Arts and Culture, Seaparate from the Day to Day?

Some people perceive arts as a separate part of life. They talk about artsy people as if they are different from any other people. Some categorize art as a luxury, others de-value it putting their money toward more tangible events where scores are tallied and merchandise is counted. ...and why not? Music is free on the radio if we can bear the incessant commercials, sculpture is in our parks for all to enjoy, paintings are down graded to digital prints, and reproduced for affordability.
Exposure to music and visual arts in our day to day living is common, but taken for granted because they are often in the background of our existence.

Theater or dance cannot be in the background, mounted on a mantle, kept for all times in the park, framed on a wall or experienced fully on the radio. As the most encompassing of all the arts, but also the most fleeting of the arts, they can be a turning point in one's emotional understanding. Connecting with expressive and engaging human beings in a production, who are as real as our selves, is powerful and lasting.

Change your life for the better. Become a patron! Make a commitment to attend concerts or shows. Allow yourself to respond and embrace those moving experiences. Talk about your theater and dance experiences, and engage others to do the same. That additional human exchange will broaden your horizons. Include theater and dance in your weekly life. You will find yourself becoming closer with humanity and your deeper self.

Dancers Dance Year Round

Growing children learn very differently than adults. Mental, physical and emotional development is inseparable. One impacts the progress of the other. When a child is emotionally strong, he /she is likely to make more of a physical commitment to the endeavor and thus reap a deeper understanding. Conversely, when a child is uncertain, the action needed is likely to be fuddled until understanding is clear and confidence has grown. Growing is rarely a clear, straight-forward process.

For children to grow mentally, it requires memory building. If you, as an adult, have trouble remembering what you had for dinner last week, imagine how difficult it is for a child to remember something from last week unless there is much repetition through the week to instill the memory at the reflexive level. I am an advocate for routine at home and year round education with breaks every so often.

When children grow physically their bodies change leverage, width, weight, and angle. It is most visible after a break...maybe because we have time to notice. Summer is the longest break for children. They appear to grow most significantly over those three months. If children study dance through their growing years, they acquire the refined shape and poise of a dancer, and keep the emerging muscles, bones, tendons, and nerve endings coordinated through the process. A start and stop approach it hard children's confidence and physical development.

To grow emotionally children need an array of emotional experiences. There is so much beyond happy, sad, worried, and satisfied. Allowing children to feel the full range of emotions and teaching them to handle their feelings in a productive way helps them grow confidently and resiliently. Keeping children on an even keel for the ease and coping skills of others takes away a growing opportunity. The dramatics involved in dance training provide grounds to explore one's emotional range in a safe environment. When and if the emotions surface at home and become difficult for parents (especially), observe, don't get upset at seeing a new emotion. Children who study dance regularly, grow emotionally resilient especially when their exposure is consistent.

To not study dance, or take long breaks for dance training sets a child back mentally, physically and emotionally; requiring a session as long as the break to catch up with their growth, not to mention to return to a refined physical form, and an artistic frame of mind. When parents pay good money and spend precious time so that their child can reap the benefits of dance training. No one wants their time, effort, and finances to be for not. This is why dance lessons are not seasonal like sports. Dancers dance year round.

What is Your Alert Factor?

Noticing when and where your thought process brightens or dims is crucial to self awareness and growth. Everyone's concentration fluctuates. It is important that attentiveness be allowed to ebb and flow so that the mind can absorb and associate information. Addressing the timing and control of fluctuations is worth some thought.

Extending the duration or depth of your alertness depends on your energy level, interest level, and personal discipline. It is easy to be attentive when well rested and nourished. It requires no effort at all to maintain interest with pleasurable things. Conversely, when tired, disinterested or unmotivated, alertness is hit or miss. Your alert factor determines how much you get out of life. Being unaware of your alertness means you are probably unaware of your surroundings and unfortunately missing out on what life has to offer. Ignorance is bliss. However, if you want to get more, give more...more attention, more discipline, more purpose.

