This post was an open source assignment for Nina El Badry’s Ph.D Student in Leadership

An extraordinary performance takes the audience’s breath away. It inspires, connects, and transcends time and space. To become an extraordinary performer, one must aspire to go beyond making the audience have a “wow” moment. One must aspire to experience their personal “wow” moment for its own intrinsic satisfaction.

For many hours, dancers learn the choreography, train, practice, get challenged and frustrated, get praised, corrected, and criticized by their coach, experience an emotional roller coaster, get upset, and get motivated again so that they can at some point reach a moment of magic that makes everything meaningful.

In that moment of focused energy, their technical skill set matches the challenge to give rise to the most enjoyable and satisfying experience where everything merges, and nothing matters anymore. That is the state of flow. How the performer gets there and what they must overcome does not have an easy answer.

In this essay, I apply the systems thinking concept to dance performance. In my 20 years of experience teaching, competing, and performing in Latin and swing dances, I came to realize and appreciate the complexities of what it takes to be a great and masterful performer who inspires others. Every one of my shows and performance opportunities brings a new perspective and a new learning opportunity.

Whether you dance as a competitor, performer, just for fun, or simply enjoy watching others dance, I invite you to apply systems thinking perspective to understand how to make a dance performance extraordinary. Please note that if the dancer is still struggling to finish learning the choreography, or thinking about the styling, they are not ready to proceed to the next level of working on their performance. The anxiety generated by the lack of proficiency will be too detrimental to move to the next stage.

Systems thinking

Systems thinking is the way to look at the whole picture as — opposed to only seeing parts — and understand how the interconnectedness of those parts can contribute to the outcome.

Systems thinking in organizational development and learning has been popularized by an American systems scientist, and a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, Dr. Peter Senge in his contemporary work The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organizations (Senge, 1990, rev 2006). He defines systems thinking as “a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static “snapshots”’ (Senge, 2006, p. 68).

The principles of systems thinking have the capacity to re-structure our understanding of current reality and help us shift from reacting to co-creating, from being passive to being active, and allow us to understand and appreciate the surrounding complexity. Dr. Senge writes that systems thinking requires a shift of mind to see these interrelationships and processes of change that simplify life “by helping us see the deeper patterns lying behind the events and details” (Senge, 2006, p.73).

On a deeper level, systems thinking closes the loop between the experience of reality and the sense of participation in the cycle of awareness and thought (Scharmer, 2018).

Throughout this essay, I will categorize aspects of different influences into separate buckets, to make it more accessible for readers to process and relate. We tend to think in binary oppositions as that is how we get introduced to concepts and ideas in language (Mills, 2005). Binary oppositions help us understand thinking in the context of larger systems and not in isolation, often leading to a dualistic interpretation of the world. In binary oppositions, we put ideas in complementary pairs such as external and internal, audience and performer, and body and mind. However, the premise of systems thinking implies that when everything is interconnected, there is no separation.

The performer’s consciousness and the state of having direct influences on the audience’s consciousness and the state of being, and both are a part of one complex web of energy that they can experience but never truly understand. The energy of a nervous performer will affect their teammates and the audience in a way that is different if the performer was confident and relaxed. When a dancer enters the state of flow, they tap into a collective consciousness, which is the same consciousness the audience is tapping into when they get moved by the performance.

Keeping that in mind, there are two major environments that permeate and affect each other during dance performance: the inner condition of the performer and the outer environment where they perform.

The Inner Condition

The inner condition of the dancer is the most important aspect of creating a great performance.

The inner source from which a dancer operates includes many psychosocial factors such as self-awareness, self-esteem, self-criticism, confidence or lack thereof, resiliency, inner securities or insecurities, past traumas that affect perceptions, and philosophical and cultural assumptions of the surrounding reality.

In his famous bestseller The Essentials of Theory U, Dr. Scharmer, an author and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, writes that the place from which we operate, act, communicate, perceive, or think is the key to how successful we are going to be in our everyday social interactions, in other words: “the success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervener” (Scharmer, 2018, p.7). To paraphrase Dr. Scharmer, the success of a dance performance depends on the interior condition of the dancer.

