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252 Pages·2010·1.03 MB·English

by  Caroline Griswold

Training Bodies/Training Minds:
A Model of Ballet Education for the
st
21 Century

By Caroline Griswold
(Advised by Tyler Walters, Duke University Dance Program
Independent Study and Distinction Project, Fall 2008-Spring 2010)

This paper is dedicated with admiration to my parents, for their
unending love, support, and encouragement through the ups and downs of
my ballet training, with hope that other parents, and students, will be
spared some of those challenges in the future.
Thank you.

I would also like to thank the wonderful ballet teachers I have had
over the years, the ones who have shown me unequivocally that good
ballet teaching does exist and can be extremely effective. Thank you for
your caring, your energy, your excitement, and your dedication.
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Table of Contents
Part I: Introduction, and the Tradition……………………………….…3
Introduction……………………………………………………………………..3
Tradition and Syllabus………………………………………………………….7

Part II: The Now………………………………………….........………....45
What we have accomplished, and Case Studies…………………….……….45
Nature of the Teaching Profession and Docile Bodies……………………....58
Authoritarian Teaching Styles and Autonomy Support…………………….69
Coach-Athlete Relationship and Effective Feedback………………………..86
Body Image and Eating Disorders…………………………………………….98
Learned Helplessness and Self-Handicapping………………………………104

Part III: What’s Next?..............................................................................106
Mirrors and Dress Code………………………………………………………107
Making Dance a Large Part of a Larger Life……………………………….117
Intellectual Growth, Mental Skills Training, and Mental Toughness.........128
Training Efficiently, Imagery, and Somatics………………………………..136
Recognizing each student as an Individual, Competition, and Cohesion….146
Developmentally Appropriate Training……………………………………..172
Preserving Creativity and Fostering Artistry……………………………….181
Role of the Teacher……………………………………………………………187
Brain Compatible/Psychologically Sound Pedagogy……………………..…191
Establishing environments conducive to self-efficacy and self-confidence..196
Making Learning Relevant and Thematic…………………………………..213
The “Ideal” Conservatory Program, Conclusions, and Implications for
Future Research……………………………………………………….218

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………...229
Appendices…………………………………………………………………………......242
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Part I: Introduction, and the Tradition
Chapter 1: Introduction
“As dance educators, we have a responsibility that is greater than training
bodies.” (Hankin)

