Dear Friends,
There's room at the barre for everybody.
I'm still on my mission to dismantle the common perception of ballet as an exclusive, selective, intimidating and sometimes, snooty and even unwelcoming art form.
There are reasons why people might see ballet like that. Many pre-professional schools ARE highly selective in who they accept. The standards of achievement and merit for dancers to find consistent work in the field ARE very high. Ballet technique IS very precise, specific, hard, and does not feel "natural" at first (I promise you, it does feel natural eventually. After years of practice, you realize that your body was made to fit into those positions and loves moving through those motions.)
But: those are the parameters that an aspiring professional operates within. The art and practice of ballet itself welcomes, rewards, and enriches all bodies. I believe that even dipping one's toe proverbially into the waters of ballet is an enlightening and exhilarating thing.
The New York City Ballet is only one of many professional companies that has a program of dance classes, open to the public, free and accessible to all. I read in All Arts recently about NYCB's Access Dance, and was excited to see that the classes, which are open to all ages and abilities and are a permanent part of the company's budget, are led by current New York City Ballet dancers. The participants in Access Dance learn steps, movements, and even choreography directly from dancers they would otherwise only see from afar, way across the vastness of the theater. The playing field is being leveled.
I think the fact that NYCB's Access Dance classes are taught by current professionals speaks not only to the authenticity of the material that's being shared, but also to the significance the company sees in the program itself-- for everyone in the studio. Working dancers don't have a lot of free time, so for them and (their employer) to commit hours to learning about the population they'll be teaching, prepare, and then conduct the classes, is in itself a statement. And the dancer/teachers are very lucky to do this work. As one of them, principal dancer Indiana Woodward, said, “I learn a lot from the people that I teach — in every way. A lot of the times when you are seeing a world from a different perspective, and you open your heart to understanding how the other person is seeing the world, it can be really special.”
The writer of the article (linked below), Emily Sauchelli, took one of the workshops herself. She does not disclose her own physical limitations, if she has any, but describes her own early-formed impression that you should not/cannot even experience a ballet class if you're not going to try to do it perfectly. That pains me to hear. As a ballet teacher myself, my job is to help people do things the correct way. But what I really want is for others to not be deprived of the glorious feeling of just moving, just dancing, feeling stretch in their limbs and the deep satisfaction of syncing up the rhythms of their body, their movement, their brain, and the music.
So come on in. I saved a barre spot for you.
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