“The success of a dance performance depends on the interior condition of the dancer.”

— Nina El Badry

The inner source includes the integration of mind and body, and the ability to deeply sense and control the physical body, such as the relaxation and contractions of certain muscles at the same time, the isolations, the turning of the head, the articulation of the feet and the engagement of the core.

One may argue that this physical proprioception is separate from the inner source, however, this is where the systems thinking comes into play. The performance experience on the stage is an embodied experience. A dancer’s body should not exist separately from the dancer. The dancer’s body helps them make visible what they already know, feel, and experience. The dancer feels the body from within, connecting the inner source of awareness to the body and becoming the instrument to express the music they hear and the emotion they feel, and at some point, enter the state of flow.

The dancer feels the body from within, connecting the inner source of awareness to the body and becoming the instrument to express the music they hear and the emotion they feel, and at some point, enter the state of flow.

— Nina El Badry

The state of flow

The state of flow is a subjective psychological concept that plays an important role in making performance extraordinary, meaningful, and pleasurable — leading the dancer to want to perform simply due to this intrinsic benefit.

The state of flow was well described by the positive psychology co-founder, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He defined flow as “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it” (Csikszentmihalyi, 2008, p. 4).

Individuals in flow have complete concentration, clarity, transformation of time and space, effortlessness and ease, a feeling of control, and a merging of action and awareness leading to the loss of self-conscious rumination. The state of flow echoes Dr. Scharmer’s fourth field state of awareness: the generative ecosystem state.

Scharmer theorized that there are four states of awareness:

The habitual state (interpreting the present situation based on the habits of the past)
The ego-system state (subject-object awareness)
The empathic state (sensing reality from the viewpoint of others)
The generative eco-system state. The generative state most closely resembles the state of flow where dancers experience space of co-creative awareness and presencing (being in the present moment) of the future potential (Scharmer, 2018).

Dr. Scharmer states that “inspiring performers… tend to operate from the entire spectrum of social fields, moving across all four of them as needed by the situation they face” (Scharmer, 2018, p. 39).

“Inspiring performers… tend to operate from the entire spectrum of social fields, moving across all four of them as needed by the situation they face.”

— Dr. Scharmer, 2018

Dancers’ attention and mindfulness are critically important in reaching the generative state of awareness through the state of flow. Mindfulness is the awareness that comes from the ability to pay purposeful, non-judgmental attention to the present moment (Kabat-Zinn, 2001). From the systems perspective, mindfulness is seeing the system from the perspective of self and paying attention to self’s attention, patterns, and assumptions (individual mindfulness) both/and from the perspective of a group and paying attention to the group’s attention, patterns and assumptions (collective mindfulness).

The way dancers pay attention affects how reality emerges around them. For example, if a dancer misses a step during a performance, and directs their attention to that mistake, experiencing dissatisfaction with themselves at that moment, their energy will flow accordingly, getting sustained in the disappointment, self-criticism, and internal judgment. That will lead to the inability to experience the present moment as it arises. Wherever dancers put their attention during the performance, that is where the energy of the system around them and their own energy will go.

Wherever dancers put their attention during the performance, that is where the energy of the system around them and their own energy will go.

— Nina El Badry

The way a dancer pays attention is, consequently, the way a dancer’s realities will emerge. Unsure, incoherent thoughts will manifest in an unsure, disconnected performance. Dancers’ awareness of their attention and energy flow is important in executing an inspiring performance that takes into account how dancers shape their own reality.

The power of intention

The power of intention is another important aspect of shaping reality to improve dance performance. The power of intention is when the dancer can internally rehearse and imagine a dance performance from their own perspective as though he or she is dancing it in reality (McTaggart, 2008).

