Working with Ballet Syllabi
Many talented minds have worked meticulously to create varying syllabi for the teaching of ballet in an effort to promote and improve the quality of ballet training across platforms, schools and teachers. The Italian Cecchetti method, the Russian Vaganova technique and the English Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) are the most influential here in the United States. Other influences come from the French School and the Danish Bournonville technique. The most recent shift in how ballet is taught comes from Balanchine, but to be able to teach his method, you have to have worked for his company.
Despite these excellent sources, we hear in dance circles across the country constant laments about the poor ballet training dancers are receiving today. We hear them in the faculty dressing room, while judging competitions and after conducting auditions. Can we explain this simply by pointing out that pedagogical training and/or certification in any school of thought is not required to open a dance studio? No, we cannot, for there is more at play here.
We need to recognize that certification does not necessarily equate to excellence in teaching. Nor does having been one of the finest professional ballet dancers write a ticket for a successful transition to teaching. Both create good platforms from which to launch, and both offer a high probability of success, but neither are guarantees. The situation is more complicated, which is why we are still having the same conversation today that took place in 1920 at the Trocadero Restaurant in Picadilly, where a few of the most noted ballet professionals in Britain at that time were lamenting the poor quality of dance training in Britain. This historical dinner conversation spawned the Royal Academy of Dance, albeit under another name at that time.
An understanding of the different schools and their offerings is an important springboard for this discussion. Similarities exist in that each school offers a progression of graded levels and a form of assessment prior to allowing students to move forward, and they all insist on full coverage of the ballet vocabulary. Then they diverge, even though they have borrowed from one another a great deal.
The French School provides the underpinning of ballet training worldwide. Perhaps less technically virtuosic than other schools became, it is celebrated for its great sense of elegance and grace. Bournonville is said to have been the purest of the French teachings until it began borrowing from the Russians. Preparatory position of the arms is a signature element in many of its variations.
The oldest school of the three most influential training systems in the United States began with the teachings of Enrico Cecchetti (1850-1928). Under Cecchetti’s watchful eye, the technique was known for creating vibrant, virtuosic dancers. A virtuosic performer himself of great acclaim, Cecchetti’s influence in his lifetime was felt not only in Italy but in Russia, Poland and England as well. Under Diaghilev, he was the master teacher for the Ballet Russe from 1909-1918; Anna Pavlova studied with him exclusively in Russia for three years prior to other greats clamoring to study with him. Influenced by his friend Cyril Beaumont, a famous dance historian, and assisted by Stanislas Idzikowski, Cecchetti was able to record and publish his method in 1922, with later additions added by Margaret Craske and Derra de Moroda.
The Cecchetti method is noted for its definitive program and strict regimen directed by set exercises for each day of the week. It is rigid in its manifesto, insisting that dance training boils down to an exact science with anatomy as its backbone. The premise is not to overtax any one muscle group on any given day, and in so doing, avoid injury. Attention is paid to the importance of the integration of the entire body. No fuss, no muss is the outcome with precise classical lines -- no embellishment or flourish allowed. Quality of execution is paramount with an ultimate goal of self-reliance rather than mimicry. It has seven graded levels.
Agrippina Vaganova (1879-1951) was a student of Cecchetti while he was in Russia. As a dancer herself, Vaganova acquired an especially strong technique. She performed for several years, but her heart ultimately belonged to teaching. Vaganova’s rich analysis of teaching methods resulted in creating a hybrid of her Russian Imperial Ballet roots, Cecchetti and the French School – harnessing athletic virtuosity, dramatic intention and romanticism into one technique. We owe much of the structure of today’s ballet class to her thinking. Repetition of individual steps in one exercise, such as the tendu or degagé, is meant to build strength and muscle memory while simultaneously maintaining proper alignment. The wrist is allowed to finish the port de bras, and épaulement, with its insistent use of the back as impetus to move the arms, is central early on in the training. Grand allegro is produced in a slower, heavier fashion, and the reversal of combinations is a must. It has eight levels of training.
