What Do You Want to Know?
In about two weeks time I am going to start teaching a class through the OSHER Institute for Lifelong Learning. My course is entitled "understanding ballet as an art form" and is mostly going to be based around looking at short film clips of various ballets and talking about what we see in them. I plan to give the students a fair amount of cultural and historical context for how ballet has evolved as an art form, to bring in guest lecturers from the local dance scene, and to invite them to do research on specific topics in the realm of ballet history and to give presentations to the class. Most of my students are older professionals or retirees.
The thing is, I've been dancing for 24 years now. So much of my understanding of ballet has come about organically over that time, and so much of what I know cannot be easily traced to one particular instance or teacher or anecdote. It is a really hard process to reverse engineer. So I ask you, dear Internets, what you want to know about ballet? About the world of professional dance? About how ballet fits into the current performing arts scene? Is there something about ballet, or about dance in general, that you just don't "get" but would like to? Bring me all your questions, and not only will I try to answer them here, if I can, but know that they will help me be a better teacher.
The thing is, I've been dancing for 24 years now. So much of my understanding of ballet has come about organically over that time, and so much of what I know cannot be easily traced to one particular instance or teacher or anecdote. It is a really hard process to reverse engineer. So I ask you, dear Internets, what you want to know about ballet? About the world of professional dance? About how ballet fits into the current performing arts scene? Is there something about ballet, or about dance in general, that you just don't "get" but would like to? Bring me all your questions, and not only will I try to answer them here, if I can, but know that they will help me be a better teacher.