, and the modern. Go out and take as many classes
from other teachers as possible. Find out who you are.