Being purposeful in the intensity of your concentration takes practice. Start by paying attention to how you pay attention. Naturally, some new or complicated endeavors require an increased volume of steady deep thought; while familiar, simple tasks need less. Going beyond that which is natural, depends on change. Better concentration can come with maturity, but not necessarily. Implementing intentional degrees of concentration (as opposed to counting on maturity) is a more reliable way to develop an effective attention span. This takes discipline.

Discipline that is enforced is effective as long as the enforcement is present. Discipline that is cultivated and grows from within is the most reliable, productive, and long-lasting. There are three situations that motivate human beings to improve anything, including discipline: fear of retribution, anticipation of reward, or for the greater good. I opt for the latter because improvement for the greater good depends least on others, benefits the most, and is easy to repeat and become a lasting effect.

In summary, you can get and give more from life with purposeful alertness born out of self-discipline. Go for it! Any increase in the duration and depth of your alert factor will enhance your surroundings.

Becoming an Artist

Becoming an artist involves searching oneself to a depth previously unknown and allowing one's creativity to blossom in fresh new ways. Artists become artists through the willingness to take a risk and being open to unexpected possibilities.
With the guidance of a teacher, and a format of exploration and collaboration, an artist learns what makes the desired impact. Trial and error is a necessary part of the work. Invention is often born from this process: silly putty and popsicles are a couple examples that you may already know.

Asking students to leave their day-to-day life and transform themselves into a productive frame of mind (generous, inspired and imaginative) before entering the classroom is a HUGE endeavor and practical life skill. Once in the studio, building effective skills of communication without uttering a word takes many repetitions to refine and clarify the purpose of every nuance in a movement.

Thus, it is necessary for performers to perform in the studio and on the stage even if it is not seemingly ready. Performing art is fleeting. Its life is limited to the time it is in action and for as long as it is remembered. Its impact can live on in an emotional state.

Art is art when it touches the senses and arouses a thought or feeling beyond the status quo. Art is not always appealing. It can insight negative reaction and inspire adversity. Art reflects life. It changes the audience's thoughts or feelings about a matter.

Everyone has an artistic side. Not everyone cultivates it. Someone who becomes an artist can move another being into another state of being. How powerful is that!

Busy? That's the new badge of honor.

How frequently do you address parring down your schedule to the most important aspects of life? I do it often. Yet, we are becoming busier. I wonder; are we failing our goals or delving deeper by taking-on more in the few areas of our lives that matter?

Years ago, each time when my children where moved on from one phase of life to the next, I promised myself to dedicate more to what matters and less to the distractions. Now that they are grown and on their own, I am still working toward that goal. Why? I am disciplined, dedicated, and purposeful in my living, but I am also passionate, not satisfied with mediocrity, and love a challenge. So, I am still trying to find the right balance for my life.

Balance? That's laughable. There really is no such thing. Society has given us a framework to keep ourselves burning brightly without burning out: an eight hour work day, an eight hour sleep cycle, and another eight hours for everything else to be divided as each sees fit. This formula for living may work if you still lived in the 1950's.

The challenge for anyone who wears many hats as I do in this 21st century is that an eight hour work day is not so well defined, anymore than eight hours of sleep or eight hours to....you get the picture. I suggest we let the old 1950's eight-hour segmentation of life be a thing of the past, and embrace the 21st century with a new definition of purposeful living: 16 hour days containing a blend of family, friends, and work, and stop the unnatural divide of life.

Incorporating family tasks into the work day is more common these days; Including work in the life of the family is even more common. I think if we welcome this trend, we will be no less busy, but more relieved from guilt and able to give time and attention to the aspects of life that matter. If you wear the 'busy' badge of honor well, you will probably sleep better, too!

Adjusting the definition of productive living takes away the stress of meeting an out-of-date expectation. Stay busy, and be happy with the continuing challenge of a full day mixed with work, family, and friends. What matters most is being alive, able, and accomplished.