Ballet Companies and Modern Dance Companies Share Repertoire

Back in the day ballet dancers and modern dancers worked separately.  They each took to their own corners of the dance world... ballet keeping to its traditional vocabulary to re-stage or create works, and modern dance exploring new ways to express the human condition through movement.  The times are changing.  Like ballet companies, modern dance companies now spend similar efforts to maintain and re-stage their signature classic works.  Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's Revelations comes to mind as just one of the many companies passing on the tradition of their legacy.  And, like modern dance companies, ballet companies, are back to investing in new classical works.  Christopher Wheeldon is a current day classically trained dancer who has become an international resident and guest choreographer who is recreating old ballets for new audiences. 

Increasingly, both ballet and modern dance companies are expanding their training to include other disciplines, adding repertoire from other genres, and thus increasing their audiences.  One classical company on the leading edge is Nederlans Dans taking on Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, as well as other ballets such as Giselle, and Pacific Northwest Ballet taking on Twyla Tharp's new choreography.

Since 1979, the Dancing Arts Center anticipated this fusion of two dance worlds and has trained its students to be equally proficient and employable in both.  Right out of the creative movement program, students begin PreBallet and PreModern classes at age six or seven.  They continue into the main division to further their study in classical ballet and modern dance in a complimentary schedule.  Until the advanced level when students take the traditional foundations of modern dance and push its boundaries, students learn the fundamentals of the Horton technique over the course of several years, then over a couple more years, they add the Limon technique to their experiences, and at the intermediate level study the Graham technique.  In their ballet lineage, Dancing Arts Center students begin their studies learning about three Tchaikovsky ballets in one year of their PreBallet program and learn about three Minkus ballets in the other.  From there, the slow careful training to turn out and be on balance as a beginner, leads to crossing and raising the legs for adagio and allegro patterns in advanced beginner classes, then elevation, beats, pirouettes and more at the upper levels.  Eventually, the vocabulary of ballet becomes repertoire in variations and pas de deux classes.

At the Dancing Arts Center, equal respect and devotion is dedicated to both modern and ballet in separate classes, and over the years students blend the two for choreography, company auditions, and ultimate employment.  There are many students who have gone on to professional careers in performance, teaching, company direction, journalism, costuming, even motor development and massage therapy.  While the study of ballet is crucial to all other forms of dance and provides its greatest benefit when studied early in life, students learn, dance is dance.  One genre is valuable to the next, but not more important than the next.

Only the timing of what to study when is important.  Creative Movement ought to be integral throughout a dancers training.  Being able to think on your feet, find and build you own inner voice, and move dance toward fresh new ideas gives a dancer artistic skills beyond technique.  At the risk of minimizing its value by describing its contribution in one sentence, classical ballet introduced in elementary school, shapes a dancers body and universal lines of movement from which all dance genres benefit.  Modern dance broadens the scope and depth on the use of weight, force, emotion and vocabulary to express any human condition.  Tap instills dexterity and musical syncopation.  Hip hop, developed on the streets (not in the studio), is finding a home in many studios giving dancers an urban expression.  Folk dancing builds more collaboration, unity, and a sense of group formation.

At the company level, it is new for ballet and modern companies to cross territories. The Dancing Arts Center has been doing it for decades.  Join!

Measuring the Value of Participation in Activities

It is good for parents, teachers and students to take stock periodically of where we have come from, where we are, and where we are going with the participation in any activity.

Some people measure the value of an activity in monetary terms, others might assess by losses or gains (pounds and inches for instance), and still others look for more intrinsic change (character development). Be careful not to look for progress in comparison to another, but instead to an individual's past, present, and potential.

I smile when a parents exclaims how much money they spent for their child's dancing. I want to say right back how much time I spent on the planning, execution of their child's lessons, how I delicately chose my timing and wording to coach their child through challenges, how much physical strain I put my body under to demonstrate over and over again or to maneuver their body so that he / she can feel the proper placement or action, and how much sleep I lost in caring about their child's development. Instead, I just smile and try to say something to lighten the mood, like "It beats the high cost of drug rehab or mental health care."

Defenses aside, I understand everyone, including myself, wants a bang for their buck. Getting something for our time and money is the American way. Measuring growing skill is easy enough...strength of character, not so much. Measuring the quality of incremental changes of the body is tricky for the layman. Noticing if a child's arm movements can express romantic, classical or neo-classic choreography is hard for parents to distinguish. For instance, when watching her child during an observation class, one parent said, noticing the subtle differences is like watching paint dry. I get it. I would feel the same watching someone program a computer. If parents are able to notice improvements in physical ability, they feel like there is progress worth paying for; however, many times improvements are hardly visible. It is common for growth to appear stagnant while the new skills take hold, and before the next step forward is obvious. If a parent chooses that plateau period in their child's participation to determine if there is any value in their child's lessons, they could be disheartened and miss the long-term worth of what is likely to blossom with time and experience.

It is even more difficult to measure changes in mind and spirit. These intrinsic parts of growth show up not necessarily where you might think you would see them. Confidence, courage, patience, tenacity (to name a few) appear when we least expect them. My own daughter who studied dance through her childhood says she is thankful for her dance training that made earning her second college degree sufferable when her peers faded into the background. She credits her persistence, her attention to detail and self assuredness from her years in dance carrying over to her new profession. I believe most parents realize such return on their investment and continue to allow their child to participate season after season. 

If a child does not seem to measure up when a  parent needs reassurance regarding spending their time and money well, their chances are interrupted with parental doubt if not curtailed all together.  It is too early to call the score.  Children do not know how to defend their efforts and interests when they are not demonstrating growth.  Teachers / coaches are perceived as leading a parent on when progress seems small.  Parenting patience is what is needed.  For how long, you might ask?  I say, for as long as it takes. We do not like it when people give up on us, so we ought not give up on our most precious children.

Have you ever watched one of those NASCAR races that go on and on and on?  Sometimes it appears that the cars are glued together traveling in circles.  No one is getting ahead.  Then suddenly a driver edges out over another, but wait ...there is a crash and several cars go down in flames.  Later, different cars stop periodically into their pit for retooling. By the end of the race, the one we assumed was best wasn't, and another driver came from behind to win!  There are endless anecdotes on tortoise and hare scenarios.

Just as the driver in the lead and the driver in the back of the pack change, children change with ability over the years.  Remember during your childhood some years you may have had trouble with math and other years your were good at it.  Staying the course is the key.  I have helped many ducklings become swans over the years.  When a family decides not to continue their lessons with me, I feel like I have been judged on work unfinished even if it is at the end of a semester. My relationship with most students is from the age of 3 or 4 until 16-19 years old (depending if I can place them with a company school).   It is said it takes 10 years to make a dancer or a person with dancer attributes.  I plan to invest at least a decade with each and every student.  When a student's training is interrupted, my commitment to the student seems tossed aside.  Instead a measure of trust, a duration of patience, and good communication go a long way in taking actual stock of the real value in any child's participation in an activity.  A glance at where the student started, is now, and where / what are the next goals is a good place to begin.