Is Ballet Where We Thought It Would Be?

A young dancer asked me this question, recently. Wow, you could write a book answering it.

There are many retired dancers/teachers who say, with a dismissive air, that ballet was better when they were dancing. That's arrogant and insulting to dancers currently dancing. Ballet is better, no question. Technique has improved; all you have to do is look at pirouettes. Positions are cleaner and more turned out. You have more people doing more pirouettes, today. The level of technique is better than when I was dancing.

But, there are no true artists, the old ones say. Crap, I say. Of course there are true artists. There are dancers pushing the boundaries of not only technique, but art, as well. Ivan Vasiliev of the Bolshoi is technically astounding and he is growing as an artist every day. Some of the Russian ladies are getting a little carried away with flexibility, but they are also setting new standards, as are dancers in the Royal, ABT, everywhere. To say the past was better is simply not true.

It was different.

I love the Russians of the 60's and 70's. Their strength, their passion, their fire was AMAZING. Their technique was not as good as today's. Yuri Vladimirov was wild and passionate. Soloviev's jump was well-nigh unbelievable. Valery Panov will always be my favorite dancer, and was the reason I chose ballet over jazz and Broadway. But their technique was of their time. If they were dancing today, they would be even better because the training is better. Vasiliev is doing things no one even conceived of back then. Still Panov, Soloviev and the others were brilliant, jaw-dropping, wonderful, and I am not criticizing them in any way. I wish I could have danced like them. They would be stars today, but there are many more who are up there with them. Well, maybe not "up there" with Soloviev. Find him in "Le Corsiare" on youtube and you will simply not believe your eyes.

When I was studying, many teachers said you shouldn't drink water during class. They said it would go straight to your knees. What the hell did that mean? I knew, coming from a sports background, that dehydration was an athlete's worst enemy, and dance is a form of athletics. Gerald Arpino, my old boss and co-founder of The Joffrey Ballet, called us "Artistic Athletes". I was one of the first to embrace things like protein bars and drinks. I cross-trained, running, swimming and riding my bike while I was dancing.

Did I mention that during my 18 year career, I never had a knee injury?

The training, by encompassing more of the athletic world, has produced better dancers, and so, ballet is better. Do I think anything has been sacrificed? Higher legs over proper characterization? There have always been dancers (Or painters, or sculptors or singers, or what have you) who have been more interested in how many or how much, rather than how. Yes, we all know Margot Fonteyn never raised her leg above ninety degrees and she was an astounding artist, but the gold medal winner in the hundred meters in 1960 would be left in the dust by Usain Bolt.

Now, I keep telling my students that dancing is so much more than how many pirouettes you can do, or how high your leg is, BUT you still have to be able to turn well and get your leg up to compete at today's high level (pardon the pun). Still, don't get carried away. I had a wonderful student who could develope her leg pretty much to her shoulder and kept trying to get it higher. I told her, it was high enough; she kept trying to push it. One day, she will realize it, hopefully before she injures her hips.

Along with that technique, you must have passion. You must bring an audience to its feet with your turns and jumps, but you must also bring them to tears with your characterizations. The great Igor Youskevitch, one of my teachers, could reduce an audience to a sobbing mess just by walking across the stage to lay flowers at Giselle's grave. My own Dad, Kazimir Kokich, could draw every eye to him, just by sauntering through a crowd of dancers to make a pass at some girl. Without that emotional content, without that inner flame, dance is reduced to mere physical tricks.

So, is ballet where we thought it would be? I'm not sure. I didn't really think about that when I was dancing. I was just happy to have a job doing what I loved. Dance, in general, is more popular than ever, with all the dance programs on TV. I didn't think that would happen. There isn't as much money for dance as there used to be. I did think that would happen, since I lived through the cuts in NEA funding in the 80's.

I do know that I have some outstanding students who are going to have fine careers. A few of them will be true artists and will contribute to dance as both performers and, later, teachers and directors. I'm happy to see a level of technique that makes me stand up and applaud, that makes me cry at the beauty and innocence, that warms my heart, because I know the art I dedicated my life to will never die, and flourishes today with a generation of talented, determined and wonderful artists.

Is ballet where it should be?

Yup.

See you in class.