By Steve Sucato

On Thursday, December 8, 2022, a composition class of 25 upper grade-level high school students from Hawken School’s Performing Arts Department came to open rehearsal of GroundWorks Dancetheater at the Outcalt Rehearsal Hall at Cleveland State University’s Department of Theatre and Dance.

The 2 1/2-hour field trip involved students in a range of artistic disciplines at Hawken and introduced them to the creative processes used by GroundWorks Executive Artistic Director David Shimotakahara in the making of his new dance work for the company.

The creative sessions began with GroundWorks Education Director Joan Meggitt and Teaching Artist Morgan Ashley engaging the students in a game called “I come from,” in which the students say “I come from X and Y” in which the variables of X and Y could be filled in with descriptors about one’s family, geography or feelings. For example, says Meggitt, “You could say, I come from three rivers and the terrible towel in reference to Pittsburgh, or I come from cold cereal and hot tea, referring to what you had for breakfast. It was great fun.” 

A company rehearsal followed with Shimotakahara sharing with the students some thoughts on the new work he was creating with the company’s five dancers and the processes and tools used in its creation. One of the larger themes of the work he explored was that of systems; such as informational, ecological and governmental. In developing a movement phrase for the work, Shimotakahara created a word list around the topic of systems that was shared with the students along with a demonstration of that movement phrase. Shimotakahara had also asked GroundWorks’ dancers to create their own word lists and movement phrases inspired from those lists that they too shared with the students. The rehearsal concluded with a Q & A session with Shimotakahara, the dancers and the students.

Says Meggitt about the overall impression the rehearsal process made on the students, “It just blew them away. They had never seen anything like this before and the faculty and school staff that came with them expressed similar reactions.”

In the second part of the field trip, Hawken’s students engaged in a creative session of their own with Meggitt and Ashley. 

In groups of three the students, using the creative concepts learned from the rehearsal, made their own lists of systems important to them. Then one mutually agreed system per group was chosen to create movement from. One group picked the school system, another community, and a third, the solar system. 

With those systems chosen, Meggitt says she and Ashley then engaged the students in a number of games to generate gestures and movement to express them. One game asked the student groups to create a sound that personified their chosen system. “Some people made noises, some said words, and one group sang,” says Meggitt. 

Another creative exercise explored that came from GroundWorks’ rehearsal was that of inscription. The students were instructed to inscribe the name of their system and demonstrate that inscription in movement along with incorporating their chosen system sound and gestures the students had created. The students were also given the freedom to choose how they wanted to demonstrate their inscription to the full class, whether individually or as a group, done simultaneously or in sections.

Says Meggitt of the overall experience, “I love the field trip aspect. Getting to see the dancers do what they do and how they work together in GroundWorks’ creative process is really important for the students. Seeing the dancers work 1 or 2 at a time with the students is also a very powerful and intimate experience.”

GroundWorks DanceTheater would like to thank Hawken School, and the students and staff that organized and participated in the field trip and creative sessions with us. 

Photo Credits – GroundWorks DanceTheater dancers and staff engaging Hawkin School students. Photos by GroundWorks’ educational staff.