For The Love Of Dance - Images from school performances at the ATALANTE Dance Theatre

During my years in High School teaching I tried to be active in two different professional areas. One was to strive for being a good and inspiring classroom teacher. This in a wide sense, encompassing modern systems where locations for learning were not always classrooms and where student growth not necessarily is brought about by 'teaching' alone.
The other field was to take a keen interest and a participating role in everything that goes on in a school - or could be made to happen - besides the classroom work. In schools open to various learning approaches, there often arise fuzzy zones between classroom learning and the extracurricular activities, both the the formal ones offered by the school and the informal ones, built on ideas, initiatives, possibilities.
Consider this: A school hosts, or arranges, rock concerts, fashion shows, open lunch hour theatre, modern and classical dance performances, poetry readings, style/talent pageants, student-run television going out to the general public via cablevision, fairs and exhibitions featuring student entrepreneurs, running a school-store as a student coop, organize jippos and publicity drives to attract new students, arrange open discussion forums with visiting politicians, establish a school newspaper with student writers, columnists and reporters: Would all this be possible without being anchored in many different ways in classroom work? And would not all these activities have an influence on what happens in the classrooms? These activities – and the list is far from complete – all existed at my place of work during two decades. Not all of them at the same time, but all at least for many years. Single or short term events are left out here.
These two threads – in class/outside class – need to be intertwined and should both receive attention.

Documenting school events by photo and film was one of my favorite activities in school. Sometimes with interested students at my side, sometimes not. When it comes to covering Dance, I had to learn some lessons. The Dance teachers were dedicated professionals and immediately weeded out many of my pictures, when they e.g. showed obvious dancer's mistakes, weaknesses, flaws in posture, position, dress and the like. They were so right, they saw the risk of these images creating an impression of a low-quality education. Naturally, my general feel-good values did not satisfy professional demands...
It is doubtful that the dance teachers would approve of my mixture of images from several performances. But with a distance of several years from the school-promotion aspect, I shall with all respect return to my surviving values. There is a meta-aspect to these images, clearly showing skill, dedication, seriousness, assertion, the will to express. That is a lot. To me always more fascinating than an achieved mastery.