Harkness in Motion

By Derrick D. Wilder, The Carol and W. Graham Cole, Jr. Distinguished Teaching Chair; Director of Dance

Harkness, at its heart, is about a problem-solving. Dance, at its core, is about sharing a journey. It’s about the choreographer, dance instructor, and dancers working together. To breathe life into the choreographer’s vision. To meld music to movement. To explore ways of overcoming the confinements and challenges of space.

Dancers must learn to collaborate in order to solve problems, and must work as a group to analyze issues that arise from movement, music, and space. In order to propel a dance project to performance readiness, the collaborators, in the truest spirit of Harkness, must “workshop” the piece, exploring all the possible repercussions of a particular choice, both good and bad. To engage effectively in this collective process, each participant must commit to listening to—and truly considering—others’ viewpoints and ideas. Furthermore, each contributor to a workshop interchange must be genuinely dedicated, when offering constructive-critical feedback, to engaging with empathy for fellow ensemble members. This collaborative enterprise can only succeed if all involved “find their voices” and speak up in order to ask critical questions and, furthermore, to affirm others’ best observations and proposals.

Sometimes there are difficult riddles to solve—requiring hours of experimentation, consultation, and trouble-shooting—before the collaborators on a dance project find themselves working in synchronicity. Sometimes there are conflicts to work through, emerging not just from competing ideas but from differing worldviews and personalities. Persisting in order to succeed at this kind of collaboration not only helps each Lawrenceville dance project to spring to life but, in a longer-lasting way, imbues each participant with skills essential for growing as an enigmatologist and as a communicator, and, furthermore, for approaching life with an artist’s sensibilities and skills—in realms beyond the performing arts.

One of the school’s best examples of Harkness in motion is the dance series. Our fall and spring showcases are a true collaboration between students and dance faculty. While a few of the works are choreographed by the dance faculty, the majority of the performances are brought to life through student initiative and creative partnership. Every step, jump, turn, and flourish – and every detail of costuming, lighting, makeup, and music – reflects a shared effort.

It should be no surprise that Lawrenceville Performing Arts is one of Harkness education’s truest homes. Edward Harkness, whose generous gifts set in motion what he preferred to call The Conference Method of teaching and learning, shared an intense friendship with Lewis Perry, Lawrenceville Class of 1894. Perry is most famous for serving as Principal of Phillips Exeter Academy during the period when that great school adopted The Conference Method. This educational revolution didn’t happen by accident. Concerned about an academic culture dominated by lectures (and, during pauses, by masters cold-calling on pupils), Harkness looked for a chance to push high school education in a new direction. Once upon a time, Harkness and Perry had met at a wedding. As they talked about the magic of watching new worlds come to life on stage, they formed a special bond. When Perry took over at Exeter, Harkness proposed to his dear friend that the Academy approach education in the same mode in which a theater-production team mounts a new play—as a collaboration, with students as well as teachers weighing in to explore various ways of answering a question or solving a problem.

Lewis Perry’s revolutionary impact at Exeter had important roots in what he had learned and made happen at Lawrenceville. During the 2017-2018 academic year, we celebrated 125 seasons of student-propelled theater. By the time of his graduation, Perry had done so much to promote student-led stage productions on this campus that his colleagues in the Lawrenceville Dramatic Club renamed the organization in his honor: Periwig. Deep into the second decade of the 21st century, our dance program is not just where Lawrentians learn to move their bodies with poise and grace – it is one of the places in which they learn to move their thinking, to change their minds. Similarly, our theater and music programs provide crucial opportunities for our students to engage in practical problem-solving, conflict resolution, and collective critical thinking. Our studios, stages, and concert halls are not just where choreographic visions and bodies take flight, or where words in a script come to life, or, in the words of English playwright William Congreve, where music notes “soothe the soul of the salvage breast.” They are key venues where the principles of Harkness education soar, unlocking, as we like to say, students’ “Passion, Performance, and Possibilities.” Harkness in motion!

For more information on The Lawrenceville School’s dance program, please visit performingarts.lawrenceville.org.