(Pre-post note: I am NOT referring to places like conservatories, art/dance high schools, etc. where wanting to and being able to dance/practice all the time is the REASON you are at that school.)
As an adult dancer, I appreciate that there are people that will let me take class even though there's no chance I'm going to be a professional. I especially appreciate that people will let me take class, and even perform, even though I am unable to devote as much time to it as would be ideal.
Take the ballet company I'm performing with, for example. I take one or two classes a week, partly to stay in ballet shape and partially to get strong enough to do a full ballet en pointe. At my old home studio, two classes a week (90 minutes technique, 30 minutes pointe = one class) was the bare minimum for you to even be taking classes after a certain level. And I understand completely that ballet is a discipline that requires some devotion, as any activity is--and since most people don't have a studio in their house, class essentially serves as practice. I get it. I used to practice seven hours of piano a week. And three hours of violin. Four hours of ballet (plus another two or three hours weekly of rehearsal for performances) is totally on par with that.
Once my mom voiced concerns to my ballet teacher about me only being able to take two lessons, and my teacher said she shouldn't worry, since I picked up choreography quickly and my technique was solid. Okay, cool, so I get to perform as a teenager and it's great, even though I'm not taking 4 or 5 classes a week.
At the same time, however, since I wasn't "devoted" enough, and I wasn't going to be professional, I was passed over for "big flowers" for a couple of years in favor of girls who were less secure en pointe, seemingly only because they took more classes than me and didn't say outright that they didn't want to be professional dancers.
It has come to my attention that my current ballet company requires its "senior dancers" to take nine classes a week. NINE. One short of double digits. These classes are selected from company classes and level 6/7 (out of 10) classes, two pointe classes, and one partnering class. One of the pointe classes is during a company class, so none of the senior dancers do that one. So these dancers are taking class Monday through Saturday. A sample schedule might be:
Monday: Technique class, 4:00 - 5:30
Technique class (level 6/7), 5:30 - 7
Tuesday: Technique class, 4:00 - 5:30
Partnering class, 5:30 - 6:30
Wednesday: Technique class, 4:00 - 5:30
Thursday: Technique class, 4:00 - 5:30
Friday: Technique class, 4:00 - 5:30
Pointe class, 6:00 - 7:00
Saturday: Technique class, 12:30 - 2
On top of this, the dancers have rehearsals approximately 5 hours a week, and the rehearsal schedule is not the same every week. That's insane. I don't know if the director is actually lenient or not--she might be, as she is with me, because obviously as a grad student I can't do this. From what I know, though, at least the girls that I am dancing with are at the studio Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday for class (from my own observation), as well as Tuesday, because I hear them talk about the partnering classes.
Let's discuss the implications of this.
1. Dancers are essentially told that if they want to perform, they must drop all other activities. Now, it may be the case that they can be "auxiliary dancers" or something in name only but actually dance in senior dancer roles. But as far as I can see, only younger and/or less proficient dancers are labeled auxiliary/apprentices.
2. In a similar vein senior dancers must sacrifice some college "desirability" because they
cannot hold authority positions in things like the school paper, debate
club, theater, etc. etc. that require you to meet extensively outside of school. They are at the studio from 4-7/8 six days a week. Note: classes in
this school district end at 3:30, so no, you can't make a meeting after
school. Not having these club opportunities also decreases the possibility of having solid relationships with teachers that can write you recommendation letters.
3. Senior dancers must have families that can afford nine classes a week. Now, it might be that you're capped at 6 classes a week, since that's the highest price I can find, or that company classes are free/reduced (but you still have to pay for the extra three classes), and that there are some scholarships. However, that's still quite a lot of money.
4. Senior dancers must have families that are well-off to the degree that the dancers do not need "normal" after-school jobs (i.e., jobs without connections that are sympathetic to the fact that you can only work 5 hours a week). You know, for paying for pointe shoes, paying for leotards and tights, paying for makeup, etc.
So, to me, this requirement for 9 classes favors an elite class and tells people (like me in high school) that they're not worthy of being on stage unless they're sacrificing everything else. Again, there might be some things that I am missing but from what I can tell, these girls are scrambling with homework from AP classes and 18 hours of class/rehearsal, so I feel like they can't possibly be doing too much else.
I really don't like this attitude, implicit or explicit, in ballet/dance, or any arena really. At this age, or any age where "being a professional" is not in the least the end goal, it's completely absurd.
So I only want to, or can afford to, ride a horse once a week for one hour. So I'm not planning to be an Olympic-level show-jumper. Does that mean that I shouldn't learn how to ride? Should I not ever go to little local horse shows just for fun?
