I was never meant to be a dancer. I do not come from a family of artists, quite the contrary; my parents, even though they appreciated art, were very practical both by nature and profession. How surprising it is then that I, as someone without any origin in the art world, nurtured such a desire to become part of something I did not inherently belong to!
I discovered Japanese dance when it was already too late – finding out about an art form that children start studying as 3-year olds at the ripe age of 13 convinced me that the whole idea of learning was hopeless before the lessons even began. Despite that, I spent the following years meticulously going through all the resources that I could lay my hands on: articles, photos, VHS tapes. Even though my interested remained unchanged throughout all the youthful years, I only had the chance to take my first lesson when I was 26 years old. I still remember the date of – it was the last day of May in 2015, and I was just a newcomer in Germany struggling to secure my first job. I was really a nobody trying to reach something (of value) for which I would do anything. But, I will come to that later.
The first question I was faced with is, predictably, why I wanted to learn Japanese dance. As a foreigner (and even if I were Japanese), this was far from logical choice. My childhood friend was a passionate ballet student, living and breathing her art, and through her I had many chances to observe children’s lessons and dance rehearsals. I had the right kind of body for ballet – naturally slim, small head, long legs while still short in height – but I lacked athleticism, exhibitionism to perform and general desire for expressing emotion through physical movement. Even as a child, I was more of an intellectual type, reading Agatha Christie at the age of 8 instead of dreaming about leaping in pirouettes or balancing en pointe. Even I couldn’t fully understand why I got such a strong desire to learn dance so late in life.
Of course, it would be a lie to say that I was completely clueless of possible reasons. My affinity towards Japanese dance was deeply personal, even if irrational: even by solely observing photos of dancers and dance poses (there were no videos at that time), Japanese dance seemed to project an atmosphere of introspective silence that soothed my soul in times when I was ostracized in my own “natural” environment as someone who is “too quiet, too introverted, too boring”. At 13, being so deeply unliked by teachers and fellow students was mind-boggling: after all, I haven’t done anything wrong, so it seemed that my very existence was bothersome to people. How can a person change his or her character? Even now, as an adult, I think this is impossible task. In my eyes, Japanese dance created much-needed atmosphere of quiet, subtle introspection that matched my inner desire for escaping the false cheerful persona imposed on me by society.
Later, as an adult, when I was occassionally asked why I wanted to study Japanese dance, I’d rarely disclose my true reasons. Unlike Japanese expats who practiced to get back to their roots or for some other sentimental reasons, the most expected answer from me as a foreigner was an admiration of Japanese culture as something external and even detached from myself – after all, admiration steams from Otherness and this is why people can only admire gods and idols; we don’t see ordinary people at altars.
Certain degree of romanticism cannot be avoided even in most rational of cases, and this was not such case: of course that my desire for learning was deeply subjective. At that point I had never been to Japan and despite reading numerous articles, I was not aware of objective realities of any dance world, let alone Japanese. To be honest, as a young person I didn’t even care: the most important goal for me was to learn and for many years I was driven solely by that desire, ignoring everything else. Therefore, when I started my first lesson, I was blessed by unawareness of all the issues that I will be facing in the coming years as a dance student.
Learning Japanese dance is not an intellectual process: it is a practice of “learning by doing”, which is to be expected as praxis, or practical trade as we call it today, forms the base of all arts. The concept of teacher not offering specific explanation due while simultaneously rejecting compartmentalization of knowledge was not strange to me: before embarking on my Japanese dance journey, I had studied philosophy for two years. “Best teachers never teach”, I still remember words of our professor. For some it made philosophy and theory of any kind unbearable, almost mystical, but to me it finally seemed that I can get rid of mental chains of our modern technical society and dwelve into matter deeper and more profound than any concrete science.
Armed with patience strengthened by strict philosophical practice, I therefore embarked on my Japanese dance journey with great enthusiasm. Initially I noticed a lot of similarities between studying philosophy and Japanese dance: certain “mysticism” that permeats both disciplines doesn’t allow for direct explanation and what you don’t expect, you don’t miss. As a beginner student I was almost a perfect fit, apart from my ethnicity: enthusiastic with a fanatical attitude toward learning, I was not bothered by Western European notion of political correctness so it was natural for me to presume the hierarchical superiority of the teacher (at least when it comes to learning process). It made my learning experience very smooth and familiar in the beginning.
With time, cracks began to form on the smooth surface of my learning path. Even though there are many similarities between my previous learning experiences and Japanese dance learning, there are also significant differences. Although in my own country hierarchy between teacher and student is respected and expected, once when a student graduates he/she is considered a colleague to the teacher in the professional world; maybe not equiped with equal knowledge, but still on the same footing. The same feeling of familiar kindness is something I could never reach on my Japanese dance lessons: even after many years of practice (5+, 10+) the conversation with teachers still followed the same predictable flow engulfed by tense atmosphere.
