OUR LOVE HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH MIRRORS
Mirror mirror on the wall… Most of us have a love-hate relationship with our reflections. We walk past shop fronts glinting in the sunlight and can’t resist a peek at how we look. We take a critical look in dressing rooms as the cleverly positioned mirrors show us parts of our bodies we normally never see and of course, there’s no escaping the mirror in a dance studio - they’re on every wall, everywhere you turn you can see yourself multiplied.
“Mirrors should think longer before they reflect”
WHY USE A MIRROR IN THE DANCE STUDIO?
A mirror has many uses in the dance studio, for teacher and student alike. It provides immediate visual feedback for dance students to evaluate their movement and check their alignment. It’s also helpful for teachers to be able to see as many dancers in the room as possible, so it becomes a valuable teaching tool.
IS A MIRROR ALWAYS HELPFUL?
Despite its practical aspect, dancing in front of a mirror does have its negative side. If you never dance without a mirror you’ll develop a lack of internal body awareness, relying only on your reflection and not on the feeling from within your body.
Maybe more worrying is that many dancers get fixated on their body image and self-expression is forgotten in the obsession on appearance.
Mirrors can also become a crutch for learning combinations - watching others all the time, it becomes difficult, even impossible to dance the choreography alone. The mirror can also become a crutch for balance. Constantly using the mirror causes you to rely on visual cues more than your proprioceptors, the sensors that provide awareness of your body in space.
“‘Mirrors’, she said, ‘are never to be trusted’”
DO YOU NEED TIME AWAY FROM YOUR REFLECTION?
Test yourself! Try dancing without the mirror or maybe even with your eyes closed. Are you having difficulty balancing or dancing without your reflection? If so, it’s a definite signal to spend less time looking in the mirror in class.
TIPS FOR DANCING WITHOUT A MIRROR
Try to dance without a mirror and feel from the inside out. Rely on how it feels, gauge what proper alignment and correct technique feel like in your body - and also when it feels off or out of line.
Start your warm-up slowly. Close your eyes, feel your feet on the floor. How is the weight distributed? Bend your knees, feel your pelvis, play with the alignment tilting the pelvis forward and back. Where do you feel centred, balanced? Continue to move up through the body until you reach the crown of your head. When you’re ready, try to move from this new place of awareness.
During class, try to take your gaze away from the mirror more often.
Shift your focus to the direction in which you’re moving.
Use different ‘fronts’ in the room. Having to re-orient yourself to face a different direction, forces you to constantly be aware of your placement in space and is good preparation if you’re going to perform on stage.