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Thinking Out Loud
By Cheryl Ossola
How We Learn
Thanks to Igor
Stravinsky, I have a fresh perspective on learning. I’ve read
a lot about learning styles and teaching methods, but none of
it touched on the relationship between learning and
receptivity that a fascinating show called “Sound as Touch”
did. A Radio Lab show, it was broadcast by WNYC, New York
Public Radio, in April 2006. (Listen to it at www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2006/04/21/segments/58280.)
The show made me think, but it wasn’t until San Francisco
Ballet’s repertory season last spring that I saw firsthand how
our ability to embrace the unfamiliar depends on biological,
and thus emotional, readiness.
What does a show called “Sound as Touch” have to do with
learning? The answer is that it explores how sound,
specifically music, generates emotion, and emotion has a lot
to do with being able to learn. That might seem obvious, but
what isn’t so apparent is the fact that those emotions are
governed by biochemistry. The neuroscientists on the show go
into detail about sound perception at the cellular level, but
they illustrated the concept with a fascinating story about
the premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.
You might know that at the work’s premiere in Paris (as
the score for Nijinsky’s ballet of the same name for
Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes), on May 29, 1913, the audience
rioted. Little old ladies were beating each other with canes,
and Stravinsky had to take refuge backstage. Why did they
riot? Simply put, they couldn’t make sense of what they were
hearing. (Nijinsky’s unconventional choreography and the
ballet’s shocking story line might have had something to do
with it, too.) Listeners were accustomed to the familiar
patterns and consonant sounds of Baroque and classical music,
which their brains had no trouble decoding. Sound enters our
ears as little pulses of electricity, and when they have an
even, regular rhythm, we perceive them as pleasing sounds. But
when they are irregular and unpredictable we usually interpret
them as sounds that we don’t like.
Stravinsky’s music was different, rhythmically complex and
full of dissonant sounds like minor seconds. And all those new
sounds made the audience literally go a little crazy. (You’d
have to listen to the part about dopamine release and
schizophrenia, which I won’t go into here.) But less than a
year later, when Rite of Spring was again performed in
Paris (without the ballet), the audience loved it and
Stravinsky was hailed as a hero. And 26 years later, the same
music that had caused blood to be shed at its first hearing
was deemed suitable for children and included on the
soundtrack for Disney’s Fantasia.
What happened? The audience could respond favorably the
second time because the music was no longer so grossly
unfamiliar. Their brains could break it down into patterns and
translate it into something recognizable. And that’s where the
connection to learning comes in. To learn something, we must
be able to receive and interpret the information.
Here’s what made this concept hit home for me. In 2006 San Francisco
Ballet performed William Forsythe’s Artifact Suite, in
which the fire curtain slams down five times, a lone woman
directs the ensemble with semaphoric arm movements, and the
stage lights shine into the audience’s eyes. Quite a few
people walked out mid-performance. Two people I know said they
hated it; one claimed it gave her a headache. Then, in 2007,
SFB again performed Artifact Suite, and the difference
in audience response was remarkable. Few if any people left,
and the two people who had said they hated it were raving
about how much they loved it. Not only that, audiences also
responded positively to another extremely edgy ballet that
season, Wayne McGregor’s Eden/Eden, which I don’t
believe would have happened had Artifact Suite not
paved the way. I couldn’t help but think about Rite of
Spring and the power of familiarity to change people’s
attitudes toward something they had previously rejected.
What does this have to do with teaching dance? Understanding
that humans are hard-wired to search for patterns, to
translate the unfamiliar into the familiar, might help
teachers accept the need to repeat new material, perhaps more
often than they’d like. So be patient the next time you
present something new and are met with stony expressions and
cries of “I hate this!” It might take more than one encounter
before students can receive, interpret, and respond to it. So
chalk it up to biochemistry, listen to Rite of Spring,
and give silent thanks to Stravinsky. And remember that
what was a disaster in 1913 was considered a masterpiece a
year later, and still is today.
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