Friday 26 November 2010
Article about ballet dancers from the Telegraph
See this article about life as a dancer. I found it doing feedback for Nancy who is doing a proposal for research about the career prospects involved in the role of prima ballerinas. She has a theme on her blog about dancers and how they are perceived as not being clever - may be worth a comment.
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That was an interesting read from the telegraph showing just how hard it is as a dancer even in a top company such as The Royal Ballet. A dancers career is so short and that is why they need some sort of back up. As far as Nancy's blog is concerned I would have to agree with Danielle that the notion of dancers not being very clever is really a generalisation to all the arts and Angry Londoner makes a point about it being a streotype just like footballers and models. I think you have to be very clever to be a ballet dancer. You must be quick to pick up choreography, have great spacial awareness, quick to think on your feet and put in long hours for very little thanks or pay. You are constantly in tune with your body refining and shaping it to do what the choreographer asks of you which is skill no matter what anyone says! Its a different kind of clver which goes back to Howard Gardner's idea of multiple intelligences.
ReplyDeleteI found Nancys blog on luck and confidence interesting and commented on that.
ReplyDeleteExactly and as this course shows the professional practice within the dance profession requires a wide variety of professional knowledge and skills - something we will be doing more of next term.
ReplyDeleteI read the article and Nancy's blog. [What a small world - I danced with Nancy with National Youth Ballet at Sadlers Wells, I'll leave her a comment.]
ReplyDeleteI agree with Laura and you Paula the article emphasises just what hard work is required to be a dancer. I think it reiterates that most dancers actually do it because of their passion for dance.
At school some chose GCSE dance because they thought it was going to be the easy option to say, History or Geography, but they didn't realise it is not just a practical subject, there is a lot of theory to learn, just think of all those french ballet terms, and you study choreographers and choreographed works, health and fitness and like in English Literature you have to write essays on them and you have a written exam. So no matter how good you are at practical dance you can't pass without passing the written paper too.
Also whilst studying like everyone else at school for your GCSE's most dancers are then out after school in the evenings and weekends training hard at their dance technique and physical fitness.
At college I was on a vocational dance course but I also had musical theory, dance science and history of musical theatre in my curriculum and had to produce written work for assessment so I think the myth about dancers is misconceived. It's like the jokes about "blondes", there are no more dizzy blondes about than there are dizzy brunettes or red heads !!
I think more and more dancers realise you have to think beyond your performing career and you only have to look at Adesola and her credits and career to realise there are some very clever dancers about. Lots of us these days pursue degrees to improve our chances of employment and show there is more to us than just being good dancers - look at how many dancers are on this BAPP course.
Emily