MEET THE TEACHER Clare Battersby
Children’s dance - TAPAC How did you come to be a dance teacher? It all started when I attended a one-hour dance workshop in the central city in 1988 by a young dancer Jenny Cosey (who later helped to write one of the first dance education books aimed at primary teachers). I had already trained as a teacher at this stage and was learning to dance. I was completely captivated and remember thinking: “If I love this so much, others will too. So I must teach it.” This took me to a course called Teaching Dance in the Community led by dancers from the Limbs Contemporary Dance Company and after that I never looked back. Where did you train? I trained originally at the Limbs Dance Studios in Ponsonby Road before attending Unitec’s School of Contemporary Dance. I later travelled to Melbourne and completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Dance Education at the University of Melbourne.
photography: Guy Quartermain
Teachers learn by teaching. I started to run classes for young children at The Orange Ballroom in Newton Road that is thankfully currently being revamped. I decided to be the best dance teacher I could be and so deepened my training with both dance training and studying dance education. I was offered a job at the then College of Education in the Arts department, teaching teachers to teach children. For 25 years I have taught children creative dance at The Performing Arts School, now TAPAC. These posts and my training complemented each other. What brought you to your current school? On Saturday mornings for two years I started out as an assistant at the Performing Arts School. One day, teaching with Dr Adrienne Sansom, she asked if I wanted to take her classes as she was now too busy lecturing at the university. That was 25 years ago and I haven’t stopped. The school has moved around, and I with it, until finally we found a permanent home at TAPAC in Western Springs. Here we have purpose-built dance studios with sprung floors where the sun pours in. We have our own theatre where we put on regular shows. Just now, we have a new magic red carpet that weaves through the lobby. I love going to work there.
How would other teachers describe you? Experienced, child-centred, playful, creative, bringing a sense of joy and wonder to the classes. Trustworthy and able to set up a framework that makes learning visible.
What are your favourite things about being a teacher? Working in the liminal space. This is the transformational space between the teacher, the child and the space. It is a place of magic, imagination, communication and transformation. As children enter the space and meet me to dance on Saturday mornings something extraordinary happens. Together we create a third space where the child’s voice and potential is expressed through their body and movement. This to me is full of potential and wonder. I love it and never tire of it.
How would your students describe you? Children also know me as Fairy Clare so they may describe me as magic. Probably “funny”, as play is my way of connecting to their world.
Please share a highlight of your teaching career... Highlights? Well there are too many to count! Here are a few - travel certainly comes up the list: Going to Finland - the land of the midnight sun - to present a workshop at the 1996 Dance and the Child International conference on Dancing in the Great Outdoors. Last week, I presented a paper and a workshop about Children’s Emergent Dance Identity in Copenhagen at another DACI conference. Last year, I received a medal from the Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year Local Hero awards for my work with children.
If you could wave a magic wand in your classroom... Education should not just be for our heads but for the whole person: heart, body and imagination. Also: boys’ dance is daring, exciting, strong and expressive. Yet dance is commonly seen as something for girls. I wish boys were given more opportunities to dance and move with expression and to know that alongside sport and adventure they have a lot to bring to it. Five tips for mums and dads 1. Sport is not just about training professional athletes and we all accept that children need to experience sport for health, social skills, competition, cooperation and fun. Dance classes too are not for those who want to ‘become dancers’. Rather, there’s much to be gained in all areas of one’s life from moving, not the least is fun, fitness, sensory integration and soul.
Seeing the children’s sense of joy from their dance and movement experience.
2. The child is not an empty vessel to be filled by dance knowledge. The child is competent, full of potential. The dance educator’s role is as a guide on the side, drawing out the dance knowledge, helping shape, challenge and extend what is possible.
It’s true that dance keeps you young. Children I taught or performed with who are now adults bring their own children to classes with me!
3. Encourage your child to give it a go and stick at it as there are many positive outcomes to be gained from learning about movement and dance.
What has been a low point of your teaching career? The low point is dealing with injuries along the way. You’re never sure if they will repair properly. So far, so good. Also, I never find it easy when children are too old to dance with me anymore and they move on to a new level. I may have been dancing with them for four years and they become part of my dance family.
4. Having space to express oneself through dance is an opportunity to rehearse life skills. A chance to see oneself on a different platform in a positive supportive environment. A place where parents get to see their child in a new light and support this.
84 PONSONBY NEWS+ August 2015
5. As Loris Malaguzzi from Reggio Emilia in Italy said, “Nothing without joy.” F PN PUBLISHED FIRST FRIDAY EACH MONTH (except January)