I'm not able to devote 20 hours a week to piano, so does that mean I shouldn't even bother learning? That even if, in 7 hours a week I get to the level where I -could- study music at a conservatory, I shouldn't be performing?
Because I can't devote 20 hours a week to studying mathematical theory and am not planning to be a mathematician, I shouldn't learn math, or that I shouldn't "perform" by using math in everyday life? (Throwing that one in for absurdity.)
I don't see why it should apply to ballet, either. And even if it's the case that this ballet studio is actually more lax than its printed rules, it is still true that at my old studio, people that intended to continue dance post-high school were favored for roles DESPITE the fact that I had better technique, learned choreography faster, and was a better overall dancer. (Throwing modesty out the window here, it's true.) And it turns out that I'm still dancing anyway so why does it matter?
Showing posts with label adults. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adults. Show all posts
Saturday, October 4, 2014
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Dancing as an adult: technique
Compared to a lot of adult dancers, I'm a baby. I acknowledge this. I'm in my early 20s and a lot of the physical complaints that adult dancers have to work through have not yet settled into this sack of bones. I also have the advantage of having danced since I was young: at 2 and a half I had my first tap class, and at 7 I started classical ballet training.
In there, I had a hiatus from ages 15 to 18. Even though that is a very short hiatus, and even though I am admittedly still a young dancer, it's quite different dancing "post hiatus" as compared to pre-hiatus.
The most significant difference is the self-discipline and attention to proper technique. This is probably true for anything done as a young kid and then again as an adult: adults tend to care and want to work to get better. Why else would they bother taking ballet? Or riding horses? Or learning an instrument?
Furthermore, adults are more motivated to gain proper technique to avoid pain and injury.
Even as a young kid, my joints were not exactly well-oiled. I had knee pain, a neck with uncertain wonkiness, and rollin' and rockin' hips (as well as snapping hip, as I have recently learned). But, you know, young joints, young muscles, young connective tissue, all that meant that my technique could be so-so and I still wouldn't be in significant pain.
When I was 15, I went to a physical therapist for my knees. I think that the experience did not push me in the right direction. The first therapist informed me that my knees hurt because I had flat feet--this was a surprise to me, as my ballet teachers had always said that I had nice arches. The second one decided that my knee pain was due to weak quads, which also surprised me, given the whole running-jumping-pliéing thing that I did for hours and hours a week. So I was assigned some essentially useless exercises, which didn't address the root of the problem, and I went on with so-so technique that still enabled high jumps and smooth turns.
However, after a few weeks of a fairly intense ballet class in college, I developed shin splints. They weren't terrible, but petit and grand allegro more often than not had me walking away wondering how to make it stop. During my first conference with my instructor, even before I mentioned my shin and knee pain, she very simply said, "Well, you have lovely jumps, but you tend to pronate. That puts a lot of stress on your knees." My eyes got starry, and I told her about my shin splints. She nodded and said, "Yes, that is probably because of the pronation. Do you have knee pain as well?"
Ohhhh.
That explains it--why the first physical therapist saw me walk five steps and declared me flat-footed, and why the second physical therapist was, without actually telling me the specifics, trying to work muscles that would pull my knees over my ankles. But without results--because strength does not equal technical employment when you're doing saut de chats from the corner--I stopped.
My goddess instructor had me jump in parallel with strict attention to my pronation and knee placement, and--whaddya know--no pain! Not from the shins, not from the knees. It was amazing.
After that I was super motivated to banish my pronation forever, so I started walking with attention to the outside edge of my feet. When I was brushing my teeth I supinated, went back to flat, and supinated again. I pulled up through my arches when standing in line. I practiced a lot of very careful pliés and sautés with great care to my knee placement. And I got better at not pronating, my shin splints got less severe, and ultimately went away permanently after a 2-month rest and return.
This is just one example of dedication to better technique, but for me, probably the most significant. It has also led to better-balanced and stronger jumps. Amazing--good technique gets results. I think this isn't stressed as much in most ballet studios, possibly because kids can get away with it. "Technique" at my old studio was spotting and posture. Spotting, because otherwise you fall over; posture, because otherwise you don't "look nice." Pulling up through your ribs in a one-legged balance wasn't for support and stability; it was because the line didn't look nice when it was sunk.
I imagine that kids, through the sheer fact of being kids with still-gelling motor systems and still-spongy brains, can "pick up" a lot of technique, just through experimentation. What makes you fall over, what sustains a balance? It's like language--bear with me here--small children use different acoustic cues to distinguish "s" and "sh" than adults do. Apparently, it's good enough and produces results that are pretty close to adult differentiation. But at some point they switch to acoustic cues that are more reliable.
