October Article

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall:
A Fickle Friend, or No Friend at All?

It's a simple thing, really -- just a piece of silvered glass that reflects our image back to our own eyes. What's complicated is our response to what it shows us. As a staple in many spaces designed for movement, is the mirror a friend or a foe? Does it help our students and aid our teaching, or is it a hindrance?

Perhaps it all depends on how it's used.  Here's a look at its myriad roles (particularly in dance study, where it's most ubiquitous) with some concluding ideas on its presence in a Eurhythmics class.
 

As a helpful guide

The mirror’s role in dance and yoga classes is different from its place in a Eurhythmics class.  As dance is a visual art form, dancers rely on the mirror as a visual check. There is a right way, and many wrong ways, to stand in passé or arabesque. Dance students learn to match their positions to that of their teacher, and then memorize it in muscle sensation in order to transfer it away from the mirror. In yoga students use the mirror in the same way, as do modern dancers whose vocabulary is always variable. People can feel that they’re replicating what the teacher or choreographer demonstrated, but might not be doing so. As the kinesthetic map in our minds is imperfect, the mirror serves as an important guide.

I used to teach modern dance at a ballet studio where the mirrors were mounted to the wall a foot or so above the floor. That’s fine if you’re standing up all the time, but it was quite difficult to teach modern floor exercises to ballet students when they couldn’t see their bodies! 
 

As a habit

The mirror can also hinder students if it’s leaned upon habitually. For example, placement of the head is always important in dance, and the habit of keeping eyeballs trained on the mirror can create a strange disconnect. (Try a movement like cradling a baby, with the head bowed down and tilted to one side, and then roll your eyes upward as if to look in the mirror; or make an aggressive striking movement to a diagonal, and then try it while eyeballing sideways to catch your reflection. Not only do the movements not look the same, they don’t feel the same.)

That disconnect of head and eyes can become a habit that shows itself in other ways, as well. As an example, in some Graham contractions, the head should go backwards, so that the plane of the face is parallel to the ceiling. Try doing that while maintaining a focus forward, toward a mirror – eventually your eyes will simply close. Your head can’t fully reach that position while your eyes are looking in the mirror. “Look at the ceiling” is one instruction used to coax students to let go of their focus on the mirror; but oddly enough, it often results in a slight upward tilt of the head, with eyeballs rolled upwards to see the ceiling!
 

As a choreographic tool

In choreography – whether dance or Dalcroze plastique animee – the mirror helps people to refine aspects of performance not only individually, but also within the group. The mirror gives immediate feedback on how our own bodies relate to others – for example, checking for uniformity of line (are all arms at the same angle in this tilt?), or noting spatial relationships that couldn’t otherwise be seen (such as awareness of people who are behind you). Especially when there’s a choreographer dancing in his/her own piece, the mirror provides an opportunity to see more of the whole.

This is a challenge I faced on a regular basis as Dance Director of the UU Church of Arlington. I created new works regularly, and the resident dance company performed them after only four to six rehearsals. While we did some work in the studio -- for the sake of the mirrors -- most of our rehearsals took place in the sanctuary where the pieces were to be performed. There, the choreography could be set around spatial realities, including steps and platforms. But because I was also required to dance, and because there were no mirrors, I could never see the entire piece except in my imagination (watching the dancers and picturing myself in my role, or dancing and imagining what the others were doing without actually seeing them). I’d sometimes give each dancer a chance to stand in front and watch others, and the new perspective it gave them always yielded revelations of one kind or another. In other words, the mirror was missed.
 

As a crutch

The mirror can’t be there during a performance, so there comes a point where it has to go. In the studio, it's "turn around and make this wall 'front.'" Onstage, it's blinding lights and a complete readjustment of spatial grounding.

At the point the mirror goes away, all the ways it’s been used as a crutch become evident. The person furthest downstage suddenly feels out there alone, with no way to see the others anymore. At any position onstage, each person has a new task in trusting the unseen space behind them. And with all visual cues removed, dancers may discover they’ve relied on watching each other more than listening and taking cues from the music (“I do this when I see her do that,” rather than “I do this when I hear that").
 

As a vehicle for the Inner Critic

The Inner Critic, a thought pattern many people contend with, often gains power from the mirror. In fact, one study indicates that 80% of American women are dissatisfied with their appearance (L. Smolak, 1996). While such dissatisfaction can be dismissed when people are focused elsewhere, the mirror abolishes all distraction and lets the Inner Critic chide, "See what I'm saying?"

While some people may feel uncomfortable with movement and watching themselves move, others are distracted by their appearance in the reflection. Our “body images” exist in our perceptions of ourselves even away from the mirror, but seeing that image can elicit or reinforce negative ideas. Dysmorphic disorders can cause people to see their physical reflections in unrealistic, distorted ways – whether that’s about weight or an exaggerated view of a facial feature, for example. And some say that “body consciousness,” rather than “body image,” is the starting point for those who feel disconnected from their bodies altogether.

One novice yoga student told me she finds the mirror unnerving. While recognizing its value for learning the positions properly, she points out that in normal circumstances people don’t look at themselves in the mirror for an hour and a half at a time. Indeed, in some situations, even a few seconds can be painful – I dare say only a very few people enjoy the experience of shopping for bathing suits!
 