It is different from visualization techniques where the person is observing themselves dancing from a distance through another pair of eyes, or positive thinking. This mental rehearsal is a powerful technique used by many professional sports athletes to generate the intention of success and to produce measurable results. There have been many studies that show a strong correlation between mental rehearsal and the performance of a motor task. For example, an exercise psychologist demonstrated that those participants who mentally rehearsed weight training in their minds increased their muscle power by half as much as those who exercised in the gym (Yue & Cole, 1992).

I practice the following mental rehearsal that I call “Creating the Attitude of Success”. I put on my headphones with the performance music track, close my eyes and visualize every moment of my performance on stage as it is happening in the future through my eyes. In my mind, I experience my movement to the music, and I hear the reaction of the audience, I feel the energy of the room and the energy of my teammates dancing next to me, and I sense myself entering the state of flow.

This exercise is surprisingly hard to do, as the mind tends to wander in some other direction during this mental practice. However, the ability to experience yourself successfully performing in the potential future is an important element of a great performance. It also creates a feeling of “I have already done this successfully” as opposed to the feeling of anxiety when entering the stage for the first time. How dancer thinks is what they become.

The Outer Sources

The outer environment of performance includes teammates (if it is a team performance), the audience, their energetic field, the physical factors such as the quality of the floor, the stage, the lighting, the sound system, the dance costume, the hair, and make-up style. The outer environment also includes biopsychological factors such as the autonomic nervous system, a division of the nervous system that controls involuntary actions.

Let’s look at each of the external factors a little closer. A dancer’s relation to teammates and their energy during the performance matters for entering flow.

Research showed that engaging in activities together as a group generates more enjoyment out of flow compared to doing it individually (Walker, 2010). Personally, it has always been more rewarding for me to be a part of a dance team as opposed to dancing solo. The group dynamics of a cohesive, supportive, and nurturing team cannot be underestimated in helping reach and enjoy the state of flow and generative, co-creative awareness (dancer, teammates, and audience).

The group dynamics of a cohesive, supportive, and nurturing team cannot be underestimated in helping reach and enjoy the state of flow and generative, co-creative awareness

— Nina El Badry

The audience can consist of professional, semi-professional, amateur dancers, or a mixed group. In each case, the dancer will perceive the audience with varying levels of anxiety that may generate a feeling of being judged or disinterested, depending on the audience. It is important to avoid these projections of perceptions, accept reality as it is, and work with the existing energy of the audience. Dancers should engage the audience in what they feel and experience when they perform.

There is a fine balance in dancing for the audience while staying connected to yourself.

An amateur performer may make the mistake of trying to dance for the audience's pleasure and expectations only. There may be a preoccupation with audience approval, the dancer’s technical expertise, and appearance. Creating an imbalance towards the audience’s approval robs the dancer of emotional connection and enjoyment. This creates emotional disconnection and limits self-reflection.

External factors can overwhelm the dancer and rob them of performance enjoyment, like blinding lights or a slippery floor. One of the important insights for dancers is that they should perform as themselves to realize their higher potential and embark on an ongoing journey of placing themselves in the center of the audience they need to be connecting to and inspiring during the performance.

The nervous system

It is no surprise that performing in front of an audience creates a very different sensation than dancing socially, in class, or alone.

The dancer may be confident in their knowledge of the choreography and have sufficiently practiced, but even if they have a complete mastery of the steps, they may forget things in front of an audience. The heart starts to race and the anxiety kicks in affecting the performance, bringing in another important factor important to discuss — the nervous system.

One reason lies in two functional components of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). Whether the ANS effect is truly an internal or external factor may be up for debate, however, since it exists outside of the dancer’s mind and inner state of being, I would categorize it as an external factor. The physical and/or psychological stress during a dance performance leads to the activation of the Sympathetic Nervous System component of ANS (SNS, “fight or flight response”), which can also lead to freezing/inaction in response to sympathetic overload. To modulate this heightened state of stress, the Parasympathetic Nervous System component of ANS (PNS, “rest and digest”) comes into play.