The Royal Academy of Dance system (RAD), with over 13,000 members in over 80 countries, is the most widely used syllabus. It offers comprehensive training from an early age and moves through a pre-primary and primary level with no exams and a graded eight-level examination syllabus to a final six-level vocational syllabus for those who seek a career in dance. At the graded level, exams are offered, but not compulsory, and offerings in “free movement” and “character dance” enhance the principle focus on ballet. The vocational syllabus focuses solely on classical ballet training and is technically demanding, as it should be. Purposefully sequential, the student cannot move forward without passing an examination.
In a similar manner, the RAD methodology culls from the Italian, Russian, French and Danish schools. While the degree of progression in difficulty between grades may be particularly slow, emphasis is placed on quality versus quantity, assuring technical mastery along the way. Germaine to this thinking is that technical execution deepens with experience, creating a solid foundation from which to base the learning of new vocabulary. More than any other curricula, development of the syllabus has continued to evolve since its inception.
With such well-developed syllabi and the tangible results that can ensue, what is the reason for the complications in teaching ballet alluded to earlier? One of the most pressing issues is that in the United States anyone is allowed to dance. While this is as it should be, it does change the dialogue. No longer is a student required or expected to train five to six days a week in ballet, which is what the syllabus usually calls for. No longer are students hand-selected through a rigorous process in which measurements of ability are weighed against the demands placed upon them, as in the Vaganova system. And no longer is the make-up of the student population a factor in the classroom. Sometimes dance students in the United States begin training in their early teens, having skipped the fundamentals required to progress appropriately. Obviously this creates problems when the teacher is sticking to a strict syllabus meant for different conditions.
In addition, much harm can be done when teachers do not understand how to mitigate the strictness of a syllabus for an individual body. Inherent anatomical differences from lack of turnout, hyperextension, curvatures of the spine, opposing leg length, bone structure and range of joint mobility become puzzle pieces that create exponential possibilities for failure to execute set exercises appropriately. The initial plan of the syllabus to avoid injury disappears, and departure from the syllabus becomes a necessity. With the enormous strides dance medicine has taken, we know we should not teach grand battement as the third exercise at the barre as the Cecchetti method requires. How many Cecchetti teachers have made that shift in thinking? However, in its favor, Cecchetti is the closest to recognizing varying degrees of turnout. Most call for 180 degrees, an impossibility for many students.
Margarita de Saá of the Pennsylvania Academy of Ballet in Narbeth, who teaches the Vaganova technique, says, “You have to really know what you are doing and know the program well. Knowing when and how to modify a program is critical to teaching, especially in America. Just because you may be Russian and trained accordingly doesn’t necessarily mean you understand how to teach it.” She adds that all teachers at her school teach Vaganova, which when used appropriately, “creates uniformity for all faculty and allows for students to progress more quickly.”
In a recent conversation, another faculty member lamented the poor ballet training of a current student. The student suggested that her former teacher, who uses one of the above syllabi, simply repeats the exact same class everyday, puts on the recording and walks around the room to suggest corrections. This is problematic. This young dancer has received an extraordinarily narrow view after years of training.
Patti Ashby, the U.S. national administrator for the Royal Academy of Dance, recognizes this as an issue for teachers around the country regardless of which syllabus they use. She makes it clear by stating, “The Royal Academy of Dance stresses that its syllabus is for examination purposes only and should not in any way be considered a training curriculum. Our two-year certification program focuses on dance teacher training and only refers to learning the syllabus with regard to the examinations. The goal of our certification program is to produce well-trained teachers of dance, whether it is ballet or any other dance form.”
So, it isn’t that there is something wrong with the syllabi. Undeniably the goal of each of these schools of thought is to better the training of ballet, as indeed they do. It is in interpreting the syllabus for the kinds of students we teach where problems arise. It is incumbent upon us to use the syllabi wisely and to know that they act as guides to good teaching, not as inflexible mandates. Dance is a living, breathing art form. The syllabi must be the same.