How ballet training teaches us to be good soldiers, not leaders…
If you have ever worked with a former professional ballet dancer you will no doubt agree that they make excellent employees. They are disciplined, show up on time, know real team work and how to listen, and take on feedback superbly well. They have developed grit from hours of work dedicated to their dream, enduring hours of hard physical work, often with little pay nor chance for fame or fortune. They are problem-solvers due to years of resolving issues related to their dance technique. They are trained in aiming to be the best possible, surviving intense competition to make it into a professional company.
That was me. Like a good little soldier and from a young age I was told how to dress and wear my hair, when to show up and what to do. We did not speak while training nor did we question what we did or how we did it. I was taught in the master-pupil paradigm; me as the empty vessel, my teacher the keeper of knowledge. I had no say as to the roles I would have a chance to perform, if I performed at all. I was dependent on others to tell me if I was good enough.
I love ballet; the mastery of the body that comes with practice, the power of expression through dance, the pleasure of melding music to movement is food for my soul. I was always told growing up that I was very good at it. I always received a lot of attention in dance class and from the powers that be. I did well professionally. I even had my 15 minutes of fame which, considering the life expectancy of a dance career, is nothing to sneeze at. I have had to admit however that my perfectionistic tendencies and my desire to please and my efforts be validated, no doubt present before my first plié and arabesques, were indisputably reinforced by my ballet training and an obstacle to overcome in my desire to lead a fulfilled life. And I know I am not the only one with this legacy as I look at many of my former classmates and colleagues, or the young ballet students I have known throughout the years.
For those unfamiliar with the art form, time in the ballet studio is chiefly dedicated to the learning of new steps and exercises and to their practice. Students say little in the process, aside from occasional questions regarding the movements or musicality. If you have ever taken a class, no matter how many years ago, the format remains the same today, bound by tradition. The teacher trains her/his class, a group of students of the same age, often with varied levels of talent, physical or expressive.
Without the opportunity to discuss our practice in depth, as students we are reliant on our teachers to indicate to us how well we are doing and if we’re performing adequately. This is done through feedback, or corrections as they’re known. Corrections are the tidbits of information a teacher imparts to us throughout the dance class, informing our practice and allowing us to improve aspects of our dancing that need work. We are dependent on this if we want to become good artists, if not great ones. We welcome every “correction” with the reassurance that we are visible to our “leader” and that we are worthy enough to be noticed.
The feedback validates our efforts. On the other hand being ignored is painful, all the more so when our classmates experience a different outcome and receive that attention we might crave. Feelings of failure are common and comparison to our peers understandable; what have they done that warrants such interest from the teacher? We understand that they have “something” to emulate, perhaps the seamless flow of an exercise, the beauty in the execution of a particular step, or better yet, a dogged sense of determination and the ability to apply the feedback and thereby improve, correction by correction.
So what determines the amount of attention and feedback a dance student gets in class? Who should receive feedback? As a teacher myself I am mindful of this. Should it be the most talented? The hardest working dancers? All of the class? As a dance student you are at the mercy of your instructor’s style and preferences. I will not address here the vast unfairness that develops when some students earn all the teacher’s attention while others are left to their own devices to figure out how to improve their technique without much help. Many fall by the wayside, discouraged, yet I have also seen a few of such students rise above the fold in unexpected ways. I suspect now that, unlike their counterparts reliant on external validation, they’ve learned to be autonomous in their self-assessments. I also believe that those of us who basked in the attention might have been disadvantaged by this later on, when the focus changed to others, younger, stronger, better.
This day-in day-out dependence on external validation has an impact on the education of our ballet dancers, teaching them to value themselves through the eyes of others, to shape their sense of self according to the perception others have of them. It is furthermore complicated because art is subjective. Although pure talent is effortlessly recognized, it is not so straightforward predicting who will rise from the pack, who will have a career, who will make a mark in the dance world.
We need to teach our dancers to think independently, to develop a sense of personal agency in their learning process, for them to grow into healthy successful beings regardless of the career path they may choose down the line. Research has shown that a dancer’s early educative experience can negatively impact their sense of self, encouraging auto-criticism and anxiety (Walker, Nordin-Bates, 2010).
Our current accepted practices of teaching ballet need to be re-examined if we want to nurture talent in more holistic ways and create a training paradigm in ballet that fosters mentally and physically fit thinking dance artists. Depending on external validation runs counter to this goal. How can you trust yourself, rely on and benefit from your own judgement, knowledge and instincts, if you are constantly looking outwards to confirm your thought system or beliefs? How can you think creatively if you are taught to rely on others for validation?
We need to have an open conversation about this dysfunction in our milieu. We are in the 21st century. Louis XIV and absolutism has disappeared a few centuries ago. We need to move with the times and this includes learning best practices from the research in dance science, and science, so we can evolve, learn, and grow, in order for us to offer our students the very best in training thereby attending to the whole person, not just the dancing body.
If we fail to address this will ballet become an old-fashioned art form that does not speak to our times? Our audience is already a thinning crowd, too often comprised of other dancers, and friends and family. Why are we stuck in our paradigm? Could it be that our training does not create enough leaders with the confidence, vision and creativity to innovate and disrupt traditions that are neither effective nor currently relevant anymore?
Huddle Up
So how do we create a shift to allow for positive change? It is easy to point fingers, criticize, complain and then sit back. Solutions however are more interesting and more constructive to the cause. If change is to come from the top down, we first need to educate our teachers. By this I mean to offer them pedagogical knowledge that is holistic in its scope and specific to the art form. Present day curricula, in two recognized teacher training courses I have attended, were primarily concerned with steps and the hierarchical order of technical skills. They did not address in any sort of depth the psychological (or the physiological, see Wyon, 2010) needs of young dancers. It is a jungle out there. If you are a caring teacher you will no doubt show respect toward your cohort of young artists and use common sense to inspire them. Chances are though that you will also repeat the patterns you learned growing up (Enghauser, 2003), patterns that can use some revisiting and tweaking.
