Cross posted on www.dance.net…
I’m no newbie when it comes to dance classes and mastering choreography. Matter of fact, many of you know I’m a long-time hip hop dancer, choreographer and teacher. As a hip hop dancer, whenever I take/teach choreo, things are broken down phrase-by-phrase, then repeated over and over and over again until we are actually *dancing* instead of just copying the teacher.
Why can’t learning ballet choreo be more like this???
I’m referring specifically to when the class moves away from the barre and onto center work. First, the teacher rattles off a combo, then we mark it once, then we’re expected to execute flawlessly, then we stop dancing the combo after we’ve done it twice. I’m usually the one scratching my head going, say wha?!
It’s all I can do to remember the steps. I usually have to resort to staring at either the teacher or my fellow classmates to get the steps right, and by the time I finally *get* the routine, we’re already moving on to yet another just-as-complicated combo. Whenever we get to this part of class I never feel like I’m actually *dancing* but merely copying my instructor or fellow students, like I’m a prisoner of trying to remember the dance, concentrating so hard on where to put my arms and legs without grace or joy in the movement. More robot, less dancer.
Why is ballet class like this? Why can’t we learn just one or two combos during center work, break each one down carefully, then dance it over and over and over again until we stop thinking about it and develop muscle memory and just DANCE the freakin routine?
If the answer to this question is, “That’s the way it’s always been done so get over it,” not good enough. There’s gotta be a better way to learn routines, especially for adult re-learners like me whose brain cells got killed off during pregnancy. Anyone?