I have been taking ballet since the tender age of two, and while I fell in love with
it pretty much the moment I stepped foot into a dance class, there have also been many
things about it that I have found less than palatable. As I got older, I found that the
incessant pressure to be thin, the anti-intellectual atmosphere in many ballet classes I
took, and the favoritism and politics of various institutions stifled my own creativity and
love of the art form and that of those around me. I noticed that while people were
certainly willing to complain about the challenges they faced and share horror stories
about ballet training, few seriously questioned why it had to be this way. The pervading
attitude seemed to be that the more you had suffered or been abused in the name of ballet,
the more legitimate a dancer you were. I have encountered precious few people who are
both technically skilled and have managed to escape the various cruelties of the ballet
world, and this bothers me. Sylvain LaFortune, as quoted in Not Just Any Body:
Advancing Health, Well Being, and Excellence in Dance and Dancers, sums it up well
when she says, “We don’t become dancers because of our current training system—we
become dancers in spite of it. The lucky ones get through. All the others end up injured,
discouraged, and unmotivated” (LaFortune qtd. in Jowitt et al. 85). I love ballet, and I am
committed to its growth and believe that it has the potential to flourish and stay relevant
in this day and age. It is for these reasons that I write this: I believe that there must be
better way to teach ballet, a way in which we can foster dancers who are both highly
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technically skilled and also physically, emotionally, and intellectually nurtured. I don’t
claim to have all the answers about how to accomplish that, but I endeavor to present
various theories about ballet training that I believe could ameliorate the system as it
stands.
While ballet training may seem like a niche world in this country, in reality every
year thousands of little girls put on tutus and tights and participate in what could loosely
be termed a ballet class. Even if they never go further than those first few classes, these
girls have now been exposed to ballet training. What if that were an empowering
experience for them? What if ballet training fostered creativity, joy of moving, and love
of one’s body? There is no doubt that there are schools that do that for their students, and
I commend them, but I don’t think that the majority of ballet schools in this country
achieve this. As part of my research, I surveyed about 70 ballet students and several
teachers, asking them about their training experiences and their beliefs on ballet training
(see Appendix A for survey information). Only 43% of student respondents agreed or
strongly agreed that ballet training improved their self-esteem. Similarly, in another
study, “Ballet dancers scored highest on measures of emotional instability compared to
other performing artist groups, and lower on self-esteem measures…13- to 17-year-old
female dancers described their personality as less beautiful, pleasant, attractive,
confident, lovable, and good than the nondancing girls did,” (Ackard 486). Finally, in the
book Fit to Dance, the authors write, “Two thirds of the contemporary dancers felt that,
on balance, their teaching had been positive…by contrast, two-thirds of the ballet dancers
felt that their teachers’ criticisms had affected them negatively. They gave many more
instances than the other dancers of ‘damaging’ comments made by their teachers, who
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were accused of being unconstructively critical and giving no help with the individual
needs of the dancers’ body” (77). These statistics clearly indicate that ballet training is
not altogether a positive experience for all students. Even if most little girls do not go on
to study ballet seriously, they not only deserve a good experience but the ballet world
should have a vested interest in giving them one: these are tomorrow’s audience
members, patrons, and advocates. If for that reason alone, ballet teachers should be
invested in making sure every child, not just the “talented” ones, has a positive
experience in ballet class.
I don’t think anyone would argue that things are perfect in ballet training.
However, many people might believe that the negative aspects of ballet training are
“necessary evils.” I do not believe this is so: the ballet world can, and must, do better than
a culture of authoritarianism, eating disorders, low self-esteem, and militaristic training
methods. Further, while I know that the dance world tends to protect its own (Lakes 2),
we do ourselves a disservice by ignoring the need for change within it. With that in mind,
I present the central tenets of my beliefs about ballet training, culled through research and
synthesis of sources. I do not pretend to offer an exhaustive list of methods or strategies
and I absolutely acknowledge that there is a huge array of possibilities for good teaching.
Here I offer merely core values, with the guiding principle of respecting and nurturing the
student as a whole person, not just as a body:
1. Teachers who work to improve student efficacy and self-esteem will allow
students to achieve their full potential. In this vein, teachers should strive to create
an effective relationship with their students in which the teacher has authority but
the students have autonomy and in which the teacher pushes but also encourages
and respects the student. It is possible to be both honest and kind: a teacher need
not “sugar-coat” the realities of the dance world in order to avoid shattering a
students’ self-confidence.
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2. Teaching should not be a default career for professional dancers. Instead, it should
be undertaken only if a person really wants to be a teacher, and it should be a
respected profession within the dance world. Further, teachers should receive
pedagogical knowledge as well as content knowledge.
3. Intellectual life can be integrated into the dance classroom: dance class need not
be an anti-intellectual experience.
4. Students should be encouraged to have lives outside of dance and bring them into
the classrooms. Students’ lives can be rich with experience, and this richness will
enhance their dancing. World-famous dancer Dwight Rhoden, who danced with
the Alvin Ailey company, very much supports this idea, writing, “Mr. Ailey really
encouraged the concept of investigating other parts of your life, because you
would bring that back to your art form and your dancing would become richer.
You need to be a whole person in order to bring something to your role or an
idea” (Jowitt et al. 43-44).
5. The classroom environment should promote learning: using educational
psychology, sports psychology, and the science of learning, it is possible to create
emotional, physical, and intellectual environments that encourage optimal
learning. Ideally, this atmosphere will promote intrinsic (as opposed to extrinsic)
motivation and foster mastery goals.
6. Dance teachers can be conscious of students’ physical and emotional safety while
still pushing them to their limits. This can partially be accomplished by creating
an environment in which it is ok to take risks and make mistakes.
7. Dance should be taught in a developmentally appropriate (both physically and
emotionally) way. This is particularly relevant for teaching young children and
also adolescents.
8. Dancers and dance students should be supported in ways similar to athletes—they
ought to be provided with the health and psychological skills and resources that
will allow them to succeed and thrive.
9. We can respect and use ballet tradition without becoming slaves to it. Dance
pedagogy should be plastic and utilize both the good aspects of tradition as well
as new developments that can improve it.

These core convictions can inform ballet training and help teachers mold the best dancers
possible, dancers who are both technically skilled and healthy.
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Chapter 2: The Tradition and Syllabus
“In reality, most dance training consists of learning how to follow directions and how to
follow them well” (Sherry (ed), Stinson 27).