The status quo right now, in most western countries, allows for former dancers to become specialists in dance education without knowledge other than their own experience as professionals. Empirical know-how is incredibly precious but it is no substitute for knowledge-based pedagogical best practices. How do students learn? What are the best pedagogical strategies for our particular discipline? What are the most important issues at hand which deserve our attention? Is it wellness or technique? Can both go hand in hand?
Ballet teachers need to be educated about the specific needs and traits of the population they train, in order to foster dancers that will succeed both professionally and personally. Ideal parental guidance models good learning and coping strategies but in the absence of this how can a learning institution provide students with the tools to thrive? Mandatory psychological support, to help manage maladaptive aspects of perfectionism (including anxiety over worries about mistakes) is highly recommended as ballet as a discipline attracts a population that exhibits strong tendencies towards these anxiety-producing traits (Nordin-Bates, Raedeke, Madigan, 2017). Having a perfectionistic teacher can furthermore exacerbate these tendencies (Nordin-Bates, 2019). Are teachers examining their own coping strategies? A lifelong curiosity about our art form, modeling best practices, investing regularly in professional development, these elements are key to enriching our teaching. If we ask students to give the best of themselves, should we not apply the same expectations to ourselves?
How-To
A sense of play can go a long way to relieve tension associated with the struggle of mastering movement and our own sometimes recalcitrant (especially in growing spurts) body. A sense of humor can lighten the burden of aspiring to perfection, an impossible task when human and definitely imperfect.
Providing within the ballet class richer opportunities to engage in personal decision-making fosters a greater sense of autonomy in dance students (Nordin-Bates, 2019, Mainwaring, 2010), a far better educative option than encouraging a dependency on others for opinions and the ability to make a judgement. What would this look like in a ballet class? Is choosing the end pose of an exercise enough? Or should we dig deeper and ask students what they want to be working on and give weight to their input? I do not know the answers but I do believe the question is worth asking.
We know that dance students are negatively affected in the long term by harsh teachers who punish mistakes (Walker, Nordin-Bates, 2010). Mistakes are a natural component of the learning process but difficult for perfectionists to accept. How do we teach our students to embrace their errors as stepping stones towards better learning? Can perceived feelings of failure be re-framed to embrace the learning process? What does that look like?
This leads to the question: what do we prize in our students? Praising physical attributes or natural abilities instead of process (what you have to do in order to reach your goals) robs young dancers of the pride and sense of control that comes with great physical efforts and dedication. Determination, intrinsic motivation, problem-solving skills, goal-setting and reflective thinking are strategies and traits that can be learned and developed, unlike high arches and perfect physical proportions. So what is the nature of the feedback given? Does it praise the process or the product? Does it cultivate confidence or insecurity in young dancers? Does anyone today still believe that encouraging insecurity and putting down students will result in positive outcomes, when research clearly points to the opposite direction? We can only hope for isolated incidents when we read the news or hear the gossip.
Let me propose something quasi heretic. Let’s do away with the traditional format of dance class as the template for learning. Let’s think bigger. Instead of parceling out corrections, why not take the time to address issues in a more comprehensive manner? Mainwaring (2010) suggests providing students with a larger conceptual context for learning, with the wonderful example of taking time to explore good alignment principles instead of simply adjusting a student’s pelvis during an exercise. A ballet teacher might balk at this: a ballet class is traditionally divided into precise sections and order, addressing as much of the repertoire to learn and practice as possible in an hour and a half (the average class time). Instead of this robbing time from the allotted training time, such exploration practices would actually speed up the learning process as students come into fuller understanding as to the WHAT and WHY behind the technique.
In this kind of environment the teacher then becomes the guide to knowledge rather than the keeper, empowering young dancers to step into a new learning paradigm of our art form, with the depth and passion dance training deserves and with the aim of creating much more than good little soldiers. Rather than being comfortable in how we teach ballet, because this is how we have learned it -and we did not turn out so bad did we?-, we should seek to create even better versions of ourselves.
Having a new generation of independent thinkers with a sense of agency regarding their learning and growth is in the best interest of the whole ballet community. After all these are incredible beings who have learned and mastered to high levels a beautiful and complex art form and who are inspiring. As such they should claim that for themselves, not reliant on external validation but on the confidence that comes with such wonderful achievements.
ps: I am sending this out even if my perfectionistic self would like to keep on working on it some more ;-) Comments and varied perspectives are welcome, keeping the conversation going.
REFERENCES
Enghauser, R. Motor learning and the dance technique class: Science, tradition and pedagogy (2003). Journal of Dance Education 2003; 3(3): 87–95.
Mainwaring L, Krasnow D. Teaching the dance class: Strategies to enhance skill acquisition, mastery and self-image. Journal of Dance Education 2010; 10(1):14–21.
Nordin-Bates, SM. (2019) Striving for Perfection or for Creativity, Journal of Dance Education, DOI: 10.1080/15290824.2018.1546050
Nordin-Bates SM, Raedeke T, Madigan D. Perfectionism, Burnout, and motivation in dance: A replication and test of the 2x2 model of perfectionism 2017; (21)3:115–122.
Walker IJ, Nordin-Bates SM. Performance anxiety experiences of professional ballet dancers: The importance of control. J Dance Med Sci. 2010; 14(4):133–45.
Wyon, M. Preparing to perform: Periodization and Dance. J Dance Med Sci. 2010; 14(2):67–72.
