Ballet Pedagogy

[Ed McPherson]

Hello-

Could anyone recommend books on ballet pedagogy? Part of my degree requirement at Indiana is teaching two semmesters of ballet to non-majors. My students will have placed themselvs into the Int/Adv level.

Thanks!

[Leigh Witchel]

Ed - a great comprehensive technique that well reflects general American training is Gretchen Ward Warren's Classical Ballet Technique. It's an excellent starting point.

So you're at Indiana? Is Ms. Verdy there; do you have her for any classes?

[vrsfanatic]

The clearest manual on teaching that I have found in Nikolai Tarasov's "Ballet Technique for the Male Dancer". Do not be confused by the title. It is also for woman, it just does not include pointe work. It also has included many specifically male steps that woman did not study when the book was written in Russia.

It is difficult to find (out of print), but well worth the search. You can find it on Amazon (remember to go through BA, ) as well as ebay.

There are no books out there that give you all of the answers, but they can answer lots of questions that may come up for teachers.

I hope you are enjoying Indiana. Many of our former students have enjoyed it. Have fun teaching!

[fendrock]

What about Teaching Classical Ballet, by John White?

[Ed McPherson]

Thank you all for your replys, I look forward to drawing from a few different texts. And please everyone else add any more titles you are familiar with.

I have had Ms. Verdy a few times she is still taking it slow, getting back into the daily grind. She enjoys teaching our men's classes every now and then. But in the absence of Ms. Verdy and others I have been really happy with the classes taught by GuoPing Wang and Glenda Lucena

hehehehehe, we'd love a danceview times review of Nut (anything really) no one ever finds their way out here to see us.

[grace]

my first thought was to recommend gretchen ward warren's THE ART OF TEACHING BALLET, which is a collection of in-depth interviews with master teachers of the twentieth century, including some little tidbits like favorite combinations and class structure/order, etc - but perhaps i didn't read the question carefully enough, judging by the other responses you've got...

john white's book is OK, but not in the same class as the other books mentioned in this thread, IMO.

my second thought was that, unless i am misunderstanding you (?), you seem to be implying that the students' level might NOT be very high?...and therefore perhaps you need some help to keep the work very BASIC (NON-majors, etc)? is that what you are getting at, or have i got it all wrong?!?

if that IS the case, then i'd give a miss to the various abovementioned books (except for your own reading pleasure), and we'll all have a re-think...

[vrsfanatic]

Actually I did recommend the Tarasov book specifically because it is about as basic as one can get on the "how to part of teaching" and just about as advanced as one can get when need be. It gives a very thorough picture of steps from beginning to end which is quite helpful when teaching. Sometimes the difficulty in teaching can be a lack of understanding on the teacher's part as to how, why, when and where something is going.

If Ed McPherson is looking for a book that helps to give ideas about exercises and the progression in which they are developed, there is always "One Hundred Lessons of Classical Ballet" by Vera Kostrovitskaya. This book also can be found on Amazon (remember to go through BalletTalk for Dancers).

Actually, you may find it interesting to run a Search in the Teacher's Forum on the other site. There is a wealth of knowledge and many teachers who may be eager to give you various helpful ideas.

http://balletalert.com/dancersforum/index.php?showforum=17

[grace]

victoria, i haven't seen the tarasov book, and i was thinking when you wrote what you did, WAY above, that i must get it. obviously i HAD thought that it really was designed for teachers of MALE dancers, and therefore it wasn't a first priority for me to purchase - although i'd buy ALL pedagogy books if i could afford to. now that you have added even more info, it sounds like a 'must-have'. thanks for that.

i would find it interesting - because i love these 'real' teaching discussions - if Ed McPherson might like to give us a bit more info, so that we could, perhaps, offer more specificaly tailored 'advice' - if he would like that, of course...i am also curious as to WHAT the degree is, that he is doing...? - if that's not too personal a question? :blush:

[Joseph]

VRS suggestion: "Classical Ballet Technique for the Male Dancer" by Tarasov, is a great, thorough book on pedagogue. I did a small study on pedagogue while in high school and used this book frequently as a reference point. It contains excellent information and is easy to read. You also learn about a lot of historical facts and historical figures in the ballet world. You can see my final report and notes if you want. :blush:

[Ed McPherson]

Grace It's not too personal to ask. I am doing the Bachelor of Science with an Outside Field. (Indiana and Utah maybe the two schools with that offer the BS, correct me if I'm wrong) The degree is in Ballet my outside field is Business, and like a lot of people tend to do I am graduating in 3 years. The outside field is great because it allows us to go straight into Grad school when we are ready to move away from dance.

I hesitated to mention more about the students off the bat because all I know is what I have been told by my peers. From what I gather my average student will have danced a good part of their lives, I hear most have been dancing around 8 years. Every now and then you get someone that did pursue dance professionally but by and large they were all recreational dancer that just really loved it. Many of them are very serious about it as their hobby of choice.

From what I hear it seems to me that for many of them their knowledge of ballet is more ritualistic than it should be. And that many people will have little discrepancies and tendencies in their technique that will look slightly ridiculous to a professional but that just come from being under only one set of eyes. Since the class is only one semester I realize I won’t have time to build much of a rapport.

I think I will approach the class from the stand point of why we (the dancers in general) do things and less of why I (the teacher) do things. I'd like to help them to become better learners’ first and better dancers second, to take the dependency off the teacher. I think that if I can show them that there is more than one acceptable way to do most things (that they have a choice and need to be conscious of it), and then at least begin to introduce them to the aspects of making personal evaluations on the aspects of technique it will enable them to learn much more from themselves and the wide range of people and styles they are taking class with.

Thats the game plan so far, i am excited to get a hold of some books.

[Mel Johnson]

Another good book to get for this purpose would be Muriel Stuart's The Classic Ballet. It doesn't have a whole lot to say about how to teach, but what few words there are is cherce! It does, moreover, show what to teach, even if Carlus Dyer's illustrations are so true to "the rules" that they are physiologically impossible. A knowing reader will find much substance to use for classwork.

[grace]

Ed - thanks for that. that's fascinating.

at first i assumed that ballet must be your OUTside field - because how could ballet be SCIENCE (in university terms)?!? so that's a new idea to me - that ballet study can lead to a SCIENCE degree in the US.

as to the approach to teaching, you sound like you have a great approach already.

i particularly liked THIS bit:

their knowledge of ballet is more ritualistic than it should be

interesting! sounds like there's grounds for a good discussion, there! i assume (please correct me if i am wrong) that you mean that these students, who have mostly come from private schools with perhaps somewhat limited or blinkered approaches, tend to have made assumptions and picked up prejudices that are un-necessary or unhelpful, such as the idea that there is only one right way to do X or Y...am i on the right track?

[Ed McPherson]

yes thats exactly my assumtption, and I think they will probably be more likely than a pre-professional to come into class and look at the beginning of barre as something they have done a lot of, satisfied with re-creating what they have established as tendus and plies, ritualizing it.

One of my mentors at Interlochen introduced me to David Perkins a man that has published interesting work on education and forms of knowledge. While he has geared his writing towards school education I think it could easily be applied in the ballet studio. I cant go into detail here on his theories it would be way to long but here someone elses take on his work.

http://home.comcast.net/~erozycki/Perkins.html

[grace]

thanks, ed. i had a quick look at that paper, to get an idea about perkins' theory. now i understand your comments better, especially your use of the term 'ritualistic'. i agree that this is a frequent outcome of ballet study.