As a vehicle for vanity

Doubtless, there’s some element of vanity among many mirror-gazers as well, particularly in dance classes. (One ballet teacher I knew used to ridicule this, calling it the “am I pretty yet” mindset.) It’s understandable that there’s a sense of pride in the accomplishment of a beautiful leg extension, similar to the feeling a pianist has in mastering a difficult passage. As musicians listen to themselves, so dancers watch themselves.

But vanity is seen in other ways, as well. Many mirrors have distortions that offer “fat” places and “thin” places, and some people make pointed efforts to avoid the former. Ballet skirts, drawstring pants, and baggy t-shirts are often chosen to cover certain areas of the body and make the mirror's reflection more palatable. Dance classes even have their own fashion trends, which often have little or nothing to do with comfort or mobility. When pushed-down leg warmers were in style, everybody had sensitive achilles' requiring them; when long leg warmers were in style, a sudden need to keep legs warm up to 3" below the hip arose; knit shorts and cropped tights became in fashion, precipitating a need to keep the buttocks warm and a recovery in everybody’s achilles' and hamstrings; and now a new epidemic of chilly arms has boosted sales in arm warmers. In other words, it’s all fashion. Where such vanity's in play, how we look to ourselves relates closely to how we imagine we look to others.
 

As a helpful or unhelpful presence in the Eurhythmics class

When the focus is on movement for the sake of music, in a classroom (as opposed to plastique animee for an audience), aesthetic issues do not apply. The emphasis is not on how students look on the outside, but what experience they are having on the inside. A mirror, then, can be a distracting element to students, leading their own focus astray toward their “outsides” rather than their “insides.” So if there is a mirror in the space, it’s even more important to emphasize this principle in words and in practice. (For example, place the piano away from the mirror; otherwise, the students will be facing the mirror each time they turn to you at the piano. Similarly, if you want to de-emphasize the mirror, try not to stand with your back to the mirror wall when leading a particular exercise or demonstrating something, or students will be distracted by their own images in front of them.)

However, there are a few reasons it’s important to teach movement technique, and a mirror can be helpful to that end. The first reason is to enhance musical experience. To get a higher skip, an easier leap, or a wider range of movement, technical skills are essential. The mirror can help students see what they actually are and aren’t doing, and learn to bend knees, swing legs, coordinate arms, plant heels, spring feet, etc. Moving from one’s “center” is also helped with visual input, creating a “map” or image in the mind. The end result is greater awareness and control, and thus a heightened musical experience.

The second reason technique matters concerns safety and efficiency. Correct alignment and awareness of posture are crucial for injury prevention and minimizing muscle fatigue. Proper alignment from head to feet is also important for safe landings from jumps, falls to the floor and rises back to standing, and safe flexing of the spine. Identifying and moving from a strong core or center, aided with visual input, can take strain from the back and legs. Watching how joints flex, how the ribcage can move, how the head relates to the rest of the body in lateral movement, all provide a mental image to take into space for more efficient, expansive, comfortable, and non-injurious movement.

Movement in a Eurhythmics class presents unique issues regarding visual focus. With eyes off the mirror, and a focus on inward experience, where do people look during a Eurhythmics class? It’s very common for the focus to go inward, and eyelids/gazes to lower toward the floor. Sometimes, that’s necessary for a difficult task requiring intense concentration, but it can soon become a habit. Exercises that require actually seeing something in the room are useful to integrating visual focus with movement. As examples, focusing on something – even a spot – on a wall, and moving toward it; watching what another student or group is doing while moving in one’s own way (in canon or opposition, for example); changing visual focus on signal (side, up, down, etc. or a focus on another person); or exercises requiring awareness and connection with others, such as stopping at the end of phrases to tap another, or moving among stationary people, or imitating someone else’s movement. 

Here's one rather funny exercise that keeps students focused on each other. Have each student secretly decide upon two people: one is a person they will avoid, and another person they will move toward. Like two ends of a magnet, they must distance themselves as far as possible from the 'negative' person, who repels them, and try to get as close as possible to the 'positive' person, who attracts them. They might imagine one person has a highly contagious disease, and the other one is essential for their safety. Set a tempo with your music and let them move about freely, without giving away in any obvious fashion who their two people are (they need to look at various other people in order not to reveal this). The greatest difficulty is maintaining the tempo – the tendency is an acceleration that has everyone running wildly within a few moments. After a minute or two, it will dissolve into laughter. Nothing wrong with that -- at least for a short time, nobody was looking at the mirror, the Inner Critics were silent, and everyone's eyes stayed off the floor!

 
Endnote: "Dance like nobody's watching"

As Mark Twain wrote:

Dance like nobody's watching;
Love like you've never been hurt.
Sing like nobody's listening;
Live like it's heaven on earth.

Pursuant to my recent article about gender and movement, and related to this one, I recommend a great clip making the rounds on the internet: a young man at the Air Force Academy dancing like nobody’s watching, because he didn’t know anyone was. Although you may feel somewhat voyeuristic, it provides a rare glimpse of a man dancing with complete abandon!

Here's a link to a blog with the clip (the clip requires a download):
http://whatsup.nxivm.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=218&blogId=30