In ballet technique, then, for example, I can learn to have decent extensions via clenching muscles in my hips and thighs. My line isn't as pretty as the girl next to me, but hey, she's more flexible, maybe that's why. But in the end it's kind of painful and a lot of work. To develop the proper technique and strength, it takes more work and thinking, and undoing the habit of clenching. And for a kid that's just bouncing around because dance is fun and they're not in actual pain, where's the motivation? However, technique is really important for longevity and also, of course, for long-term enjoyment.
 |
| I'm still pronating in this picture. Note: forced turnout in front foot, knee in front of toe, arch collapsed. Tsk tsk. |
In there, I had a hiatus from ages 15 to 18. Even though that is a very short hiatus, and even though I am admittedly still a young dancer, it's quite different dancing "post hiatus" as compared to pre-hiatus.
The most significant difference is the self-discipline and attention to proper technique. This is probably true for anything done as a young kid and then again as an adult: adults tend to care and want to work to get better. Why else would they bother taking ballet? Or riding horses? Or learning an instrument?
Furthermore, adults are more motivated to gain proper technique to avoid pain and injury.
Even as a young kid, my joints were not exactly well-oiled. I had knee pain, a neck with uncertain wonkiness, and rollin' and rockin' hips (as well as snapping hip, as I have recently learned). But, you know, young joints, young muscles, young connective tissue, all that meant that my technique could be so-so and I still wouldn't be in significant pain.
When I was 15, I went to a physical therapist for my knees. I think that the experience did not push me in the right direction. The first therapist informed me that my knees hurt because I had flat feet--this was a surprise to me, as my ballet teachers had always said that I had nice arches. The second one decided that my knee pain was due to weak quads, which also surprised me, given the whole running-jumping-pliéing thing that I did for hours and hours a week. So I was assigned some essentially useless exercises, which didn't address the root of the problem, and I went on with so-so technique that still enabled high jumps and smooth turns.
However, after a few weeks of a fairly intense ballet class in college, I developed shin splints. They weren't terrible, but petit and grand allegro more often than not had me walking away wondering how to make it stop. During my first conference with my instructor, even before I mentioned my shin and knee pain, she very simply said, "Well, you have lovely jumps, but you tend to pronate. That puts a lot of stress on your knees." My eyes got starry, and I told her about my shin splints. She nodded and said, "Yes, that is probably because of the pronation. Do you have knee pain as well?"
Ohhhh.
That explains it--why the first physical therapist saw me walk five steps and declared me flat-footed, and why the second physical therapist was, without actually telling me the specifics, trying to work muscles that would pull my knees over my ankles. But without results--because strength does not equal technical employment when you're doing saut de chats from the corner--I stopped.
My goddess instructor had me jump in parallel with strict attention to my pronation and knee placement, and--whaddya know--no pain! Not from the shins, not from the knees. It was amazing.
After that I was super motivated to banish my pronation forever, so I started walking with attention to the outside edge of my feet. When I was brushing my teeth I supinated, went back to flat, and supinated again. I pulled up through my arches when standing in line. I practiced a lot of very careful pliés and sautés with great care to my knee placement. And I got better at not pronating, my shin splints got less severe, and ultimately went away permanently after a 2-month rest and return.
This is just one example of dedication to better technique, but for me, probably the most significant. It has also led to better-balanced and stronger jumps. Amazing--good technique gets results. I think this isn't stressed as much in most ballet studios, possibly because kids can get away with it. "Technique" at my old studio was spotting and posture. Spotting, because otherwise you fall over; posture, because otherwise you don't "look nice." Pulling up through your ribs in a one-legged balance wasn't for support and stability; it was because the line didn't look nice when it was sunk.
I imagine that kids, through the sheer fact of being kids with still-gelling motor systems and still-spongy brains, can "pick up" a lot of technique, just through experimentation. What makes you fall over, what sustains a balance? It's like language--bear with me here--small children use different acoustic cues to distinguish "s" and "sh" than adults do. Apparently, it's good enough and produces results that are pretty close to adult differentiation. But at some point they switch to acoustic cues that are more reliable.
In ballet technique, then, for example, I can learn to have decent extensions via clenching muscles in my hips and thighs. My line isn't as pretty as the girl next to me, but hey, she's more flexible, maybe that's why. But in the end it's kind of painful and a lot of work. To develop the proper technique and strength, it takes more work and thinking, and undoing the habit of clenching. And for a kid that's just bouncing around because dance is fun and they're not in actual pain, where's the motivation? However, technique is really important for longevity and also, of course, for long-term enjoyment.
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