Below is a transcript of our conversation with CMU Professors Elaine DiFalco Daugherty and Heather Trommer-Beardslee
David Nicholas:
I'm David Nicholas and this is Central Focus, a weekly look at research activity and innovative work from Central Michigan University students and faculty. Actors and dancers are often in close contact during rehearsals and in performance. Long standing morays of what is acceptable behavior in these settings are changing what we now call “consent practices” are the new norm and the title of the co-authored book, “Consent Practices in Performing Arts Education,” written by Professors Elaine Defalco Daugherty and Heather Trommer-Beardslee from CMU's Department of Theatre and Dance. I sat down with both and my first question to Heather was whether modern innovations in choreography prompted the need for change…
Heather Trommer Beardslee:
Has been for a very long time that showing up in the dance studio, whether it be for choreographic artistic work or for taking class training as a dancer, equals permission to touch, so presence equals permission. And now we're realizing and have been for a little bit now, that presence isn't permission. Right? That context matters and we need to be asking every day whether touch is OK in that moment. So, it's less that choreography is changing and more. With a (a) reckoning, really, it's a reckoning of how we are engaging with humans.
DN:
And Elaine, there was the (the) reference in the book, the point that was raised, that the questions about the need for consent have become at least a little more present. When? I'm going by the time frame the two of you referenced the last 15 years, so I understand what Heather says in terms of the (the) history overall, but something in the last 15 years that's really make this maybe a little more hyper focused?
Elaine DiFalco Daugherty:
Well, I think that certainly the development of the intimacy movement has changed a lot of things in performing arts because something that was always pushed to the side or dealt with quietly, privately, secludedly is now integrated into rehearsal process. So instead of saying, oh, there's a kiss here. OK, well, we're going to work the scene and then a kiss happens, and then we're going to move the rest of the scene. There's time and energy and focus dedicated to crafting that as part of the storytelling instead of letting it be this awkward pause in the storytelling. It's integral to what you're doing, and I think that once that movement started, certainly for us, like that's where we started was me training in that and (and) working in that way and then seeing, OK, wait, this applies to everything, everything that we're doing everywhere in our program. And I think that acknowledging, like Heather said, that these are historical problems. This has been a problem as long as there's been performance or a challenge or an obstacle or whatever. Call it now we have tools to manage it and to mitigate those risks that are certainly our students have to take in order to do their best, most brave work.
DN:
There was the quote from Nicole Perry when it came to intimacy, a choreographer and (and) movement specialist, if I have that title correct, saying “we don't empower students. Students already have power. We simply create opportunities for them to step into it, to practice. Or not? How does this apply into the approach that the two of wanted to take?
EDFD:
What's interesting is that no matter who we talk to about this, they referenced Nicole's quote, like Nicole has the most famous quote in the book.
HTB:
It is my favorite quote!
EDFD:
And she's an amazing practitioner and I really, I think that the reason why it resonates is because it tells you that the power sits inside of you, that you don't have to wait for someone to hand it to you. Our students are powerful individuals. They just haven't been taught, number one that they are or that they can use that autonomy and once they understand that it's not for me to hand it to them. I don't hand them anything. I don't give them power. They realize that they it's like Dorothy, you know, you've had the power inside you all the time. Yeah, but once they realize that it's already there. It's very inspiring to see them step into that.
HTB:
It is our job not to as we like. We say as we not to squash the power right, exactly to step back and let them do their work!
DN:
The views of practitioners and professors from CMU's Department of Theatre and Dance, Heather Trommer Bearsley and Elaine DiFalco Daugherty, congratulations on the book and the success and the awareness that hopefully it will raise moving forward from here.
EDFD:
Thank you so much.
HTB:
Thank you. It's good to be here today.