“The stress during a dance performance leads to the activation of the Sympathetic Nervous System component of ANS (SNS, “fight or flight response”).

— Nina El Badry

Research indicates that in the self-reported state of flow during the performance, artists experience the predominance of SNS (Thompson & Jaque, 2011). Regulating and mediating SNS and PNS effects is an important part of dance training and conditioning in developing physical and/or psychological stage stress control.

Not only should performers continuously put themselves on the stage to get used to performing, but they must also practice performing every time they dance. Great performers must practice performing and when they perform, treat it as practice, seeing what arises under that additional pressure of physical and/or psychological system of influence and learn how to be better prepared next time.

It may sound mundane, but dancers must be aware of every component of the external system and take them into account in gauging how the show may proceed. For example, testing the floor before a show is important as the dancer uses it to ground their movement. If the floor feels too slippery, parts of the soles of the dance shoes can be dipped in water to create more traction. If the floor is too sticky, baby powder can be used in getting better sliding ability.

Understanding the impact of the remaining external factors comes from practicing: practicing wearing a performance costume, wearing hair extensions or lash extensions, and practicing performing in bright lights or having distracting background noises and conversations. Awareness of the external environment should also lead to acceptance of what is and what cannot be changed in order to get into the present and a state of relaxation with the performance.

Systems Thinking: Summary of Considerations

In summary, when a dancer wants to have an extraordinary, meaningful, impactful, and inspiring performance, that is pleasurable to both the audience and themselves, they have to enter a generative field of flow and move from reacting to co-creating within the complexities of the system they are in.

To improve dance performance using systems thinking, dancers have to understand the deeper patterns that lie beneath the phenomenon of performance, and consider the following:

Attending to the following parts of the system: the inner state of the dancer and the outer environment of the performance. Recognizing the relationships between them and learning how to use them to their advantage. Accepting what cannot be changed.
Attuning to the inner state – How is the dancer feeling? What does the dancer want to express? Dancing inside-out, embodying emotions, making visible what they already know, and connecting to their authentic self are the necessary ingredients to flow.
Being mindful and focused throughout the performance. Remembering that attending to something in a certain way will shape the reality at that moment in that way. Learning to create positive experiences under pressure and mistakes.
Practicing performing and when performing, practicing. Paying attention to what wants to emerge under pressure. Practicing handling the physical and/or psychological stress of being on stage. Learning how to recover and not fall apart.
Practicing mental rehearsal!

Systems thinking may not be something that comes to mind when thinking of a dance performance, yet with these examples and suggestions, adopting a systems thinking approach may be the key to thriving as a dance performer.

Systems thinking allows a dancer to close the loop between their experience of performing with their sense of participation through their state of awareness. Approaching dance performance in a holistic way and integrating the inner state and intention of the performer with the outer state of the performance environment can generate the creative elements necessary to enter the state of flow and to connect the individual consciousness to the Universal one.

References:

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2008). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience (Harper Perennial Modern Classics).

Kabat-Zinn, J. (2001). Mindfulness meditation for everyday life. London, UK: Piatkus.

McTaggart, L. (2008). The intention experiment: Using your thoughts to change your life and the world. Simon and Schuster.

Mills, K. A. (2005). Deconstructing Binary Oppositions in Literacy Discourse and Pedagogy. The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 28(1), 67–82. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/ielapa.881568229105597

Scharmer, O. (2018). The essentials of Theory U: Core principles and applications. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Senge, P. M. (2006). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. Broadway Business.

Thomson, P. & Jaque, S. V. (2011). Psychophysiological study: Ambulatory measures of the ANS in performing artists. International Symposium on Performance Science, 149-154.

Yue, G., & Cole, K. J. (1992). Strength increases from the motor program: comparison of training with maximal voluntary and imagined muscle contractions. Journal of neurophysiology, 67(5), 1114-1123.

Walker, C. J. (2010) Experiencing flow: Is doing it together better than doing it alone? The Journal of Positive Psychology, 5(1), 5-11

The science of a great performance: the application of systems thinking