A traditional ballet class has remained almost the same for a hundred or more
years. While technique has advanced and certain things have changed, the fundamental
structured has stayed constant: there is one teacher with absolute authority, a group of
quiet (mostly female) students facing wall-to-wall mirrors, and a highly structured system
of repetitive exercises, starting at the barre and eventually moving into the center and
across the floor. To use the language of Elizabeth Gibbons in her discussion of the
“spectrum of teaching styles,” dance training is typically taught in the mode of “cued
response,” in which the central goals include “immediate, precise, and accurate response
to instruction,” “uniformity and conformity,” “maintenance of aesthetic standards,” and
“perpetuation of tradition” (79). This method of teaching has been variously described as
“transmission teaching” (Doddington and Hilton 56) or the “banking method of
education” (Ottey), but the general principle is that passive, blank students are receptacles
into which the teacher distributes knowledge (Ottey). This method of teaching
encourages submissiveness, discipline, and accurate skill acquisition. Sherilyn D. Ottey,
in her article “Critical pedagogical theory and the dance educator,” points out that this
style of teaching functions effectively to preserve order, because it doesn’t produce
“subversive” (read: creative) thinkers, and thus none of the students challenge tradition.
In a conventional ballet class, the teacher is considered the sole source of
information, and communication is generally from the top down (Gibbons 14). This
seems to have generally remained the case today, although renowned ballet teacher David
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Howard says that “The way I was trained, students never said two words to their teachers.
Here, there’s much more openness. I think it’s very healthy” (Howard qtd. in Warren
117). While it may be true that there is more variation today, the typical ballet class
certainly functions in a traditional way. Indeed, many schools take pride in the traditional
nature of their training. For example, Franco De Vita, the principal of the prestigious
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, says “We insist that all students focus on doing
what the teacher wants and on arriving on time…We have a strict dress code as well”
(Green). Similarly, Leonid L. Nadirov, the executive director of the famed Vaganova
Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg, says “What is unique about our school…is that we are
conservative. By that I mean that we are uncompromising in our standards and
traditions…since 1738…we have a formula that works” (Nadirov qtd. in Rumyatseva).
Certainly, it is true that the Vaganova Ballet School produces successful dancers,
however, is that the only criteria for a worthwhile training model?
It makes sense that ballet training would have developed in the model of the
“banking method,” as education functioned similarly in the time that ballet training was
growing. Christine Doddington and Mary Hilton, in their book Child-Centred Education:
Reviving the Creative Tradition, point out that “throughout the nineteenth century, with a
growth of institutions such as schools, prisons and hospitals, a whole set of procedures
had been carefully developed to help control, measure, and train individuals in the system
so that they would not and could not resist authority” (21). There were rises and falls of
the idea of “active learning” and “child-centered education,” (Bickman 135) and thinkers
such as John Dewey argued that “genuine learning can occur only in schools where
continual thinking and social interaction also pervade relations between teachers,
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administrators, and parents” (Dewey qtd. in Bickman 105). However, for various reasons,
the structure of education remained largely in the vein of the “banking method,” and
ballet training developed the same way.
Robin Lakes, in her article “The Messages Behind the Methods: The
Authoritarian Pedagogical Legacy in Western concert Dance Technique, Training, and
Rehearsals,” makes an astute comparison between ballet training and vocational training.
The concept of vocational training (training for a specific skill or job) was growing in the
U.S. in the late nineteenth century and was based on teaching a “narrowly defined set of
goals and skills,” a curriculum based on product as opposed to process, accurate
replication of skills by the apprentice, acknowledgment by all involved that the teacher is
the expert, and “inculcation of moral virtues such as ‘industry, perseverance, and thrift’”
(Lakes 21). Lakes’ comparison is a telling one because it points to the nature of ballet
training as product, not process oriented (meaning that the process, whether good or bad,
doesn’t really matter as long as the product is a “success”). With these methods of
teaching, education becomes mechanical, based on disciplinary power “enacted through
testing, grouping, and grading” (Doddington and Hilton 22). Despite the fact that this
type of training has its merits (clearly, it is effective at producing students who are
capable at executing required skills, highly disciplined, and excellent at following
instructions), the emphasis on the product, rather than the process, and the narrow, anti-
intellectual nature of vocational programs make it worth reexamining.
While I will argue in this paper that ballet training must go beyond the
conventional method of teaching, I don’t mean to suggest that there is nothing in
traditional training that deserves to be kept. There are aspects of ballet training that have
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not only anecdotally proven to be useful but are also supported by current research and
science. For example, the use of repetition in class is really the only way to learn and
perfect the various technical skills necessary to be proficient in classical ballet, or any
other skill, for that matter: researchers estimate that it takes an average of 3500 hours of
practice to become a “competent amateur piano player” and the overall hours of practice
undertaken by a student is the best indicator of future success, even more so than “talent”
(Howe 50-51).
To understand this, it is useful to have a basic understanding of how learning is
accomplished in the brain. Essentially, when a person learns something, neural pathways
are established that form a memory trace in the brain (Hardiman 55). In order for those
neural pathways to be strengthened and eventually “hardwired” (so that learning is not
erased), the pathways must repeatedly be stimulated (Hardiman 55). When they are
activated through repetition of the information, the knowledge becomes easy to retrieve
and eventually becomes part of the person’s long-term memory (Hardiman 55).
According to Michael J. A. Howe, in A Teacher’s Guide to the Psychology of Learning,
“repetition, whether it is in the form of rehearsal or self-testing, or whether it takes the
form of practicing activities, is an absolutely crucial component of learning” (52).
Clearly, traditional ballet training had this right: repetition, while it can be tedious, is
absolutely necessary for learning.
Traditional ballet training also seems to have been right in terms of the type of
repetition that is most useful for learning. Gregory Schraw, in his article “Knowledge:
Structures and Processes” in the Handbook of Educational Psychology, says that in order
for practice to be effective, it must have several essential qualities. First of all, it has to be