Appropriate technique

At a performance the other night, one of the ballet dads (I love that we have "ballet dads" and "soccer moms") asked me if I could look at a dancer and know what type of training they had. I said, yes, usually. This is good and bad. It's good if they are using what I am going to call "appropriate technique". It's bad if the first thing I notice is their specific training.

Every ballet should be danced appropriately. If you're watching, say, "Sleeping Beauty", every dancer should be dancing with proper classical placement, style that looks like it should be there. If you're sitting there thinking, "That guy trained at the Royal, that girl is obviously from the Maryiinsky, etc." you are no longer watching the ballet or following the story. Those dancers are dancing the ballet wrong. Not that everyone should look the same, but there should be some kind of uniformity, especially from the corps.

If you're watching a Neo-classical piece, like "Four Temperaments", everyone should look like a Neo-classical dancer, otherwise they are dancing it wrong. To put it drastically, it would be like watching Fosse danced like Martha Graham.

Technique should be transparent. You really shouldn't be able to tell where someone has trained. Even though I trained in the Vaganova style and Neo-classic, I danced for The Joffrey, where we prided ourselves as having no specific style. We had a uniform appearance in placement, and one of our trademarks was being extremely well rehearsed, but we were just ballet dancers. We had to be able to adapt ourselves to everything from Tudor to Pilobolus, so if we were stuck in one style, that would not have been possible. You had to dance Tharp differently than DeMille and in some of those pieces, you couldn't even look like a ballet dancer. In "Rodeo" you couldn't even stand turned out!

But, Jerry, you're talking about character pieces or jazzy stuff. Yes, but the differences between "Swan Lake" and "Don Quixote" really are as drastic as between "Rodeo" and "Deuce Coupe II". They have to be. Fouettés in "Nutcracker" are different from fouttés in "Flames of Paris".

Some teachers of specific styles think their style is appropriate for every ballet. Nope. This is one of the reasons I don't adhere to any one syllabus. If your "Giselle" instantly makes me think you trained at SAB, you're doing it wrong. If you're going to honor Mr. B., then you have to honor Marius Petipa, too.

See you in class.