While in the West teachers are expected to study at least basics of pedagogy and methodology in order to help student on their way to success, in Japanese dance lessons everything revolves around the teacher. The idea of any kind of pedagogy therefore quickly becomes ridiculous even to the Western student. A Japanese dance student is expected to imitate and copy his/her teacher (which in itself is not an issue), but there is no notation system and whatever you remember during the lesson is the material that you will use to practice on your own until the next class. Some teachers allow video recording, but it is generally not prefered, and soon it becomes uncomfortable to constantly ask or even beg to record. There is no reflection on the learning process as it is considered a direct attack on the teacher (do you doubt your teacher so much that you need to ask questions?); even after many years or learning, I have no idea what are my strong points and weak points. Since Japanese dance is taught in a private lesson setting, there is no grade system as a measure of formal expectation; there is no school, no exam, no other students to compare yourself to. You really are only left with a teacher – one teacher – that you are expected to closely follow for the rest of your life (this is not an exaggeration). Changing teachers is complicated and basically forces a student to start all over from the beginning as there is no unified pedagogical method, so, apart from cultural and political reasons, it becomes very inconvenient and bothersome for a student to start all over as a beginner in another teacher’s classroom.
Ideally, in the best of cases (which rarely happen, but still exist if only as a notion), an art teacher in the West gets to know about the student character traits, interests and previous experiences and encourages the student to use all that experience to create a wholesome performance. In Japanese dance, the idea of being “wholesome” is something totally different. Even if I had the same teacher of over a decade, we rarely converse in such a manner that they will be aware of me as a person. I am always just a student, no matter how old I become or what happens in my life or their life, I am always somebody who is “below”. If I am someone who is unable to attain even a friendly conversation with my own teacher whom I have known for a decade, how can I be expected to touch an ever distant world of art? I came to my own conclusion (maybe false one) that whatever kind of person you were previously, once you enter the Japanese dance world, you are considered almost like a baby – a clean slate, being moulded from zero. And while in the beginning this might seem as an unique kind of freedom, as an adult person with complicated inner feelings and past experiences I wish I could have discovered how to transfer these experiences into my own dance practice. Without notation system or any kind of pedagogy, I was left to figure things out on my own – and while this is in one way very similar to learning philosophy, there is one key difference: in philosophy, the most authentic source is a text, and not a teacher (however proficient his/her teacher might be, one MUST go back to the original text). In Japanese dance, on the contrary, your teacher is your only source. And while text will always be there for you, a teacher is only a human that has his/her limits: people are imperfect, they age, change, and without support of the external system (like a school system with a network of co-teachers) I often thought that for Japanese dance teachers it must be very stressful to always act as the one and only perfect source of knowledge.
After almost a decade of learning Japanese dance despite all different kinds of odds (unemployment, private life issues, family emergencies), I finally came to a point at which I had to admit to myself that I will never progress past the stage of a hobbyist. I will never become a dancer. I will never become a person on stage. I will never be able to create my own world through the movements of Japanese dance, because my technique is at amateur level and I have no awareness of my strong points that I could use nor of my bad points that I should work on and/or hide. If I encounter a struggle, everything is on me to figure out. It is so lonely to be a student of Japanese dance! I feel alone all the time. As time passed, my enthusiasm turned into bitterness and I found myself becoming the worst version of myself instead of improving my mind and spirit. Because Japanese dance has no graduation point, a student is encouraged to come to lessons indefinitely. With such broad and generic path laid out in front of me, I failed to find a meaning and a goal of my own dance practice. For an amateur, dancing for the sake of dancing in an environment devoid of any formal expectations (in form of exams, grading, cerificates, etc.) might be liberating; after all, we are adults with many different professions, and what is there to be expected? For me, learning dance at an amateur level was a new kind of prison – the one in form different from the world of money-driven “real life” professions yet equally devoid of meaning.
When I started my Japanese dance lessons, I was told anyone can learn dance: old, young, sporty, clumsy. There is no graduation point, no expectation. With time, I realised that Japanese dance was made to be learned not only from one teacher, but also stuck to that very teacher 24 hours a day. Without the notation system, isn’t that the only way to learn? Furthermore, with no grading system, I am dependant on the judgment of a single person. What if this person doesn’t like me? And even though you might not be subjected to the same level of scrutiny like a professional, the subject of learning is the same for everyone, whether you are a professional or an amateur, you are still learning the same dances, the same forms – the only difference is, as an amateur you lack the support system and you are left on your own to learn to the best of your ability.
Do I want to continue learning Japanese dance? Feeling so lonely on this path, I ask myself every day is it worth it. Maybe the true expression of love (and madness) is pursuing unattainable goals that you know you have already failed at. At this point, I even jokingly call myself “a professional beginner” – there is no certificate of this kind, but it should certainly be invented for my case.
I love Japanese dance so much that I would do anything to learn it properly, even if only as an external form or a beautiful technique. It is both a passion and an obsession. Trying to come close to the art of Japanese dance resembles trying to attract someone who you know will never be attracted to you, but you are stubbornly hoping to beat the odds. And even if you know it is madness, you still continue to do so…
