Suki Schorer Put Your Best Foot Forward Advice and Inspiration for Young Dancers
It only takes watching Suki Schorer teach one class at New York's School of American Ballet to know that her most recent book, Put Your Best Foot Forward, is based on deep personal feelings and an in-depth knowledge of ballet. Each intricate move...........the turn of her head, her flowing and expressive port de bras, the beautiful articulation of her feet as she demonstrates each exercise, makes it very clear that she is an artist through and through. As the students begin to execute the steps, she frequently stops them to give insight into a way to make the movements more beautiful and musical. She truly is poetry in motion.
Put Your Best Foot Forward, published by Workman Publishing, is described as a young dancer's guide to life. What sets this book apart from most dance books is that it goes well beyond technical education. Ms. Schorer uses her considerable experience in performing and teaching ballet and takes it even further so that it aids young people in making life, in general, more exciting and rewarding. As it is described on the back cover, it is a little book of wisdom, courage, spirit and the power of knowing you can. It is inspiring as
well as informative.
Suki has an extensive background as a professional dancer and teacher. She was trained in San Francisco and joined the San Francisco Ballet at age 16 before moving to New York. After studying at SAB for only two months, Mr. Balanchine saw her and hired her into his company, the New York City Ballet. She was 19. Later she became a principal dancer before deciding in 1972 to retire so that she could direct New York City Ballet's lecture demonstration program and pursue teaching fulltime at the School of American Ballet.
"I was already a professional dancer when I got here," she remembers. "I had a very good foundation for classical ballet, but when I met Mr. B and took his classes, I relearned to dance. His approach to not just dance, but to the music and timing; it was wonderful. He broke down everything and told you why you tendu in a certain way. What should happen on a grand plié, how you resist the floor to collect the energy so that it is like the coiling of a spring. He also had many folk stories to tell about when he was in Russia and related them to how we should approach certain movements. Other teachers could add something or give a few corrections, but it was Mr. B that taught me everything I know. His classes were my biggest influence!"
Part One, Life is a Dance--Join In, sets the tone for the book. Page after page encourages the child to work hard, enjoy life, don't be discouraged, cooperate with others, develop good habits, be healthy, find beauty in the smallest details and on and on. Almost every piece of advice has a double meaning. A young student can take it literally from a dancer's viewpoint and then look further to see how it applies to anyone's life. It is quite ingenious.
Ms Schorer says that when she teaches, she does just what Mr. B. did. She talks, not just about teaching the steps and how to be a dancer, but how dance training could be good preparation for life. For instance, Mr. B's advice, Strike Like a Cobra, means to get your energy ready, and when it's time to go--zap!----go for it. This means whether you're doing a frappé or just need to clean up your room. Do it and do it fast. Then be finished with it and go on to the next thing in your life whatever it is going to be.
She enthusiastically continues with a stream of wise ideas she learned from her mentor that she included in the book. Be On Time: Start on time and end on time. Participate in the Moment: Enjoy the movement at the moment because that is your life. Your life is right now. You should not worry about what is going to happen tomorrow or what is coming later. This means whether you're worrying about the triple pirouette in the variation or whatever. You have to enjoy the moment and the process.
Parents and teachers will be delighted to see such a luminary advising the children to Eat Your Spinach. She says that Mr. B. used to say that doing barre work is like taking a vitamin pill. It's like brushing your teeth. You do it routinely everyday if you want to be a dancer. It's basic. Another parent-pleaser has to be Behave Beautifully. She explains, "it was what Balanchine taught, and he was our model. He always came elegantly, nicely and appropriately dressed. When I started teaching, he said, 'don't use the expression OK and speak proper English."
There are many more words of wisdom and catchy, clever slogans. The illustrations are colorful and lively, and the photographs of cheerful and beautifully posed young dancers, (all students at SAB) are lovely examples of happy, well-adjusted and well trained ballet dancers. They obviously have absorbed another one of Suki's pearls of wisdom: Sparkle!
This book was published November 2005.
Suki Schorer is also the author of Suki Schorer on Balanchine Technique. It recently had a 2nd printing and will soon be out in soft cover.
Janice Barringer is a ballet teacher and author of The Pointe Book and On Pointe, both put out by Princeton Book Company.