Gentle and Soft (and fun)

But are they having fun?

A very young friend asked me the other day for advice on his first Nutcracker audition (and his first dance audition) ever. I am not an expert on this topic by any stretch of the imagination, since I've never auditioned as an adult and I don't play any role in our civic company's auditions. I do have some experience, having done my share of auditions as a young dancer and having consistently had, well, disappointing outcomes. But, in the intervening years I have learned a thing or two about how to deal with situations which are definitely NOT judgement-free-zones; job interviews, teaching college freshman a required class, giving a plenary lecture... and if there is one single thing that stands out it is that if you just decide to focus on what's fun or at least mildly pleasurable about what you're doing, it tends to go better. Let the thing happen, but be gentle with yourself and go soft on the self critique.

In that spirit (the spirit of fun, which by the by is the inspiration for the title of this post, the mockumentary Gentle and Soft: The Story of the Blue Jean Committee, which is pure brilliance IMHO), I am encouraging my gentle readers to think about what's fun in their dancing lives, and to shed some of the self-seriousness that tends to accompany the study and practice of a classical art form. To that end, here's my "top five" fun things about adult ballet (as a learner and more recently also as a teacher).

1. People -- I meet so many interesting, life-enriching people through my classes, summer "adult ballet camp," and workshops. Some of my most valuable friendships have been formed through these experiences, and I always get such a kick out of discovering that the person who has been struggling through some crazy petit allegro combo with me is, in her spare time, an ICU nurse, an attorney, a radiologist, a professional chef, or the comptroller general of a big federal agency. Weird, huh? As an academic, even though I'm in university administration these days, most of the people I meet at work come from backgrounds similar to my own, e.g. they went to college, then to grad school for a PhD, and so forth. Ballet connects me to a whole different population, and it has really broadened my worldview in ways that go far beyond the art form itself.

Slightly punchy after a long day at artEmotion

2. Music -- I come from a really music-oriented family, but to be honest, music had started to play less and less of a role in my life as I concentrated on my academic career and raising a young family. And then, about fifteen years ago, I jumped back into ballet. I was disappointed, at first, that the classes I was taking were not taught with a live accompanist. In my youth, I had never taken a class without a pianist in the room (my ballet school, after all, was part of an arts college). And there is still nothing like a live accompanist. However, even with CDs and now streaming music, ballet class gives me a daily chance to reconnect to my music brain, and sometimes (about once a week) I do get to dance with an actual live accompanist. Whether it's the ubiquitous pop-hits reimagined as ballet class music (the strange afterlife of Gotye's "Somebody that I used to know"), or arrangements of Chopin or Bach, it's good just to feel the music in my fibers, and channel it through movement. With my adult beginner students, one thing I keep bringing their attention back to is the importance of the element of musicality in their dancing. You don't have to be a fantastic principal ballerina to express yourself through dance. In fact, expression of ideas, thoughts, and feelings is the whole purpose of dance, and music is a huge part of that. Furthermore, doing ballet leads me to listen to music (all sorts) more carefully as some quiet background awareness in my mind imagines what could be danced to it.

Here's Kathryn Morgan making the most of the whole Star Wars as ballet music phenom (in honor of May 4th, as in May the 4th be with you)

3. Sweat -- I've always felt there are two kinds of workouts. The ones that hurt so good and the ones that just hurt. Ballet class, for me, usually falls into the "hurt so good" category. Even if I've totally muffed it, the dizzy, zippy, panting and sweating aftermath of a really intense allegro combination, or the trembling legs of a post-adagio moment are as close to ecstatic as I feel most days. When I used to run, I would sometimes get to that higher plane after a really long "on" run, but I had a lot more "off" than "on" runs, and my knees just ached constantly. Ballet much more consistently delivers that exercise (I suppose endorphin-induced) high for me, and partly it's because while I'm pushing my body physically, I'm more aware of the mental challenge of remembering choreography and moving expressively with the music (see #2)

4. Creativity -- Here's the thing about dance. Even if you're not the one setting the choreography, each time you execute it, you recreate it, you make it new. I love the idea that even if I'm just doing tendus at the barre, I have the opportunity to interpret, and then reinterpret the sequence, and to put something into it that makes it my own. This might not be visible, outwardly, especially if the enchainement is particularly technical in its focus, but it's more a mental operation realized through the attentive connection of mind and body. Or really, more like, the body itself thinking. Anyway, it's the pleasure one takes in making something (a great sandwich, a successful party, a song, a machine that works, etc.) and then refining it, making it better, making it satisfying. I want to convey this facet of ballet to my students, and not just teach them "this is the right way to do X, the wrong way to do Y..."

Swan Boys being unique (from Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake)Credit...Caitlin Teal Price for The New York Times

5. Non-attachment -- What's fun about the spiritual state of non-attachment, one might ask? Well, it's more a case of the self getting out of the way of fun. That is to say, when I told my young friend to just have fun at his audition, what I think I was really saying was, don't let your anxiety or your awareness of other people looking at you, or any of that crap, become an obstacle to your authentic experience in the moment of the dance. If you're really present in the moment, then it's difficult to be all twisted up in the usual crap that makes us miserable. To really dance, one has to be present, and not attached to the many things that pull at us if we allow them to do so. Or perhaps, as Martha Graham said, “All that is important is this one moment in movement. Make the moment important, vital, and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.” Just. Be. There.

Yup, that's MG

So, here's my message for today for all you adult ballet dancers: it's FUN!