Artistic Technique

Ballet technique has improved over the years. Lines are cleaner, legs are higher, more pirouettes, more technical jumps, etc. Many people say there is no artistry, anymore, that technique is too much the goal. This has been the argument for many years. Pavlova was told, "Leave the acrobatics to the others." If you watch films from that time, you wonder what they were talking about. There will always be people saying the old days were better, the dancers were better, blah, blah... blah. I'll be the first to say the old Russians had more passion than many dancers today, but I'll also be the first to say that the dancers today are technically better. Should we go back to the old days? Hell, no. A certain choreographer did a full length ballet for a certain major ballet company in the style of when it was first done, 1890, and it was a piece of garbage. The dancers were wasted. Ballet has evolved.

But, Jerry, don't we need artistry? Of course. I demand that from my students, but that artistry has to be part and parcel of the technique, not something separate. It's like gymnastics. I love watching gymnastics. I'm amazed at what those gymnasts can do. However, it almost makes me laugh, when they do their "dance elements" then go to the corner, drop all pretense at artistry, and do a tumbling pass. That's when technique and artistry are separate things.

In ballet, you have to make your pirouette artistic. You have to make your jump artistic. You have to make the technique artistic. That comes from telling a story. If you just do the mechanics of a step, to me that's boring. I call it "technique face". Dance, dance, dance, oh, I have to do a pirouette! It's the gymnast starting a tumbling run. There isn't a moment in ballet when you're not telling the story. There isn't a note of music that isn't part of the story. There isn't a single step that isn't part of the story.

And every story is different.

There are many ballerinas who are absolutely exquisite. Stunning legs and feet, superb technique. They do "Giselle" like "Don Q". No. In "Don Q" you can put your leg by your ear and it's fine. You do that in "Giselle" and you get a face full of tulle. That's when the technique is separate from the artistry. That's when the dancer is more concerned with her extension, than what it means. Sure the developés in "Giselle" today are higher than they were in the 19th century, but they're not so high that the costume covers your head, and they never will be, unless you're doing some avant garde version.

It's the teacher's job to make sure the student learns technique combined with artistry. When I work with a dancer on a variation, for example, the first thing I ask is, "Who is this person?" Then, "Why are they doing these steps, in this costume, to this music, at this point in the ballet?" They have to know why they are doing something, not just how.

What's really surprising, is that when a child starts ballet young, they are actually taught artistry first. You don't teach a three year old technique. You teach them to skip through fields. You teach them to pick flowers, or chase butterflies. That's art. Somewhere along the line, that's forgotten and lost. That's when the art disappears and the technique becomes the goal. 

The creativity of children playing is very artistic. When they play, they create entire worlds. Never lose that. It is truly the essence of art. Of course, you must develop technique to be a dancer, but every bit of technique must have artistry in it. You don't just lift an arm into first arabesque, you reach out, point at something, look over your hand across the lake, or the ballroom. You don't just do a tendu, you are Cinderella polishing the floor, which must shine or your stepsisters will tell on you. You don't just jump, you are leaping because your joy lifts you from the floor. 

Artistry and technique must and can go hand in hand. We're not going to go backward to lower legs, fewer pirouettes, etc. We must imbue every step with meaning, with a story, with art. That's our job as dancers and artists.

See you in class.