🎥📱 Filming: Friend or Foe?

 As a continuation of my thoughts from the Sunday discussion group, I'm touching now on the topic of filming dance/choreography.

I realise that filming and watching rehearsals and performances can be discussed, but I am choosing to focus solely on the use of filming within the studio, during class time.

Over the past few years, I have been faced with a personal predicament with regards to filming in class, particularly combinations and choreography, towards the end of class.

I feel a bit "caught in the middle". I am of a age that we DID NOT ever (ok, on very rare occasions) film ourselves as I was growing up and training or in rehearsal as I was working (👵🏻).  Yet, I am also of an age where I understand how technology works (most of the time!😉) and I am capable of simple filming my students in class.

I am not going down the road of ethics and GDPR here. I do think that is a very important issue, but I have another quandary.

Here is my issue...

If we are constantly filming/recording our students: 

Are students actually learning and taking in the information/choreography in real time? 

Are they "present" and allowing their brains and muscle memory to work in the "now"?

This is just my observation, but I have had late-teenaged students say things like "Oh, I'm so tired now. Let's just make a video and I'll learn it better, later at home" or "I don't really get it right now, but I'll watch it and practice".

I always have an internal struggle when this happens. I can really see it from both sides.

From one side, I think "no way"and say to my students we need to do it here and now. You need to ask questions and let me help you to understand it in a different way. You need to trust yourself and your brain and get it into your body. I see relying on the video as a sometimes lazy approach to their learning. I also know that I (and so many!) did just fine without the constant use of video. We learnt and developed and pushed ourselves to know what we were doing before we left the class/studio. We then had the responsibility to come back to the next class still knowing it. We did not have the luxury of watching it back on our devices as we took the bus/metro to the next lesson.

From the other side, I see it in a more compassionate way. Are they really being lazy or are they truly exhausted? Just "finished" after a long day of school followed by dance classes, all while trying to navigate their teens? Would they feel more comfortable and less self conscious if we made the video and they took it home and practiced with privacy, allowing them to come back into the next class with more confidence? Should I just embrace this newer way of learning that technology and fancy mobile phones have provided us?

Physically being in the studio, learning and rehearsing, means you are feeling the energy in the room, activating your spatial awareness and picking up on cues and small glances/connections with your fellow students (and in my students cases - their friends). That can't be replicated when you watch it on video at home.

I'm fortunate to know most of my students quite well and when this comes up in class,  I usually respond to it on a case by case basis. I have deliberately not set a hard fast rule about it since I can see the pros & cons. Sometimes we will video, sometimes not. I often ask them to do a quick "självbedömning" (Swedish for self assessment) and then tell me if the video is actually necessary or if they are planning to rely on it as a crutch. Similar to always dancing in the mirror, constant access to a video on their phone can provide a false sense of what they actually know and understand, in their bodies. Taking away the mirror sometimes and eliminating videos, helps them decide and realise if they were simply familiar with the choreography or if they actually knew it. 

I really don't know which approach is the right one. I do know that I do the best that I can to make a quick and informed decision based on the student's personality, mood, effort, energy level, etc at the time that they ask me. Ultimately, I hope that I am making the correct decision for my students well being.

What do you all think? Do/have you run into similar circumstances? Do you tend to see it more from one point of view more than the the other?  Any thoughts? 🤷🏻‍♀️